Beauty can stir overwhelm, amaze and leave you speechless. It can affect you, make you humble, quiet and devout, and it leaves very few of us cold.

Early awakening experiences

Beauty burst into my life quite suddenly. I was on my way to school, when I was around 10 years old, when it took hold of me in the form of two young girls. Both appeared so beautiful that I stood and gazed after them in amazement. A second, similar experience occurred when I was leafing through a magazine and looking at a woman advertising a face cream. The symmetry of her facial features almost took my breath away. From today’s perspective, I suspect that the face almost corresponded to the golden ratio, which I had not yet heard of at the time. However that may be, these were my ‘awakening experiences’ in relation to beauty.

Hardly any human being can ignore beauty. Why does it attract so much attention? It can show itself in almost everything in the world. Why does beauty affect so many people? Does it want to tell us something that we urgently need to know, something that is of the utmost importance for our world and for ourselves?

In the course of my further life, it was not just the beauty in facial features that caught  my eye. Nature, a landscape, a bouquet of flowers, a beautifully woven fabric, music, poetry, architecture and many other things were added to the list.

The relationship to the sublime

I began to think about beauty and the power it has over me. Much has been written about the subject over the centuries. An entire science has emerged, aesthetics, the study of beauty – and a philosophy that searches for the origins of beauty. Proportion, order, harmony, consistency and more are part of beauty. But does that already explain its power over us, that can touch us so deeply? That which is beautiful has a relationship to the sublime. Sometimes we have to avert our eyes, so painfully does it affect us. Appearances in nature, in the big as well as in the small, can stir us, overwhelm us. We are not up to them. But do they not send out a message, an invitation to an inner rebirth, to become equal with them? Does beauty want to awaken something in us that belongs to us, but that we have forgotten and from which we fearfully shut ourselves off?

Plato put beauty on the same level as truth and goodness. He combined them into a tripartite unity that underlies our existence. Is there a hierarchy within this triad of truth, beauty and goodness? For Plato/Socrates, goodness was the most important, but at the same time he describes goodness – and this includes justice – as the most beautiful (in The Republic). Perhaps here the good should be understood as the ‘only good’, (the original creation of which it says in the Bible: ‘And God saw that it was good’) and not as what we, on our subjective level, call good, because: ‘No one is good, not even one’, as Jesus says. The GOOD is beautiful and true, it has no opposite. Originally, these three values produced each other reciprocally and confirmed each other instantaneously, because in the divine-spiritual, unity and simultaneity in the sense of the eternal-now prevail. With our ordinary, ‘unenlightened’ consciousness, this is not comprehensible. In our world, they inevitably appear separate from each other, and sometimes they even oppose each other. But the origin continues to influence us, driving us to further development.

Currently, aesthetics plays a major role for us when we think about beauty. In his book Ästhetisches Denken (Aesthetic Thinking), W. Welsch describes aesthetics as a process of perceiving present reality and exploring the meaning in it. Aesthetics literally means ‘the study of perception‘ or ‘the study of sensory observation’. This also includes what we call taste. We are familiar with phrases such as: I ‘find it palatable’ or ‘I don’t like the taste of it’. What does not taste good is spat out again, cannot be connected to what is already there.

I ask myself: is there also a ‘pure perception’, a tasting of the True and the Good, that can be assimilated by us? To do this, one would have to consciously free oneself from one’s own prejudiced knowledge and let the ‘common denominator’ of all beauty unfold within oneself. Beauty manifests itself in the most diverse ways in people and their works, and in nature. Tracing its roots leads us on a path that begins on the outside and continues into the depths of our being. We receive impulses for this every day. But do we pay attention to them?

Beauty in art

At an exhibition in Zurich, I saw an ordinary stone on a pedestal, protected under a glass dome as if it were a special treasure. At first, I stood somewhat perplexed in front of it. A photo was attached to the stone. It showed young people – students in Paris – throwing cobblestones. You could feel their excitement. This way of representing in all its significance the 1968 movement with a single stone impressed me. I found the exhibit successful, coherent – and therefore beautiful. It broadened my spectrum of perception. A maximal expression of a zeitgeist was illustrated with minimal means, It was an attempt to represent essence.

Similar attempts can be found in mathematical formulae. Great scientists have searched for a mathematical master formula for our world. In doing so, we go beyond the visible into the realm of ideas and ideals. Is that where ‘primal beauty’ is to be found?

Whether in the beauty of a mathematical formula, an idea or an ideal, a gesture – be it graceful or an expression of spontaneous compassion – or a beautifully formed thought, there is beauty in everything. You just have to learn to see it. The German artist Josef Beuys, for example, expanded what is commonly understood by art with the concept of ‘social sculpture’. In it, the human being becomes a potential work of art. The beauty of the idea of ‘social sculpture’ for me lies in the fact that here is someone who believes people can develop. We can, despite many setbacks, always take our normal existence as an opportunity to change so that we can constructively participate in the infinite ocean of life and so become capable of serving original creation. The motivation for this can be described as beautiful, as pure. However, there must be an active desire for transformation. This wish, this longing helps to develop corresponding soul qualities and virtues, which then show themselves as the splendour of the soul. In the book Schönheit des Innern (The Beauty of the Inner Self) by Roland Zürrer, soul qualities and virtues that can be acquired are discussed in detail. They are always accompanied by a transformation of consciousness. It is a long and sometimes painful process, as the history of humanity shows. But it is also a joyful development. The decision to take it upon oneself can be described as beautiful. In this transmutation process, the soul and the material interact.

For beauty, for truth, for the elevation of the spirit

Recently I read in a biography of N. K. Roerich an excerpt from a letter he wrote to R. Tagore, which, although written in 1939, has lost none of its relevance:

In the days of the dissolution of the world that, as we know, is felt just as deeply in your heart as it is in ours, I am moved to send you this message. I often recall the momentous words in your letter to me: ‘… and I almost lose my faith in civilisation. And yet we cannot cease our efforts. Truly, for the sake of beauty, truth, the elevation of the spirit, for everything that falls within the realm of culture, we must continue to strive. If, on the one hand, we see the poisoning of space by evil thoughts and fragments, on the other hand, every word of the poet sets a purifying act. ‘Beauty will save the world’ – this motto stands as the ultimate goal.

Beauty per se does not exist, it must be recognised

Everything is a parable, is perfection, provided you open yourself to it.

The French artist Marcel Duchamp and others took the view that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ – a thought that has been with us since antiquity. What does it mean? It means that beauty does not exist per se, but is recognised as such by the observer, indeed, uncovered and perceived, elevated. Beauty takes shape as a consequence of a process of realisation. This can happen suddenly, in a second, but also after long immersion and repeated contemplation, leading to the realisation of connections that lie behind things. It is as if a new gate of perception opens. Such realisation, which I experience as a grace, involuntarily triggers a feeling of beauty, a beauty that goes hand in hand with the discovered truth of what is known. And joy arises spontaneously. Joy because consciousness expands with insight and a more comprehensive understanding arises. There is a process of growth associated with it. With progressive knowledge, I become a witness to truth, as it were.

Could a secret of beauty possibly consist in the fact that it wants to open me to a higher, ultimately perfect consciousness, that it wants to show me a way that leads to the divine? Or could it be that God, with the help of man, wants to look at his creation? The image of the vineyard arises in me, the vineyard of God, in which we are to work. How should this be possible other than in the forces of the True, the Beautiful and the Good?

References:

Welsch, W., Ästhetisches Denken (Aesthetic Thinking), Reclam 1995

Zürrer, R., Schönheit des Inneren (Beauty of the Inner), Gowinda-Verlag

Augustat, W., Das Geheimnis des Nicholas Roerich (The Secret of Nicholas Roerich), Heyne Books, 1993 (p. 129)

O noble warrior,
listen in silence:

Do not awaken me
without just cause,
do not raise me
unless courage
burns within you.

To wield me
is not merely a matter of will;
a steadfast soul is required.

Courage —
ah, sweet mother of reason —
is sacred fire,
not futile fury.

And he who lives in truth
is living proof that
the true sword
does not wound,
but illuminates.

He has fought for this freedom and when he bears witness to it, a beauty emerges that is not absolute, perfect, complete or final, but unsettling, strange, questioning.

In Nature, we can experience the greatest beauty, but this article is about human creativity, culture, and therefore, also about deficiency; about the imperfect above all.

There is this striving for perfection in art, and it results in works that are balanced, harmonious, expressive, valid, timeless, uplifting, moving, enlightening and as strong and solid as the stone from which many of them were made.  Form and content are well-balanced, and the artist not only shows a deeper understanding of technique, but also of a spiritual perception, both of the respective subject and of human nature.

Piero della Francesca

When I first saw reproductions of Piero della Francesca’s frescoes^[1], I was deeply moved.  This was at a time when I had already begun to work professionally with design, and, of course, I was familiar with works from the early Renaissance period.  For us, Botticelli was one of the first ‘perfect’ painters, who had form and content, technique and emotion under control.

But what was Piero, who was only 20 or 25 years older, creating at that time?  Something appeared ‘off’ in his creations.  Images of people, obviously based on living models, standing and sitting in rooms and landscapes that looked and were constructed.  The colours have a strange sheen, as if the fabrics were glowing from within.  Light and shadow are set and are coherent, but they are not alive, not natural, as if the Tuscan light had been frozen.  What fascinated me most were the faces of the persons portrayed.  They look out at the viewer with an uncanny calmness, and give you the feeling that you are recognized in your struggle through life, and looked at from another world.  It seems as if these figures have already left this struggle behind, and are calmly awaiting their destiny.  It is these images that moved me to the core.  What distinguishes these from the other Renaissance art that I appreciate and love?  I have not solved this mystery up to this moment.

Cy Twombly

In Munich, you can visit a cube like museum building that, behind its elaborate multi-coloured façade, holds a similar and completely different secret, one that today, is closer to me.  On the upper floor, visitors will normally turn around at the end of the wide oak staircase and head for the ‘Lepanto’ room.   Here, 12 large canvases, on which someone has wildly drawn signs with a long brush, hang on a U-shaped wall curved around the visitor in a high room.

The colours are rich in contrast: a light, watery blue-green, a red that flows between a flower and blood; a pale, somewhat caustic yellow.  Everywhere you can see the traces of paint that have run down the canvas like tears, beginning furiously, or at any rate, quickly slapped shapes reminiscent of eyes or ships.  Some of the paintings bear only spots of colour, like splashes or multicoloured wounds on the picture surface; here, too, the paint has run down from the point of its appearance on the canvas to the lower edge of the picture, leaving a multitude of parallel lesions.  It is violent, it is wild.  At the same time, it is sublime.  But is it beautiful?

From the perspective of the viewer, the mind begins to flicker between different levels of perception, at least that is how I experience it.  You are informed that the naval battle of Lepanto is depicted here, and you inevitably try to decode the images on some level: this looks like a fleet of ships from above; this could be the impact of cannons; are these the closed eyes of the dead floating in the water?  At the same time, you notice the colours and contrasts.  They are indeed beautiful, there is a light in these pictures, a depth that is also fascinating.  From a distance, they really are seascapes in an almost classical sense.  Up close, you can see the glazed layers of paint on the texture of the canvas, the knots and dots of colour, and you simply wonder why it looks so beautiful and what this beauty has to do with the subject.

On another level, you analyze the whole setting: a building costing millions, with a hall just for these pictures, designed by the best architects and executed with the finest materials: is that appropriate?

Ultimately, perhaps these are not works of art, but merely the results of an act of creation – by someone who uses the tools of a painter but does not use the technique, or perhaps does not even master it?

Cy Twombly^[2] : daubing, children’s scribbles, graffiti (as in restrooms). Charlatan, opportunist, profiteer.  You can read and hear a lot about abstract expressionism, and Twombly in particular is often cited as a prime example of an art market in which absurdly high prices in the millions are paid for the daubings of non-skilled artists.

And it is precisely this word ‘non-skilled’ that could bring us closer to what Twombly tried to do throughout his life.  His entire oeuvre draws its strength from the tension between two poles: on the one hand, the completely individual act of creation, beholden to nothing and no one, the ‘unlearning’ of skill, the relinquishment – even rejection – of control over the pictorial process; on the other hand, the will, the inner necessity perhaps, to create something supra-personal, something – let’s call it legendary.  Twombly’s personality is intangible.  Where he is publicly visible, he stages himself.  He takes his themes from classical myths.  For him, the act of painting is not a reflected creative act, planned over a long period of time, but rather the release of a previously deliberately built up and experienced tension, like winding a spring mechanism further and further, which then suddenly jumps out of its housing and releases the accumulated energy.

The result cannot be grasped cognitively.

The Lepanto Hall forms one end of the building.  In the middle of the floor layout, the visitor finds something else.  When you enter this room, perhaps with a small group of people who attach a special meaning to the symbol of the rose, something of a miracle happens.  The Rose Room has only skylights, so it seems to glow from within.  All the walls have huge canvases with rows of stylized rose blossoms in different colours.  The atmosphere vibrates.  You can see that there are verses scribbled on the canvases, rose verses, and you immediately have the feeling that these verses must be recited, sung, spoken aloud urgently, immediately and without fail.  The first time, it was an almost physical experience, the urge to recite was followed by the need to dance.  You want to dissolve in this space.  It is a shattering experience of beauty.

At the same time, these pictures are not beautiful.  One of the short walls, for example, bears a row of four red roses, but the fourth has a ‘ghost’ in a corrosive green, a trembling image superimposed on it.  You don’t know whether to laugh or cry.  It’s wrong, says the mind, and at the same time it has a poetic quality that cannot be explained.  The countless roses in this room pose questions to the viewer, no, they pose the viewer before their own questions.  The scribbled verses, by Rilke or Bachmann, do nothing to answer these questions; they only provide a diffuse dimension of sublimity.  And these pictures are absolutely sublime in all their artlessness.

No beautifully painted depiction of a rose could unfold this power.  No painting, however cleverly charged with symbolic content, could move the viewer like this.  Twombly was 80 when he painted these 3 meter high, and 10 meter long surfaces using large brushes tied to long poles.  One can think of it as a tour de force, indeed the last such endeavour undertaken by the painter.  And the fact that we see a kind of legacy here can also be deduced from the fact that this series of works was created specifically for this room and donated to the museum.  This is background knowledge – but the experience, you either feel it or you don’t.  ”If you don’t feel it you won’t catch it” (Goethe in Faust).

Why is it that these images, above all, move me so?  Why are there people who enter the Rose Room like a temple and hardly want to leave – while others feel nothing there, or even anger and disappointment? And what does Piero have to do with it?  Why can the ambiguous, the insufficient, the imperfect shake us so much?

If the artist manages to disappear behind his work, then something of greater significance happens.  Individual expression, something that Western art has been seeking since the Renaissance at the latest, now plays no role.  The motivation to create comes from outside the personality.  What’s more, the personality disappears in the act of creativity, in the expression of something general; it sacrifices itself without knowing what for.  This automatically becomes a spiritual process, even if it is not intended as such.  Here could be where the magic happens: in the unintentional and yet irresistible urge to create.  The artist has taken the step into the void that I myself have yet to take.  He has fought for this freedom and when he bears witness to it, a beauty emerges that is not absolute, perfect, complete or final, but unsettling, strange, questioning.

But allowing yourself to be seized by this kind of beauty, no matter where you encounter it, could be a key to meaning.

[1]   Piero della Francesca (actually Pietro di Benedetto dei Franceschi, also known as Pietro Borghese); born around 1410-1420 in Borgo San Sepolcro; buried there on October 12, 1492 was an Italian painter, art theorist and mathematician from the early Renaissance period.

[2]   Cy Twombly (real name: Edwin Parker Twombly Jr.); born April 25, 1928 in Lexington, Virginia; died July 5, 2011 in Rome, Italy was an American painter, photographer and object artist. He is one of the most important representatives of abstract expressionism.

So that you can find me,
I’ve decided to lie down in your heart.

There I seem to sleep.
I hope you can hear me someday.

I live imploring very softly:
Come, let’s go back to the nest!

There, everything is grace.
There Cupid flutters,
trying to whisper in your ear
how beloved you are.

Your return has only one price.
I only want your affection.

Lay the first stone
and then a bridge will appear
that will connect you to the spring.

You can cross it,
to thus fetch
some of the living water
that will serve as a drink
for a long journey.

It is in your heart
that eternity dwells.

On the front I see, brilliant and powerful, radiating light of an invisible sun above a deep blue, wavy sea.

Inside colourful paintings, executed in oil. The work touches me. It turns out to be a series of cosmic images, created between 1920 and 1922. From far back, but it looks timeless. When I get home, I take the small book The Way to God and The Realm of Art by Bô Yin Râ from my bookcase and leaf through it.
It is high time to bring his work back to  attention. In ‘The Realm of Art’, Bô Yin Râ expresses his vision on art.

He writes:

‘A true artist creates from an inner necessity and arrives at personal forms of representation. For too long, it has been thought that real art is a proof of skill. After all, art comes from ability. Yes, but it is about an ‘ability’ that flows from the soul, about a capacity for creative development and not about a learned skill.’

And he continues:

‘In human creation the eternal spirit, which flows from the Primordial Being, can reveal itself. For every true artist called is a bridge-builder who connects the realm of the sensory perceptible world with the shores of the transcendental.’

The first work in Worlds is called ‘Emanation‘ (2): the outflow of Primordial Being. A radiant primordial fire sun, the active ‘innermost being’ from which world systems emerge. With this work, Bô Yin Râ tries to make visible that from which all life has been forced out. So that we too will not forget where we came from. For the further removed from the one, all-generating primordial fire sun, the more the forces flowing from it lose the resemblance to its Being. In the very outer they even become counter-being forms. But, he writes:

‘Remember also that the outer comes from the inner and all opposing still shows the last traces of its origin from the primeval light!’

 

The primeval eternal emanation of eternal love expresses itself in eternal will to become. Bô Yin Râ called this work In Principio Erat Verbum (3), in the beginning was the Word. From the Word everything is ordered according to one’s own measure, according to one’s own number. The primeval word realises itself in its innermost being to fulfilment. But his creative will to become has not yet come to an end.

That which is one in the innermost realm of the spirit, becomes twoness. Bô Yin Râ paints a cosmic workshop (4), where time and space are created. Where all polarities arise and seeds of emerging worlds reveal themselves. One small world in that big whole is me and also you.

But we wander in the labyrinth of centuries and centuries old (5). The fire, the essence of life, is buried under the forms that have arisen. “Here you are now,” writes Bô Yin Râ, “the paths that the fallen spirit man – ‘fallen’, since he turned away from his primeval homeland to experience himself at its extreme creative limits – has to travel on these outer worlds, in order to be able to wrest himself from the folly of his volition and to be able to muster the will to return to the Light of his eternal homeland.”

The booklet The Way to God connects to that return. Seven of the twenty paintings from Worlds are included in this article. From the booklet The Way to God some quotes to briefly sketch a picture of the way. Already on the first page, Bô Yin Râ deals with all the images and holy books in which we have come to believe as if that were God. That is not ‘faith’. Bô Yin Râ calls it ‘a self-created chimera’. The light of the primordial fire sun radiates within you of itself.

It is striking how Bô Yin Râ finds words to place the path very directly within yourself. So he asks you what you feel inside, when reading the following words:

‘You will meet your own life in its eternal fullness; you will see yourself rising up into the Light through the power of light. You will see that you are united with ‘God’ – the ground of Being of all being.’

Even though you can’t explain it yet, but the inner turmoil you feel, he calls the power of real faith. The way to God starts with that ‘something’ in you. This belief is justifiable for yourself. Here there is no delusion, no opinion, no suspicion. When you trust the “something” in you, it makes you believe in something deep in yourself. The mind will certainly have all kinds of objections and will try to prevent your agreement with that ‘something’ within you.

Thinking turns out to be a good instrument for penetrating into the things of the earth, but it fails as an instrument for gaining insight into what is rooted in the spirit. Bô Yin Râ makes the uselessness of thinking somewhat humorously clear with the following comparison: ‘You laugh at every workman who wants to split iron with an axe and when someone wants to cut window glass with a saw, you think it’s insane. Only when you can free yourself from thinking, will you find within you the power of faith at work.” Only then will you overcome the hell in which you live.

In his work ‘Inferno‘(6) you experience a poignant longing in the colours and lines, a glimmer of light surrounded by darkness. Through that desire, the light will take you back up. According to Bô Yin Râ, it is inevitable that the power of faith grows into an inner certainty. You ‘know’ that you will achieve what faith promises you. Knowing, says Bô Yin Râ, is not the insight into some causal connection. It is feeling assured that there is no longer any doubt and is established in itself. In your innermost being you will discover the source of all wisdom. ‘You will obtain a ‘knowing’ that the outside world cannot give you.’

And you discover that on the way to God you receive all the high help as soon as you desire it yourself. You see that you need that help.

‘Adjust to it more and more,’

writes Bô Yin Râ,

‘to listen to sounds from the waking world of the mind.’

And he also advises you to always be aware of the guidance of the older human brothers and sisters from the spirit that has gone before you. There is certainly help, but without perseverance, determination and vigilance on your part, you will not get any further.

‘Every day asks its question about your ‘yes’ and ‘no’. You must resolve to live in such a way that everything that you can raise in yourself to Light and purification will be assured of your ‘yes’, while everything that can bring you down must always meet your ‘no’ with all certainty. But beware of the tendency to want to impose your own ‘yes’ and ‘no’ on others.’

By entering into the inner battle with the earthly man who lives in you, and trusting and relying on the high help and the power of the spirit, you will overcome. Bô Yin Râ paints this victory with his work ‘Victory‘ (7). Beams of light seem to shoot up from rock gorges and valleys. “Whatever your eye sees shines in golden light, and every ray proclaims victory to you. Embodiment of the spirit is the ‘key’. As a ‘son of the Light’ you walk on earth: a ‘self-redeemed’ and ‘a redeemer’ of human brothers – of those who also stood by you on the path of salvation.’

You do not become ‘God’ but God’s power flows through you.
The reality of the living God flows through the innermost ground of life into one’s own ‘I’.

At the back of The Realm of Art, several books by Bô Yin Râ are described. About The Book of Happiness I read:

‘This book shows how one can find happiness in life in the middle of daily life.
Here and now, too, at the moment you read this, you are in the midst of eternity, and what you are unable to create for yourself now, no God will be able to provide you with for all eternity…
You must learn to see that all happiness is only the result of a skill which you have within you, and that you can never be happy, either now or in any other form of existence, if you do not develop this ability. Only as a creative person you can gain your happiness and keep it forever!’

About the author:

Bô Yin Râ is the spiritual name of the writer and painter Joseph Anton Schneiderfranken. He was born in 1876 in Aschaffenburg, Germany. He died in 1943 in Lugano, Switzerland. During his life, Bô Yin Râ was aware of both earthly and eternal life. It was his goal to make this experience and his knowledge about the eternal available to those who are open to it.
The main work of Bô Yin Râ consists of thirty-two books that appeared during the years 1919-1936 and that bear the collective name Hortus Conclusus (Enclosed Garden). The books have been translated into several European languages and are also published in the United States. Without proclaiming a school or a new “system of thought or belief”, Bô Yin Râ shows from different points of view the way by which man can regain consciousness of his imperishable spirituality.

Literature:

[1] Bô Yin Râ, Werelden (Worlds), Aurora Productions 2004

[2] Bô Yin Râ, Het rijk van de kunst (The realm of art), Aurora Productions 2006

[3] Bô Yin Râ, De weg tot God (The way to God), publisher Servire, Den Haag

[4] The Work by Bô Yin Râ

Beauty that the eye sees may remind the soul of something. Sometimes it is like an awakening, sometimes it can even be a cure.

Why do I think the mountain I’m looking at is sublime? I am one of those people who don’t necessarily want to climb the mountain. I would rather be the mountain. Maybe I actually am. Because the rocky triangle that arises from the plain and culminates in a point that is not only close to the sky, but that merges into it, as it were, despite the contrast between the heaviness of the rock and the lightness of the air: it resembles my own nature. It reflects that in me which looks upwards, which wants to rise up and change to another state of being; that which, having reached the summit of my earthly existence, at least wants to expose itself to „this other“, again and again. That is what touches my heart when I come face to face with a beautiful mountain.

Something from the depths of artistic beauty

Islamic artists have created patterns consisting of a few regular geometric shapes, mostly stars, which can be continued endlessly due to the perfect coordination of the shapes with each other. When you look at them, you get the impression that they fill the entire firmament. They are actually based on the idea that number, proportion and form are the key to the structure of the cosmos. These patterns connect the multitude and the One through mathematical relationships; according to this way of thinking, they open up inwardly to the infinite, to the ultimate reality, which is the source of all things.

The mathematical point, which neither spans a surface nor occupies space, represents an original spiritual principle. When this point touches our sphere, it draws a circle around itself like a drop falling into a lake. It generates vibrations and makes contact with its surroundings. In such a creation process, circles touch and penetrate each other. It is easy to imagine that in their interaction they also form star patterns as the Muslim artists have made them visible. At the same time, these patterns point to the One who emitted everything and draws it back into himself. They are a coming into being, flashing up and disappearing again – a round dance that fills the whole universe.

What Does The Soul See?

Our eyes are drawn to that which our soul seeks. When we consider shapes to be beautiful, it is not just because they are proportioned in whole-number ratios or the golden ratio. We seek – and see – more than “mathematical harmony” or “order”. We see that everything is connected. The number or proportion is an external characteristic of resonance.

The golden ratio is perhaps the clearest illustration thereof. This rule (which also produces the Fibunacci series) means that the shorter of two distances must relate to the longer as the longer to the sum of the two distances. This corresponds to a numerical ratio of 1:1.618… . Or to put it another way, more clearly: the whole is divided further and further and is reflected in the resulting parts. This numerical ratio clearly connects the smallest and the largest in nature.

Beauty or harmony is found in that which makes a complex form into a unity and in that which connects all things. We feel a sense of meaning. If beauty and connectedness are to be not just a feeling but a truth, then that which holds things together must also exist in power, in interactions, in a flow from the innermost to the outermost and back again.

The sides of a pentagram intersect each other in the golden ratio. An ideally proportioned person has the golden ratio within them. If you divide their body height accordingly, you end up at the navel. If a person stretches their hand upwards, their fingertips are twice the height of their navel. The architect Le Corbusier used these measurements, based on a person with a height of 6 feet, as the starting point for his Modulor series, which he used to proportion his buildings. The navel height, divided by the golden ratio, results in an ideal table height. Divided again, an ideal seat height. Le Corbusier also used the golden ratio to find room heights and window dimensions. Everything then bears human scale, people thus resonate – with the whole. “By means of the forms [the architect] intensely touches our senses and awakens our feeling for the design. The connections he creates resonate deeply with us, he shows us the scale for an order that is perceived as being in harmony with the world order.“[1]

Showing no modesty, this is how Le Corbusier saw it. What he writes here raises the question of whether everything is on a human scale. Or can we see here an indication of an all-connectedness in the midst of which man finds himself and which he can perceive and recognize – experience – through resonance?

Beauty isn’t just beautiful

Apart from the fact that most people like to surround themselves with beauty, partly for the reassurance that everything is fine or will be fine, beauty allows us to make contact with that which holds our cosmos together. It becomes obvious in balanced form and connective proportion. But there is more. It points to a unifying meaning that not only gives us ontological security. There can also be something awakening, stirring, enabling and sometimes challenging in it.

Rainer Maria Rilke stated in his Archaic Torso of Apollo (1908) that the beauty we see looks back: “for there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life.” Beauty is not just a feast for the eyes. It challenges us to perfect ourselves in order to become like it. Now you can tighten the screws of self-optimization. But you can also sense that something inside you is able and willing to rise up in response to the beauty you perceive.

You can also learn to perceive the spiritual space in which the many encounter each other, encounter themselves and ultimately also encounter the One, the Groundless and Creation as a real unity in which everything interacts and relates to each other. In his 1914 poem Es winkt zu Fühlung (It beckons to feel), Rilke captured the inclusion of the world in the space of the soul and the soul’s simultaneous becoming world-wide in the term Weltinnenraum, which is rightly experiencing a renaissance. Inside and outside become one for the looking soul.

[…] Durch alle Wesen reicht der eine Raum:
Weltinnenraum. Die Vögel fliegen still
durch uns hindurch. O, der ich wachsen will,
ich seh hinaus, und in mir wächst der Baum. […][2]

[…] That only space, it penetrates all beings:
World’s inner space. Silently birds are flying
right through ourselves. And I, wanting to grow,
I look outside, and inside me grows the tree. […][3]

The harmony within me nourishes creation. What I see outside turns into symbols that show my soul who it is. The things of the world can even become landmarks of spiritual processes – those that are happening and those that are possible.

“The soul is an eye in the eternal unfathomable: a likeness of eternity “[4], says Jakob Böhme. At the same time: “The whole body with all its parts signifieth heaven and earth.”[5] Anyone who studies Böhme’s mystical philosophy will notice that it describes the divine abyss and the human soul first and foremost as an eye. A duality is created here, a divine-human tool of knowledge. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit, nature and man are reflected in each other, they are parables for each other. (And parables are not explanations or stories, but signify deep congruence and enlightening knowledge). In all of this, Böhme attempts to describe an overwhelming unity that transcends all understanding, in which the great and the small behold, recognize and correspond to one another, in which they are one life. We can awaken to this realization and this co-movement. If the eternal is one, it is beautiful. Must not the fabric of the world then also be beautiful, and the human being in it?

The world with its events is our teacher. Every day it gives us the parables of the All-Being as an illustration. It also shows us when we are not in harmony with it, which also means that we are not in harmony with our own deepest being. Have you ever experienced that an awkwardness, an accident, an illness has brought about a clarity in you, an inner encounter between your realized self and the true self within you? That in the upheaval the spirit soul became free to show itself for this one illuminating, perhaps healing moment? Was there strength and beauty in this moment, despite everything?

God, world and man form one fabric, one life. Nevertheless, we also lead a kind of shadowy existence in it. Sometimes beauty is revealed and our souls rise up to return to the source. Sometimes they become afraid of true oneness. But the light of the one who wants to show himself convinces us again and again. If the soul is in the light, then everything is filled with light, even matter.

For further reading:

• Keith Chritchley: Islamic Patterns. An Analytical and Cosmological Approach, Rochester 1999
• William H. Chittick: The Sufi Path of Knowledge. Ibn al-‘Arabi’s Metaphysics of Imagination, New York 1989

[1]     Le Corbusier: Ausblick auf eine Architektur, Berlin – Frankfurt am Main – Wien 1963, S. 21. MY OWN TRANSLATION

[2]     Here the fourth verse of the poem

[3]     Es winkt zu Fühlung fast aus allen Dingen – Rainer Maria Rilke Diskussionforum – found on feb 21, 2025

[4]     in: Das umgewandte Auge, in: Jakob Böhmes Schriften, Leipzig 1935, S. 298: Please look up an official translation!

[5]     in: Aurora or Day-Spring, p. 70, Electronic Text Edition, 2009, in: Jacob Boehme’s Aurora – electronic text-edition : Jacob Boehme (Jakob Böhme) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The main hero of Andersen’s tale is the Chinese Emperor who lives in a beautiful, fine porcelain palace. The palace has a far extended garden full of miracles with a forest at the end, which goes right down to the seaside.

The Chinese Emperor, living in splendid circumstances, is in a higher sense representing the spiritually oriented ego of the earthly personality,  the ’spiritual’ ego. However subtle his egocentrism may be (porcelain palace), his spiritual grade is only a facade.

Every character, scene and event of the tale represents the components, characteristics and aspirations of a candidate, who has become stuck on the spiritual path. In the forest behind the emperor’s garden (in the subconscious) lives a sweet-sounding nightingale. This nightingale is the immortal soul hidden within the candidate’s being. The emperor doesn’t know this bird, he has only read about it in a book – the spiritual ego has only a secondhand knowledge. He calls for his Marshal to get this bird for him, but nobody knows about it in the palace. The Marshal starts to question the truth written in the book:

’Your Imperial Majesty could never imagine the things people write; all manner of inventions, and something which is called the Black Art.’

’But the book in which I read this’, said the Emperor, ‘was sent to me by the high and mighty Emperor of Japan, so it cannot be an untruth. I will hear the Nightingale! It must be here to-night. It has my most exalted favour, and if it does not come, the whole court shall have its stomachs stamped upon, when it has dined!’

The Marshal and the courtiers are the components and sustainer of the lower self-consciousness. The Marshal unintentionally touches upon the essence of the Japanese Emperor, who plays here the role of the tempter. As a Lucifer* he stirs up the “spiritual” desire for acquisition and possession of the lower self with his presence. The statement of the book is true, but the intention is hypocritical: to increase the egoism.

At last they find a poor little kitchen-girl in the palace, who carries leftover food to her sick mother through the forest every day. She says:

’… I hear the Nightingale sing. The tears come in my eyes with it: it feels as if my mother was kissing me.’

The natural, unselfish aspect of the earthly personality is able to lead the selfish forces of the ’spiritual’ ego (the gaudy group of courtiers) to the immortal soul lying in the depth of the soul.

‘That’s it,’ said the little girl. ‘Hark! hark! And there it sits!’ And she pointed to a little grey bird up among the branches. ‘Is it possible?’ said the Marshal. ‘I could never have imagined it would be like that! And how very shabby it looks! It must certainly have lost its colour at the sight of so many distinguished persons in its vicinity.’

The Marshal’s consideration paints a (clinical) picture of the nature of the spiritual ego.

At their request, the nightingale accompanies them to the emperor’s palace, where they prepare to listen to the song of the immortal soul among festive appearances.

‘And the Nightingale sang so beautifully that tears came into the Emperor’s eyes; the tears ran down his cheeks, and then the Nightingale sang yet more delightfully, so that it went straight to his heart; and the Emperor was greatly pleased, and said that the Nightingale should have his golden slipper to wear on its neck. But the Nightingale thanked him and said…’

The emperor wants to award the nightingale with a merit, but it rejects him:

‘I have seen tears in the Emperor’s eyes; that is to me the richest of treasures. An Emperor’s tears have a marvellous power. God knows I am well paid.’

The nightingale is kept in the palace. It is kept in a cage and only let out at night, where a string tied to one of its legs keeps it in captivity. The immortal soul revealed itself to the spiritual ego, but he put it to the service of his selfish goals. Yet – as the emperor’s tears testify – a crack opened in the crusty wall of the ego due to the wake of the pure vibrating soul.

The opposing force – the Japanese Emperor – cannot let this happen: he tempts the Chinese Emperor with another gift. This time not as Lucifer, but as Ahriman**, since he influences, creates a deceitful illusion through the cool, materialistic world of thought and technology. The gift is a masterful replica of the real nightingale: a wind-up mechanical bird, incrusted with precious stones. The spring-driven mechanism – although it could only play a one single song – ‘made as great a success as the real one, and was, besides, far prettier to look at; it glittered like a bracelet or a brooch. Three-and-thirty times over did it sing the self-same melody, and yet it was not tired. The people would have liked to hear it over again, but the Emperor said that now the live Nightingale should sing a little – but where was it? Nobody had noticed that it had flown out of the open window, away to its own green wood.’

The bandmaster – in the spirit of Ahriman – ‘praised the bird in the highest terms, and assured them that it was superior to the real Nightingale, not only as regards the plumage and the many beautiful diamonds, but also internally. (…) But the poor fisherman, who had heard the real Nightingale’ had the following opinion about the fake bird: ‘It sings pretty enough, and it’s like it too; but there’s something wanting, I don’t know what!’ The spiritually inspired aspect of the personality senses what is missing: the soul. The mechanical bird is only seemingly tireless, because suddenly ‘something went “snap” inside the bird. Whirr-rr! All the wheels whizzed round, and the music stopped.’ The bird fell silent. The earthly consciousness fails, it reaches the limits.

Years later, the Chinese Emperor became terminally ill and  ‘was hardly able to draw his breath; it seemed as if something was sitting on his chest. He opened his eyes, and then he saw that it was Death, who was sitting on his breast  (…) in the folds of the great velvet bed curtains, strange faces pushed themselves out, some quite horrible, others divinely kind. There were all the Emperor’s good and evil deeds, looking at him now…’ The emperor begged for music, for a consoling song, but the spring-driven bird was silent.

‘At that instant there was heard, close by the window, the most lovely song. It was the little live Nightingale that was sitting on the branch outside. It had heard of its Emperor’s need, and so had come to sing to him of comfort and hope…’ Death, moved to tears by the singing, withdrew ‘and the Emperor fell into a sweet sleep, a sleep that was kind and healing.’ Next morning ‘the attendants came in to see their dead Emperor, and – well, there stood they, and the Emperor said: »Good morning!«’

The Emperor’s deadly illness refers to the breakdown of the spiritual ego in the being of the candidate who attains true self-knowledge. In the pure vibrational sphere of the Soul, the ego retreats into the background, and the miracle of self-surrender takes place.

___________________

* Lucifer: the ruler of a group of hindering, tempting spirits. This counterforce strives for people to reach above their head, to phantasise, to become bigots and dreamers, passive followers of authorities, instead of mature, autonomous spirits. It can turn to enthusiastic  adorations and emotions and passions heightened to the extreme. People under this influence may think they follow the spiritual path, but it is based on a selfish desire.

** Ahriman: the leader of another group of obstructive, tempting spirits. They drive people deep into matter. Nationalism, literalism, mechanism, narrow-mindedness are some of the characteristics of people under this influence. Earthly intelligence and logical thinking are overdeveloped and science and technology are seen as tools to create an ideal world. True, eternal values are replaced by false ones.

You can read more about counterforces (“demonic” beings) in the books of Rudolf Steiner, who founded the spiritual movement of anthroposophy.

_______

English source of the quoted tale: https://gutenberg.ca/ebooks/andersen-nightingale/andersen-nightingale-00-h.html

And there It was: the Absolute at rest, in ever-present unperceivable

sense: absence equal to itself, chaos self-sufficient.

When a second opened up, springing from eternity,

singularity was falling into solitude, and its sense faded away.

The wondering Thought, seeking to fulfil its part as would do any wandering seed,

sets the Fortunate Beginning for the first Idea of life,

to eternal Thought the Idea flashing through.

Here it is – intangible Thought into Itself collapsing.

Like a pulsing wound, the empty space is left behind,

alike an idea shed past the ebb tide, (in-form-ly) engraved and impelled by longing.

The void of the thought-essence in its own substance fretting,

memories in mind and idea, sacred quantic, imbedded.

Mater, bounteous and kind, germinating thoughts of Thought,

eyes through which He contemplates Her world, is now seeing sweet faces,

through which He is captured in Her thought.

But the Thought affirms Himself into the world, firmly ordering the Logos,

which then articulates the Thought conceived by the Mater-Mind,

the Logos bearing seeds of the Pater Thought.

His living World shall keep His print alive, the intelligent Idea,

to be fulfilled from this time forth.

Offspring-Thoughts shall fill the world, mirroring the equal Thought

by knowing Self and radiating to all thoughts.

Thought to Thought the world will grow, all left from Her, you see,

nothing but Him will be: Offspring – Logos – Idea in Itself.

The indefinite Thought, life giving in its Idea hidden,

now – in the world of definite forms – shall truthfully be defined,

through Self-Awareness immanent to the Idea, into ideas

germinating, in the Mind, through transcendental love.

* The drawings by Ramona Orban.

 from the beginning of time, space and form.

At first there was the vertical. The Right state of Being.

Then, when the external reality became concrete,

the definite Left stepped in.

The Left kept adding layers…overfilled,

it started pulling the Right state of Being

horizontally, to a side,

so now only together could they balance the Being.

The Right state of Being became the Being´s right,

and the one assuming the name of Having

was left with the left side.

Since then,

the state of Being keeps reclaiming its right to wholeness,

or at least to primacy, before the Having,

for the Having kept acting as supreme.

The passing of the Right vertical to the right side of the being

removed it from its centre,

from its Right Path that led the focus to the inner fire,

and gave it different angles of inclination.

Self indulging, it allowed itself to be more and more inclined

to the external reality of the left world,

with its worries of having or not

having the gifts that animate it,

with its imagined identities,

added to the state of Being,

with its poetic restless joys and sadness.

The different angles formed different frameworks

through different relationships with its source of being,

just like the Earth´s tilt gives rise to the different seasons

based on the Sun´s position relative to it.

The different beings build their own external realities

in order to experience,

with all their senses, their internal world, the right one.

It was cold and rainy. The imposing Tyrolean mountains hidden behind a veil of low-hanging clouds seemed nonexistent. How nice that a field trip on Modern Alpine Architecture included well-known architects.

We met in a small village in Vorarlberg, Austria, and discussed the concept of beauty in architecture. Opinions about what was ‘beautiful’ were broad, and one participant mentioned the Golden Ratio. In earlier times and well into Antiquity, the Golden Ratio was inextricably linked with architecture as the basic measure of the artistic value of a building. In urban planning, ground plans bore witness to a higher knowledge, indicating harmony with the soul.

Other participants objected since today buildings are no longer built this way. The concept of beauty is subjective. No sooner said than we reached the village square, the sun came out for a short time from behind dense clouds and illuminated the scenery. Beautiful historic buildings of traditional Alpine architecture lined a group of lime trees, with a small church in the middle. The square was artfully paved.

Participants were speechless at first and then unanimously commented on the beautiful, harmonious ensemble of this village square, where everything was well-proportioned and in the right place. The language of architecture had directly touched their hearts. What exactly led to this change of mood?

The group spontaneously opened up to the essence of the Golden Ratio, and a lively conversation ensued. The Golden Ratio can be described as the basic measure of ‘sacred geometry’[i] which consists of harmonious proportions that also underlie the ‘architecture’ of the human being and the ‘microcosm’, as an image of the cosmos. The Vitruvian Man is the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci where the average proportions of the human body differ only slightly from the Golden Ratio.

What is the Golden Ratio? It is the unique division in which the relationship between the whole and the part is preserved. The whole is in the same proportion to the larger part as the larger part is to the smaller part. Another term used in the past was ‘divine proportion’. This was intended to express the connection between creation, the divided, and its divine origin, the whole.

Fig. 1: Leonardo da Vinci, the Vitruvian Man

Man was also depicted in a pentagram. The five-pointed star also exhibits the geometry of the Golden Ratio. This means that man was created in accordance with divine proportions.

Fig. 2: Man depicted in a pentagram. After Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486–1535).

This measure exists on a large scale in the geometry of the universe, e.g., in the shapes of galaxies, and on a smaller scale in the shapes of the mineral, plant, and animal kingdoms.

Fig. 3: The petals of roses and other plants grow at the ‘Golden Angle’ (iStock, processed by Uwe Döpel).

Where does the Golden Ratio appear in human civilisation? This synthesis of craftsmanship and art was present in almost all cultures in the past and can still be marvelled at today in the Orient. There is no separation between the two. The word ‘architecture’ etymologically means ‘first art’ or ‘original art’. The expression ‘arts and crafts’ is already evidence of a break in the relationship between art and ‘normal’ craftsmanship; form and function became separate, with the functional coming to the foreground.

Fig. 4: A classic example of the Golden Ratio in architecture is the Parthenon in Athens (photo: iStock, processed by Uwe Döpel )

Fig. 5: Moroccan arabesques. Perfect geometry according to the Golden Ratio (photo: Uwe Döpel)

With the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century beginning in Europe and spreading worldwide, there was an ever-faster development of mental consciousness and, at the same time, increasing materialism. Applied to the relationship between body, feeling, and mind, the tendency is towards the development of a top-heavy person who is characterised by a logical-rational mind and increasingly threatens to lose touch with the heart and emotional world.

The ‘voice of the heart’ as the epitome of beauty and love is increasingly being ignored by the intelligence of the mind.  This is expressed, among other things, in a predominantly functionally oriented architecture. It is in the process of losing the connection to its origin in ‘divine art’.

Fig. 6: Functional modern architecture in contrast with traditional architecture (Photos: Uwe Döpel)

Is beauty only a question of proportions? Are there other, deeper aspects and dimensions? Think of a consciousness of simplicity which has left the self-centred perspective, a selfless simplicity which has no goal and does not want to own anything. It can refer to a created form – or not.

If we seek the beautiful to enrich ourselves and avoid the ugly, we lose an important aspect of true beauty. In the words of Jiddu Krishnamurti[ii]:

‘When we are without love, we create a civilization in which the beauty of form is sought.’ 

So addiction to external beauty can be a consequence of an inner void. On the other hand, beauty in the outer world can be an expression of inner beauty.  It can be a projection of the original divine beauty into the dual outer world.

What then is our reality? Reality is an effect of our outward-looking consciousness made up of thoughts, feelings, and will, which, only through projection outwards, can be experienced and reflected. If the ego wants to possess beauty, it creates a ‘red whirlwind’ of desire that clouds unity with the inner core and creates a duality: the ‘ugly’.

Don’t we need a contrast between the beautiful and the ugly, between light and shadow, to nurture our longing for true beauty? Is true beauty only recognisable by contrast with the ugly?

Beauty can be perceived without wanting to be devoured, possessed, and experienced again and again. If you succeed in just looking at beauty, then there is no pain or fear of losing it. Beauty has then fulfilled its mission.  It has brought the observer to silent wonder. Beauty on the outside can then be reflected in an indescribable beauty on the inside.  The soul can merge with beauty, since it is no longer on the outside. Observer and observed become one, experiencing their essence as one. The soul leaves separation and flows back into unity. There is healing, and there is love.

When one understands the deep meaning of the desire for healing and of this unfulfillable longing, an incredible joy in life can unfold: the joy of the ‘beautiful spark of the Gods’[1]. This joy lies beyond thinking. It is a quality of true love and can only be perceived in the here and now.

As Krishnamurti puts it (ibid.):

‘You cannot have love without beauty. Beauty is not something you see – a beautiful tree, a beautiful picture, a beautiful building, or a beautiful woman. Beauty only exists when your heart and mind know what love is. Without love and this feeling for beauty, there is no virtue.’

When I think back to the excursion with the architects, and the moment when we were all united in the shared feeling of beauty at the village square, there seemed to be a unifying intersection of all that is individual and subjective.  The Golden Ratio and Sacred Geometry are a signature of divine beauty like Ariadne’s thread, that leads us out of the labyrinth of the duality of good and evil, of beauty and disharmony, to the true beauty of our inner divine being. The more we turn to it, the more the labyrinth dissolves.

The point of duality is for man to recognise his true self.  It is one with the essence of God. The futility of finding undivided beauty and true contentment in a dualistic world is part of the essential self-knowledge of man.

Faust says:

‘If I will say to the moment: linger, you are so beautiful! Then you may bind me in chains, then I will gladly perish!’

Everything Faust had experienced was unable to make him truly happy. He was deeply imbued with the knowledge of the transience of earthly beauty. The tragedy with Gretchen and the encounter with Helena, with whom he wanted to unite happiness and beauty, were of particular importance in this respect. Through the fire of purification, Faust finally becomes insensitive to external sensory stimuli represented by his blindness[iii]and open to the beauty of the inner light.

‘The night seems to penetrate deeper and deeper, but within shines a bright light.’

 

[i] Cf. Kükelhaus, H. (2001): Urzahl und Gebärde. Grundzüge eines kommenden Maßbewusstseins (Foundations of an Emerging Awareness of Measure), Klett and Balmer Publ. House, Zug

[ii] Krishnamurti, Jiddu (2021): Vollkommene Freiheit (Complete Freedom), 11th edition, Fischer Taschenbuch

[iii] Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Faust, The Tragedy Part Two