Beauty Is Truth
Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. ~John Keats (1819)
What is truth? Where is truth to be found? How do we go about finding truth? What is beauty? Who can make the assumption to label something “beautiful”? These are questions that will haunt an individual that desires to understands the meaning of “truth” to its fullest.
Truth is fact and yet the truest and purest form of truth is something that cannot be measured. It is beyond our knowing and beyond our understanding. Time and again we see that something has been discovered or invented, only to find out a short while later that it has become obsolete because even greater truths have been found and better inventions have been made.
The search for truth is a continual cycle of growth – expanding far beyond what it started out to be. One of the most dangerous things a human being can do is to become arrogantly certain of their “knowledge”… no matter what field they are in. In one blink of a moment that knowledge can prove to be false, incomplete and vastly limited. The greatness of a human being is not in what he knows but in who he becomes. The human mind is astonishing and yet most of us only use such a minute part of it, never understanding its full capacity. Feel free to watch this amazing clip, as well as this short clip.
One of the silliest things we can do, in my opinion, is to make sweeping and unequivocal statements about who God is, what one should believe and how one should worship. Some religions and denominations have damaged so many people because of their harshness, condemnations and their insistence on strict adherence to man-made rules and regulations and ideologies. In many instances, love plays little or no part in the “business of church,” and “religion”. Yet, it stands firm and true that love still remains and always will remain the most powerful force to effectively and permanently change the heart of a human being.
God is beauty and truth in absolute perfection. As a kaleidoscope, each tiny twist reveals yet new dimensions, new profundity of expressions and new shapes and colors of beauty and truth. So it is with Deity. No matter how one desires to do so, God cannot and will never be able to be explained. The closer that one comes to the light of truth, the more it is realized, it is of a certainty that He/She/It, is nothing at all like what one had previously thought. His multi-faceted and multi-dimensional being is beyond our human comprehension and it is in that realization where absolute truth and beauty are found.
Each person can find beauty in their own, very intimate and personal journey.
One might find beauty in the wings of a butterfly or the fluttering of a hummingbird. Another might find it in the strokes of a great painter or the form of an exquisite sculpture. One might find their beauty in the absolute harmony of musical notes orchestrated to perfection and the graceful dance of a ballerina, while another finds it in the dimensions of architecture or the words and lyrics of poetry and songs. Then there are those who embrace beauty in the simplicity of nature with its array of colors in landscapes, flowers, mountains, and the seas. Certain personalities will even embrace a new culture which is different from his own. He admires their simpler way of life and strives to understand it…as well as himself.
However one meets beauty matters only when it is certain that the encounter of beauty has enriched their reality of truth. Embracing that which deeply speaks to us will often pierce through this linear world of ours and touch the world of the unknown. It grabs ahold of our hearts and with certainty we can know that life is still fuller, still greater than ourselves and our, so very limited, views.
When a human being truly encounters beauty and truth, it will prove to be a mystical and deeply spiritual experience for them, far removed from what so many call “religion.”
