BEAUTY
AS A PATH OF PEACE
by Yasuhiko Genku Kimura
In so far as man knoweth Beauty in him shall
he know Love, and Truth, and Balance—and
the Peace which passeth all understanding.
—Walter Russell, The Message of the
Divine Iliad
BEAUTY AND SPIRITUALITY
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
This adage is generally understood to mean that
beauty is a subjective perception and judgment,
different from one person to another, or from
one group to another, and therefore relative.
There is another interpretation: Beauty is precisely
in the eye of the beholder because without the
vision that can behold beauty, there can be no
experience of beauty. The more we open our vision
for beauty, the more beauty we behold in our eye.
Beauty is a universal quality that is
present throughout the universe. Beauty is only
subjective in the sense that the kind of beauty
that one beholds is determined by the kind of
vision for beauty that one has unfolded. Beauty
is only relative in the sense that the degree
to which one beholds beauty is proportional to
the degree to which one's vision for beauty is
open.
Therefore, the master artist whose vision for
beauty has unfolded to an extraordinary degree
can behold the finer beauty in Nature that eludes
others. His artwork serves as his way of communicating
the beauty that he beholds to others who may experience
or may unfold a finer vision for beauty to experience
the same beauty through his artistic creation.
The master composer whose vision for beauty has
unfolded to an extraordinary degree can behold
the deeper harmony in Nature that eludes others.
His musical composition serves as his way of communicating
the harmony that he beholds to others who may
experience or may unfold a deeper vision for beauty
to experience the same beauty through his musical
creation.
The master scientist whose vision for beauty
has unfolded to an extraordinary degree can behold
the greater symmetry in Nature that eludes others.
His mathematical formulation serves as his way
of communicating the symmetry that he beholds
to others who may experience or may unfold a greater
vision for beauty to experience the same beauty
through his mathematical creation.
Beauty is thus unconcealed, illumined-out
from the darkness of its concealment, through
the opening of the vision that can behold it.
"Unconcealment" is Martin Heidegger's
term for the Greek word "aletheia,"
which has been traditionally translated as truth
in the sense of correctness.1 However,
aletheia literally means a negation of
forgetfulness and concealment.2 Beauty
is truth, as unconcealment; and truth is beauty,
as unconcealing. Thus, the Latin motto states:
Pulchritudo splendo veritatis. Beauty
is the splendor of truth. Beauty is the splendor
that is truth.
The question arises: What is it that allows this
unconcealment, this opening of vision for beauty,
to take place? What is it that allows our sensibility
for beauty to effloresce so that we can behold
the finer beauty, deeper harmony, or greater symmetry
that has been hitherto concealed to us?
The experience of beauty arises in the experience
of balance. Beauty arises with balance. Balance
is the oneness that is emergent in manyness, the
simplicity that is emergent in multiplicity, and
the undivided that is emergent in the divided.
Thus, the experience of balance is the experience
of undivided wholeness in divided manyness and
of ultimate simplicity in dynamic multiplicity.
This experience of undivided wholeness and ultimate
simplicity is an experience of opening and openness.
It is an experience of release from the confinement
of dividedness and from the isolation of multiplicity.
Balance or symmetry is the fundamental structural
principle of the universe. The whole is necessarily
always in balance, and through the attainment
of balance we restore our own wholeness. What
is called imbalance is localization in the forgetfulness
of and the isolation from the whole. Therefore,
imbalance exists only as a localized phenomenon,
but a local imbalance can always be balanced—out
inside a larger whole that embraces it.
Beauty is as much unconcealment as deconfinement.
In the experience of beauty, the universe en-presents
its balance, openness, and wholeness, releasing
us from the confines of our localized self to
the openness of our Universal Self that is whole.
This release into openness is the joy and ecstasy
that we experience in the presence of beauty.
In the presence of beauty, we experience more
of life in its pristine liveliness and sacredness
than that to which we are otherwise accustomed
in our mundane world. That pristine liveliness
and sacredness is beauty's calling that allures
us to its open embrace.
This experiential movement towards beauty's open
embrace, towards a higher-order of balance, wholeness,
and openness, is what is termed "Buddha"
in Sanskrit. The Buddha is not any person
or end-state but the dynamic, eternal, evolutionary
movement towards an ever-higher order of balance,
wholeness, and openness. That is, the Buddha
is the evolutionary process of beauty's ever-greater
awakening to itself. To committedly enter and
to permanently dwell in the stream of this evolutionary
movement is what it means to attain Buddhahood
and to become a Buddha.
The terms "Christ" and "Christhood"
can be interpreted within the same evolutionary
context. The Christ (from the Greek etymological
root khriein, to anoint) is not any person
or end-state but a designation of the dynamic,
eternal, evolutionary movement of beauty's evermore
abundant self-anointing. To committedly enter
and to permanently dwell in the stream of this
evolutionary movement is what it means to achieve
Christhood and to become a Christ.
Therefore, Christhood or Buddhahood
has really little or nothing to do with a particular
religion called Christianity or Buddhism, but
rather it signifies the process-state of genuine
spirituality wherein beauty's self-awakening or
truth's self-unconcealing continually and evolvingly
takes place. Thus, what allows the opening of
vision and the unfolding of sensibility for beauty
is the attainment of Buddhahood or Christhood.
That is to say, what allows the opening of vision
and the unfolding of sensibility for beauty is
to enter and to dwell in an authentic, spiritual,
evolutionary path.
Authentic spirituality has little or nothing
to do with religion or religiosity, which is very
often the producer-cum-product of blind,
unthinking allegiance to belief systems and belief-based
organizations. To be truly spiritual means to
be deeply attuned to the evolutionary thrust for
self-optimization and self-realization, which
impels us to the opening of our vision and the
unfolding of our sensibility for beauty and truth.
When we are thus attuned to this evolutionary
thrust, we are attuned with the Creativity of
the universe. In that attunement, we become increasingly
more capable of developing works of beauty in
participation and co-creation with that Creativity
to which the designation "God" or "Spirit"
is traditionally given.
Beauty is a spiritual experience, and therefore
requires the opening of spirituality within. There
is no true artist who is not spiritual, no true
musician who is not spiritual, no true scientist
who is not spiritual, and no true philosopher
who is not spiritual. On the other hand, a religion
that is empty of spirituality can appear to be
spiritual because of the great architectures that
house it, the great works of art that adorn its
cathedrals and temples, and the great pieces of
music that embellish its ceremonies and rituals.
This is a classical non sequitur of which
very few are aware. People tend to mistake the
glorious spirituality of the architecture, art,
and music that grace the atmosphere of a cathedral
or temple for the spirituality of the religion
that owns that piece of real estate.
People who are engaged in a creative search for
authentic beauty and truth become increasingly
more spiritual as they increasingly tune-in to
the evolutionary thrust for self-optimization
and self-realization existing within and without,
and with the Creativity of the universe, which
is the source of their own creativity. When we
are tuned-in with the Creativity of the universe,
we remain in a state of creativity and maintain
a creative state of mind. As this Creativity is
the very Spirit of the universe, when we are attuned
to it, we become fountainheads of true spirituality.
Thus, we will not find spirituality in the hypocritical
'Churchianity' or funereal 'Buddhibusiness' at
all, but in our direct communion with Nature within
and without, the only original church and temple
of beauty and truth.
The famous haiku poem by the master Japanese
haiku poet Basho Matsuo reads:
An old pond, a frog jumps in, the sound of
water.
An old pond symbolizes the ancient tradition
of poetry, and of literature and the arts in general,
that has been passed on from one generation to
the next continually without interruption, and
that eternal beauty which inspires and expresses
itself through that perennial tradition. A
frog symbolizes the awakened poet, who has
jumped into that tradition, and has awakened to
eternal beauty and truth. The sound of water
is the experience of awakening, the spreading
of light, the opening of the evolutionary vision
for beauty and truth.
The poet jumps out of the confines of his localized
self and self-limiting vision of beauty into the
openness-wholeness wherein he beholds and is beheld
by eternal beauty. The poet himself is
an old pond; an old pond is a frog jumping-in;
a frog jumping-in is the sound of water;
and the sound of water is the poet himself.
Beauty that is unconcealed and is unconcealing
through this haiku is Nature in its self-resonant
wholeness and openness. This seemingly mundane
observation of an ordinary frog's jumping-in to
a nondescript old pond becomes a spiritual experience
of exquisite beauty and splendid truth. This is
a wonderful example of our new interpretation
of the saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder."
To behold beauty is to be beheld by beauty. To
be beheld by beauty is to be transformed by the
beholding of beauty. To be transformed by the
beholding of beauty is to behold the transformation
of beauty itself. In the experience of this transformation,
we experience freedom, joy, and ecstasy. This
freedom, this joy, this ecstasy, is what spirituality
means, or what it means to be in communion with
Spirit, with God.
Beauty beheld is the efflorescence of spirituality,
and spirituality unfolding is the effulgence of
beauty.
BEAUTY AS A PATH OF PEACE
As beauty arises with balance, so ugliness arises
with imbalance. As beauty arises with wholeness
and oneness, so ugliness arises with localization
and isolation. Ugliness is the symptom of our
forgetfulness of wholeness. Ugliness is the syndrome
of the errancy-modes of our sensibility and openness
for beauty.
Beauty is Nature's norm, as balance is the primary
structural principle of the universe. There is
nothing in Nature that is not beautiful. Ugliness
is only a temporary and local aberration in the
universe of beauty, brought-in to the world by
those who lack intelligence in the sense of appreciative
acumen for wholeness and critical sensibility
for beauty.
Spiritual and intellectual development implies
the unfolding and awakening of intelligence in
the sense of appreciative acumen for wholeness
and critical sensibility for beauty. The more
we unfold and awaken our intelligence, the more
we can behold and create beauty in the world.
The more beauty we behold and create in the world,
the more love we will have for the world. The
experience of beauty evokes the experience of
love. For, we love that which is beautiful.
For those whose intelligence has not yet unfolded
or is closed off, the world is not ugly but relatively
beauty-less. In order for them to recognize what
is ugly, they need to have developed or opened
up their intelligence sufficiently to know what
is beautiful. They need to have known resonance
to recognize dissonance, and harmony to recognize
disharmony. Just as the experience of beauty evokes
the emotion of love, so the experience of ugliness
evokes the emotion of hate. For, we hate that
which is ugly.
As beauty is balance and ugliness is imbalance,
and as balance is wholeness and ugliness is localization,
to transform ugliness to beauty means to eliminate
imbalance and localization, which in turn means
to increase the order of balance and wholeness.
We have defined balance as the oneness emergent
in manyness, the simplicity emergent in multiplicity,
and the undivided emergent in the divided. As
simplicity emerging in higher multiplicity is
higher in its order of balance than simplicity
emerging in lower multiplicity, the order of balance
is proportionate to the degree of contrast existing
between simplicity and multiplicity. Therefore,
we can define the first order of balance as the
balance existing between two entities or movements;
the second order of balance as the balance between
three entities or movements; the third order of
balance as the balance between four entities or
movements; and so forth.
In physics, a theory that has a higher order
of balance, and therefore of beauty, is considered
a better theory than others that have relatively
lower orders of balance. For instance, the physicist
Milo Wolff's wave structure of matter (WSM) theory,
which describes the whole complexity of the phenomenal
universe with just three simple mathematical equations
within the framework of four-dimensional space-time,
has a higher order of balance than the currently
popular superstring theories, which attempt to
describe the same complexity of the phenomenal
universe with more than three complex equations
within the frameworks of ten- or eleven-dimensional
space-time.3 Therefore, as a physical
theory, the WSM theory should be considered better
and more superior than the superstring theories.
In music, when we compare the symphonic compositions
of Mozart, Beethoven, and Rachmaninoff, the order
of balance tends to increase from Mozart to Beethoven
to Rachmaninoff. However, unlike in science, this
does not mean that Rachmaninoff's symphonies are
superior to Beethoven's or Beethoven's symphonies
are better than Mozart's. The primary purpose
of musical composition is the evocation
of emotions arising from the appreciation of beauty
of the universe, while the primary purpose of
scientific theories is the explication
of lawfulness identified through the discovery
of beauty in the universe.
The value of a musical composition is measured
by its evocative power, while the value of a scientific
theory is measured by its explicatory power. Evocative
power is proportionate to the degree of total
balance achieved in a piece of music: balance
within the listener, within the composition, within
the execution, between the listener and the music,
and amongst all these four balances. Explicatory
power is proportionate to the order of balance
achieved within a theory: the simpler the theory
is and the more of the complexity of the universe
it can explicate, the more explicatory power it
has, and the better it is as a theory.
The same order-of-balance principle applies to
the development of societal order and the creation
of peace. For example, the conflict between the
Israelis and the Palestinians in the Middle East
appears superficially to be a matter of creating
a first-order balance between these two nations.
As we all know, the issue is of course far more
complex, involving a great many nations, peoples,
and interests. If we can map out all of the interests
represented and involved in this seemingly local
conflict, we will discover that interests of the
entire human race living on this planet are virtually
all represented. We will realize that the number
of variables involved is too numerous to be determinate,
and no external measure for creating balance and
peace will therefore bring about a complete resolution.
In order to create societal balance and peace
through an external measure, we must identify
and determine a finite number of variables and
know what degree of order of balance we intend
to achieve. One critical variable in the creation
of societal balance and peace is the presence
or absence of inner balance and peace within all
of the people who constitute a society. Inner
balance and peace is that which is within our
power to achieve independently of our circumstance
and environment, and inner balance and peace is
what is necessarily required of people who engage
in the work of creating peace in the world. (For
detailed analysis of inner peace, refer to my
essay "Toward World Peace" in The
Cosmic Light, Commemorative Edition, January,
2002.)
Henry David Thoreau wrote: "The perception
of beauty is a moral test." The philosopher
David Michael Levin, in commenting on Thoreau's
statement, writes: "A test, [Thoreau] meant,
of character—a test of character, moreover,
not only in its ethical formation, but also in
its spiritual vocation, that dimension of human
existence in which we put into practice a commitment
to cultivate our capacity for openness and wholeness."4
If the perception of beauty is a moral test of
the character of an individual, the presence of
the creative expression and appreciation of beauty
in the world is a moral indicator of the character
of humanity as a whole, "not only in its
ethical formation, but also in its spiritual vocation,
that dimension of human existence in which we
put into practice a commitment to cultivate our
capacity for openness and wholeness."
Here is another, entirely different approach
to world peace from the old political approach.
It is the approach through the development of
culture—of ethics and spirituality through
aesthetics—through cultivating our capacity
for openness and wholeness—through tuning-in
to the evolutionary thrust for self-optimization
and self-realization within and without, and with
the Creativity of the universe that is the source
of our own creativity.
Let beauty be our guide for peace.
NOTES:
1. Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, HarperSanFrancisco,
1977.
2. David Michel Levin, The Opening of Vision,
Nihilism and the Postmodern Situation, Routledge,
1988.
3. Milo Wolff, Exploring the Physics of the Unknown
Universe, Technotran Press, 1990;
F. David Peat, Superstrings and the Search for
The Theory of Everything, Contemporary Books,
1989;
Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe, Superstrings,
Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate
Theory, W.W. Norton & Company, 1999.
4. David Michael Levin, Foreword to Wholeness
Lost and Wholeness Regained by Herbert Guenther,
State University of New York Press, 1994.
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