The Deity, whom we call God, has created this planet Earth to express a particular purpose which He has in His Mind. This purpose appears to be a planetary form of Beauty. And it seems to be His intent to display a degree of divine Beauty in all the kingdoms He has created: mineral, vegetable, animal, human and in the upcoming spiritual. They all have shown thus far some degree of beauty, at least what we human beings tend to define as beautiful. How God defines Beauty is most likely way beyond our ability to understand. So let’s focus on what we currently do understand by the word beauty.
One of the main things that all of us should realize is that we are all part of God’s creation on this planet Earth. God is “the One in Whom we live and move and have our being”. Please think about that phrase. We are all participants in this great creative process to bring beauty into the world. No matter where we each stand on the ladder of evolution, no matter what we do in our daily lives, how we all are able to define and express beauty will be helping the great Plan of God to work out on this planet. As it says at the end of the Great Invocation: “Let Light and Love and Power restore the Plan on Earth”. It will help to express beauty in the world if we think deeply and perhaps meditate on the esoteric meaning of this Invocation every day.
Now we each have a way of expressing beauty in our daily lives, but first, how is beauty defined? The Dictionary defines the word beauty as: “the quality or aggregate of qualities in a thing which gives pleasure to the senses or pleasurably exalts the mind or spirit; physical, moral or spiritual loveliness”.
And from the Alice Bailey books: “The Soul creates through…the lower mind…the world of symbols with interest, concepts, ideas, and beauty through the written word, spoken word, and the creative arts” (Education in the New Age, p. 20). Also: “Beauty is…as much of divinity as can be expressed through any one form…form and life are one. There is nothing but life in manifestation” (Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. 1, p. 279). And to a disciple in training: your sense of being “can be enhanced through an increased beauty of the outflow of love and increased love of beauty” (DINA 1, p. 622).
Now here are a few examples of what I would call beauty: first, the melodic sounds in music, especially classical music. Since the 15th century musical compositions began to evolve into compositions written for larger choirs and choruses and many more instruments. Orchestras began to develop and began to perform outside the church in the king’s chamber and then in the concert halls. Compositions were no longer just religious in nature; they were often based on a particular theme, a melody line of particular beauty, a sense of beauty coming through the mind of the composer. You know the work of many of these composers: Palestrina, J.S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner, Schubert, Schuman, Brahms, and many more in the 20th century. They all attempted to compose great melodic sounds of beauty, a beauty that radiates to all listeners whether in a concert hall, a CD, a movie soundtrack, a TV program, or over your I-phone or laptop. Beautiful melodies often flow into our ears and give us emotional pleasure; and this is likely a response to the energy of Love-Wisdom now flowing into the world. And many musical composers, from the past to the present, are responding—by way of their loving souls—to this divine Plan to develop and express God’s sense of beauty in the world. And of course not only in the field of classical music; many beautiful melodies are heard in popular music songs, country music songs, Broadway shows, and operas. But in all types of music, whatever the composer is trying to express to the listener may not be of great beauty but sadness, anger, hatred, depending on the written poem or the storyline in a composer’s tone-poem as in Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”, or in Respighi’s “The Pines of Rome”, and the “Fountains of Rome”. And a beautiful piece by Ralph Vaughan Williams: “Lark Ascending”. To some listeners, these may sound against God’s sense of beauty, but as human consciousness becomes more refined and loving, hopefully, so will our sense of beauty.
Now, of course, music is only one way of expressing beauty through the human kingdom; there are many others like beautiful paintings and sculptures; beautiful styles of dance; beautiful architecture; the beauty expressed through education; the beauty expressed by great writers for thousands of years in literature, in poetry, in novels, in plays and dramas, and even the Holy Bible. Much beauty often comes through the written words; the developing of a beautiful economy; even eventually a more beautiful development in the field of politics based on goodwill between people and nations. This will require much more work in the coming future.
And what about the developing beauty in the other kingdoms: animal, vegetable and mineral? They are also part of the One in Whom they live and move and have their life. The mineral kingdom provides us with much beauty, especially with all the valuable gems and jewels, the gold, silver and diamonds, and hundreds of other gemstones. This kingdom has undergone billions of years of development being shaped into hugh continents, beautiful mountain ranges, lakes, valleys, brooks, streams, rivers and oceans. And it provides the food and nourishment for the next kingdom, the vegetable kingdom. All the plants that grow in this kingdom: the trees, the shrubs, the grass, the flowers, etc. depend on the nourishment and moisture provided by the mineral kingdom; it is its gift to the vegetable kingdom and provides this kingdom with its power to display its tremendous beauty. Beauty is seen in its universal color green which is a product of chlorophyll a vital pigment that absorbs sunlight to make food for a tree. The plant uses captured light energy to drive the chemical reactions that build the chlorophyll which gives the plants and trees the color green. A beautiful gift. There is so much beauty provided by this vegetable kingdom with its hugh forests and beautiful hills often covered with beautiful flowers, and gorgeous lilies blossoming in its lakes and along its brooks, streams and rivers. And all this beautiful vegetation provides food and shelter for the next the beauty of the animals and birds themselves, they are beginning to develop certain senses like sight, hearing and smell. They all have small brains that enable them to develop certain senses and instincts which enable them establish friendly relationships with other animals and birds, like the relationship between males and females and with their offspring. Developing these friendly relationships is the beginning of a major instinct that will bring great beauty into the world and is a gift to us from the animal kingdom. However, a not so pleasant instinct begins to develop in this kingdom like the first tendency toward the beginning of warfare developing in the animal kingdom as seen by the lion carnivores, for example. Their food comes from other animals which they kill; and this is not really beautiful but it is an instinct that is passed on to us humans; and warfare is an instinct we now have to work through.
In the human kingdom, starting a war between people and nations seems to be a instinct that we have had for millions of years. It seems to occur when the leadership of nations are unable, or unwilling, to sit down together and negotiate their differences. Rather than negotiate, one leader would rather exercise his power to attack the other, then a war begins. There is not much beauty in this action. But action more beautiful did begin to happen after the end of World War II with the establishment of the United Nations between the leaders of European nations and the U.S. and Canada in 1945, and then the creation of NATO. These creations have brought more beauty to the world and greatly refined the lower human instinct of warfare. More beauty is created when harmonious relationships are built among people as has developed in the vegetable kingdom. For example, if all the musicians of a symphony orchestra sat down together but each one played a different piece of music and loudly demanded to be heard; there would be chaos. But when musicians play together harmoniously as written by the composer, then a great sound of beauty is heard. So picture humanity as a huge orchestra playing together as one, playing the piece composed by God as an outflow of divine Love, it would be a symphony of tremendous beauty. Let it be heard.