Secrets of Creation · Chapter 24 · The Beauty (February 3, 1872)

Chapter 24

The Beauty (February 3, 1872)

01] A weighty, profound word understood by you in different ways.

02] If it were not for Me to initiate you and all My newly arriving children of the future into the secrets of Myself, My creation, yes even My wisdom, I would leave you with your concepts, which are as many as there are men on earth.

03] And yet, if at all a concept, an idea is passable among you, even though it is interpreted differently according to the peculiarity of individuality, it must have a basic basis, a basic thought, on which all other concepts are only offshoots or variations - just as in a tree its branches receive only from the roots and these themselves receive from a center all their activity, their whole life, just as these individual ideas depend on a basic idea.

04] In order to now make this basic idea clear to you and to prove to you through it, where after all the seat of all beings and visible things lies, I therefore want to lead you in this respect into those spheres from where all beginnings originate and where all once again return to connect to a whole.

05] Now look! Words are visible or, as you might say, audible expressions of a spiritual thought or an idea wrapped in words; words therefore always - as products of another power - have their beginnings, their roots elsewhere; Words express the living, the spiritual, the divine, and precisely for this reason their effect is eternal, and the Apostle Paul was right when he wrote to the Corinthians: "All that is glorious will pass away, but God's words will exist forever!

06] Words, like a seed, are the eternal seed of further seeds, words are a tremendous driving force. look at your whole life, the history of mankind and finally at My Teaching itself - where is there a greater effect in all cruelly waged wars, which destroyed much materially and could not build up anything spiritually, in comparison with the Word; there is an infinite depth in the Word, because of this John also said: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God!

07] The Word is and was the bearer of creation, is the bearer of your spiritual life, is the bearer of all progress; without word no spiritual life between human beings is possible.

08] The word unites souls, draws them together in worship of a higher being or goal.

09] The word is the only comprehensible bridge where one person can make the other understand what is going on inside him.

10] And even through the gaze, the pressure of the hand, a hug, etc. holds even greater things and cannot be translated into your language, it is only the word, which, as articulated sounds, produced by means of the voice tools and the air surrounding you, makes it possible for you to give a quiet concept of the depths that dwell within you, to your neighbors and the whole of humanity.

11] Therefore, first deepen yourselves into the idea of what "word" means, so that you can then more easily grasp what a word wants to say, which, as none embraces My whole creation, is pronounced everywhere to a greater or lesser degree and finds its actual solution in Myself, as a perfect whole.

12] I had to send this explanation in advance so that you would not so easily accept the words I am sending you, but quietly foresee what, under one word, are the treasures of unpredictable enjoyment when one has learned to delve so deeply into them.

13] In this way entire books could be written about single words, which are the visible or audible expressions of many concepts or ideas.

14] Now, in order to understand the word "beauty", we must of course begin with the question: what do you actually mean "beautiful"? Here the answer will be: Beautiful is a term of a certain impression that has a beneficial effect on the soul by seeing a spiritual idea expressed in the harmonious harmony of forms.

15] This seeing of the harmonious or, as you say, "aesthetic" forms is so individually different, so dependent on the level of spiritual formation of man and his inner being that "beauty" allows as many interpretations as there are people themselves; for even if some or many people agree in their judgement of an object, be it whichever one they want, it is not the same view of all, but only because so many (human) souls more or less see their idea realized, which they had of such an object, where however each person does not believe to find the object itself, but to find in the object what he carries as an image within.

16] So the harmony of forms is actually what determines the concept of beauty.

17] Now I ask: how must these forms be then, that they evoke such an impression in man, and why do they evoke it?

18] Behold, the circle of the concept of beauty is becoming ever narrower and therefore, approaching its center, becomes easier to grasp.

19] In order to answer the first question, I must remind you of an earlier word, where I used the two lines, the straight and the curved circle or oval (egg), as the main bearer of all creation and also as symbolic correspondences.

20] Of the qualities mentioned there, however, there is not only the material and the spiritual, but also the divine meaning, namely - curved, undulating lines are products of love, products of wisdom that join together precisely to produce forms.

21] So too the impression of sculpted objects. Those composed of round, curved, undulating lines have as their overall impression that of the lovely, those composed of straight lines resemble those of the serious, of wisdom.

22] As I said in another word, that a curved line resembles love, which seeks help, compassion, so that the line existing just for itself suffices itself and personifies wisdom, as the crooked, inclining line expresses love.

23] As now in Myself - love paired with wisdom, united to a whole, where I am creator, judge and yet father, you see in your temples, churches and buildings, which are all to serve as an expression of a spiritual idea, where one wanted to build "a dwelling house for Me", the seriousness connected with love; hence the high impression such monuments make on you, where in them you find the thought of God merged into straight and curved lines. (These two types of beauty, the beauty of love and the harmony of the universe, visible in the original forms of creation in the pyramid and in the egg, as male and female, are also the main types of churches, in the more male Gothic (with pointed forms) and in the Romanesque style with arches and domes, and in the letter types of those peoples who are the main representatives of these directions, in Germanic the straight line, corresponding to the i, the n-hooks, as a triangle, the masculine; in Romansh the o or the oval form, the feminine, in some the brooding, ideals, in others the more sensual, ingenious than the natural contrasts of the two main carriers of culture.)

24] Here the artificially formed matter speaks as proceeding from the innermost part of the soul, realized by the mind.

25] I began here with the greatest works that human hands can accomplish, now,, like yourselves, pass from those to My own creations; for even you, if you did not know what difficulties it costs to build a dwelling, a house of prayer or a palace, how much study, talent and perseverance, how much effort of strength it takes to construct buildings, you would not appreciate My buildings: your earth, the visible planets, moons and suns.

26] But in this way, feeling your own powerlessness, you first recognize the omnipotence of your Creator; and it is the height of Him who is, however, in the end, only in the "smallest of the greatest"!

27] Since now that My whole visible nature is only a repetition of everything that you men want to produce artificially, and you cannot create anything that you have not seen before in My creation and of which your inner being always carried the original type (the archetype) in itself for a long time, then of course also in My nature everything makes a pleasant impression on you which corresponds to your inner being, where you have more or less individually developed the study of forms.

28] So the more an object, be it artificially produced by you or already unsurpassed in My own creation, is spiritually present within you, the more the feeling of well-being awakens in you at its sight, which you then call "beautiful".

29] The finer this sense of form is in man, the more beauties he will discover in what he has created, where the useful always goes hand in hand with the beautiful.

30] In this way, however, only the more spiritually educated, or in other words - the one who lives more in the sphere of love discovers everywhere beauties in forms, in harmonious relationships, where another passes by indifferently; hence the different concept of "beautiful", because it always depends not only on the object but also on the spiritual inner man of the beholder.

31] If you would be able to judge men spiritually, it would be easy for you to recognize his inner being from what a man finds beautiful or ugly, to what extent he possesses love; for the more love, the more the lover seeks this characteristic in all objects, which awakens his own love and gives him the pleasant feeling of "aesthetic pleasure"; for he, without knowing it, spiritualizes the forms standing before him and sees precisely where another sees only matter, the expression of a love that never withers, which also in the greatest and smallest only wants and can provide blessed enjoyment.

32] If we now apply the term "beauty" to the last product of the earth or of the worlds, namely to man himself, here again the idea of beauty is as different as there can be spiritual stages in the human soul.

33] Just as the sight of a beautiful woman can lead to the highest enthusiasm, to the highest love and adoration, because here he sees the image of love, of innocence expressed in forms, standing before him - likewise these forms can only arouse sensual animal feelings in another, which are not inherent in the form, but are put into it by the beholder.

34] You can well imagine that when I created the first man, when I formed him in My image, I put everything into his forms that was possible to express a divine idea in human forms. I formed the man as an expression of strength, according to wisdom, and woman as an expression of mildness, according to love.

35] Both were to become spiritually united what I unite in Myself, that is, love paired with wisdom, so they were to hurry towards the unification act of the highest spiritual level, where they could enjoy the purest bliss bound by the urge to the third, to Me, because every joy of one would have found its expression in the other.

36] Thus My first or last work on the worlds, from the last atom to man in form, was always developing love and wisdom, and in the human form it developed into a harmonious whole, into that form from where the smallest curve line of the body the greatest spiritual idea should always shine forth and want to call out to everyone:

37]"Remember that you are formed in My image, in the image of a God, in the image of unlimited love and wisdom!”

38] That men as free beings then desecrated, abused and corrupted this form was a matter of their free will; but they will not be able to enter My kingdom until their outer garments, however fine the fabrics may be, bear the type of a pure, beautiful soul. Just as I once put man as My image out into creation, so he must again come back to Me, that is say spiritually and physically beautiful, where the outer covering is the imprint of the divine spirit living in him.

39] According to what has been said you can see how versatile the view of the word beauty is, so also is the way, which all spirits and souls have to go through, until they reach Me, that is to say get near Me and bear it unscathed.

40] The concept of the word beauty clearly shows you the nameless gradations that exist in the spirit realm; This concept clearly shows you how people, like nations, fall or rise at their spiritual level of cultural; for with each higher level a new, more beautiful, more spiritual ideal of the word "beautiful" is formed.

41] Beauty is the expression of love. Nothing can actually be beautiful that is not good, because since the form itself is only the shell of a principle living in it, only that can be called "beautiful" where the exterior corresponds to the interior (and the latter is "good").

42] Although nature and conditions adorn some creatures so that their first appearance has a charitable effect, this effect is often not lasting on closer acquaintance, and instead of enthusiasm regret occurs because the beholder easily notices that the exterior does not correspond (coincide) with the interior.

43] A spiritual eye sees everything spiritually, and only a material eye can find beauty there, where it can admire nothing but its own self in another form.

44] So true beauty in its purest and deepest sense is only the outflow of a divine spark, visible in material form.

45] Since now I am only love and this love paired with wisdom has created this visible and invisible world, so also in it, as it came out of My hands, only love and wisdom can reign.

46] If man has falsified these primordial types and sees only in rare cases in one form or another such unification of supreme wisdom with goodness and love, it is not My fault. I created a world full of angels, the devils made man out of it!

47] But since I have not created in vain, and only recognize it (the created) as I thought it, these primordial types must be given back to Me, whether sooner or later, time has nothing to say about it, for it is an eternity always long enough!

48] So if all of you all devote yourselves to conforming to My ideas of the beauty of the soul, then also the outer garment in this eternal world of light will turn out in such a way that it will be a pure, spiritual-imprint of your innermost being for you.

49] This is the concept of beauty as I have brought it back to its root, to Me, to My Love.

50] Everything that came out of My Hands is beautiful. Only to an unsightly mind are those forms indifferent and incomprehensible, which let the imprint of the divine shine through them partially or completely - hence the great degree of different concepts of beauty. And as I once said: "Everything is pure to the pure", I now add to this: "Everything is beautiful to the beautiful"!

51] Here you have another word spiritually explained before you. Understand the fullness of the spiritual of such a word, and you can have a small idea what it is only in the language of the spirits, where with every word the whole infinite meaning of it is felt through and sensed, and precisely through this the spiritual language is conditioned, which sometimes also - but only in highest moments will it flood past your spiritual ears to inspire you, to see clearly spiritually and learn to hear more effectively! Amen.