4. Beauties of Nature: Quotes and Questions

 

The place of the beauties of the physical creation in a philosophy of living

 

The overstressed and isolated morality of modern religion, which fails to hold the devotion and loyalty of many twentieth-century men, would rehabilitate itself if, in addition to its moral mandates, it would give equal consideration to the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience, and to the beauties of the physical creation, the charm of intellectual art, and the grandeur of genuine character achievement.

The religious challenge of this age is to those farseeing and forward-looking men and women of spiritual insight who will dare to construct a new and appealing philosophy of living out of the enlarged and exquisitely integrated modern concepts of cosmic truth, universe beauty, and divine goodness.

 

Question. The Urantia Book does not give equal consideration to each of these seven topics. Why should the new philosophy of living do so?

 

. . . . All real beauty—material artor spiritual symmetry—is both true and good. . . . Health, sanity, and happiness are integrations of truth, beauty, and goodness as they are blended in human experience. Such levels of efficient living come about through the unification of energy systems, idea systems, and spirit systems.

 

Question. What are energy systems? Do the following quotes help?

 

112:2.14 (1229.1) The possibility of the unification of the evolving self is inherent in the qualities of its constitutive factors: the basic energies, the master tissues, the fundamental chemical overcontrol, the supreme ideas, the supreme motives, the supreme goals, and the divine spirit of Paradise bestowal — the secret of the self-consciousness of man’s spiritual nature.

 

110:6.4 (1209.4) It is to the mind of perfect poise, housed in a body of clean habits, stabilized neural energies, and balanced chemical function — when the physical, mental, and spiritual powers are in triune harmony of development — that a maximum of light and truth can be imparted with a minimum of temporal danger or risk to the real welfare of such a being. By such a balanced growth does man ascend the circles of planetary progression one by one, from the seventh to the first.

 

Truth is coherent, beauty attractive, goodness stabilizing. And when these values of that which is real are co-ordinated in personality experience, the result is a high order of love conditioned by wisdom and qualified by loyalty. The real purpose of all universe education is to effect the better co-ordination of the isolated child of the worlds with the larger realities of his expanding experience. Reality is finite on the human level, infinite and eternal on the higher and divine levels. (2:7, 43.2-5)

 

Comment. Beauty is attractive; and beauty, if distorted by being taken in isolation from truth and goodness, can lead us astray. But if our lives are based on truth—in which the truths of science, philosophy, and spiritual experience cohere—and are stabilized by goodness, then our enjoyment is cosmically balanced.

 

The beauty of truth

 

2:7.6 (42.7) Intellectual self-consciousness can discover the beauty of truth, its spiritual quality, not only by the philosophic consistency of its concepts, but more certainly and surely by the unerring response of the ever-present Spirit of Truth. Happiness ensues from the recognition of truth because it can be acted out; it can be lived. Disappointment and sorrow attend upon error because, not being a reality, it cannot be realized in experience. Divine truth is best known by its spiritual flavor.

 

Questions. Do you sometimes experience the beauty of truth? When you read some wonderful teaching in The Urantia Book, do you sometimes feel that is cool or awesome or amazing or . . . beautiful? Can you sometimes read the same passage and not feel that dimension? What makes the difference between those times when the beauty of truth is felt and when it is not felt?

 

When you are living at your best, what is it like? Can you identify with the phrase, “walking in beauty”? What do you think about the Navaho prayer-poem, found in Living in Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, p. 96 (see also p. 145)?

 

What are your favorite settings in nature? What makes them special?

 

The authors take note of scenic beauty—and its absence.

 

380,000,000 years ago Asia was subsiding, and all other continents were experiencing a short-lived emergence. But as this epoch progressed, the newly appearing Atlantic Ocean made extensive inroads on all adjacent coast lines. The northern Atlantic or Arctic seas were then connected with the southern Gulf waters. When this southern sea entered the Appalachian trough, its waves broke upon the east against mountains as high as the Alps, but in general the continents were uninteresting lowlands, utterly devoid of scenic beauty. (59:1, 673.8)

 

Note that Rodan recommends what Jesus actually practiced.

 

Train your memory to hold in sacred trust the strength-giving and worth-while episodes of life, which you can recall at will for your pleasure and edification. Thus build up for yourself and in yourself reserve galleries of beauty, goodness, and artistic grandeur. (160:4, 1779.4)

 

Now remember Jesus in Gethsemane.

 

In this great sorrow his mind went back to the days of his childhood in Nazareth and to his early work in Galilee. At the time of this great trial there came up in his mind many of those pleasant scenes of his earthly ministry. And it was from these old memories of Nazareth, Capernaum, Mount Hermon, and of the sunrise and sunset on the shimmering Sea of Galilee, that he soothed himself as he made his human heart strong and ready to encounter the traitor who should so soon betray him. (182:3, 1969.5)

 

 

The expressiveness of nature

123:5.14 (1364.2) When they did not climb the heights to view the distant landscape, they strolled through the countryside and studied nature in her various moods in accordance with the seasons. Jesus’ earliest training, aside from that of the home hearth, had to do with a reverent and sympathetic contact with nature.

Questions. What are the moods of nature? Think of storms and their impact on human welfare. Are there lessons for us in this acceptance of nature’s moods? Does John Muir exemplify an inspired response? How might someone from another culture express a comparably effective openness to the moods of nature?

Comment on the meaning of “reverent and sympathetic contact with nature.” How does reverent contact with nature differ from nature worship? What difference does it make to our appreciation of the beauties of nature that we are in a time of environmental crisis?

4:2.8 (57.5) And nature is marred, her beautiful face is scarred, her features are seared, by the rebellion, the misconduct, the misthinking of the myriads of creatures who are a part of nature, but who have contributed to her disfigurement in time.

 

 

41:6.4 (462.2) Calcium is an active and versatile element at solar temperatures. The stone atom has two agile and loosely attached electrons in the two outer electronic circuits, which are very close together. Early in the atomic struggle it loses its outer electron; whereupon it engages in a masterful act of juggling the nineteenth electron back and forth between the nineteenth and twentieth circuits of electronic revolution. By tossing this nineteenth electron back and forth between its own orbit and that of its lost companion more than twenty-five thousand times a second, a mutilated stone atom is able partially to defy gravity and thus successfully to ride the emerging streams of light and energy, the sunbeams, to liberty and adventure. This calcium atom moves outward by alternate jerks of forward propulsion, grasping and letting go the sunbeam about twenty-five thousand times each second. And this is why stone is the chief component of the worlds of space. Calcium is the most expert solar-prison escaper.

 

The stars in their courses are now doing battle for [us] . . . . (101:10, 1117.3)

 

Question. In what sense is this statement meaningful? You may find the first paragraph onLTBG p. 112 helpful in developing your response.

 

“My friend, arise! Stand up like a man! You may be surrounded with small enemies and be retarded by many obstacles, but the big things and the real things of this world and the universe are on your side. The sun rises every morning to salute youjust as it does the most powerful and prosperous man on earth. Look—you have a strong body and powerful muscles–your physical equipment is better than the average. (130:6, 1437.3)

 

In what way is this affirmation meaningful?

 

The road now led immediately down into the tropical Jordan valley, and soon Jesus was to have exposed to his wondering gaze the crooked and ever-winding Jordan with its glistening and rippling waters as it flowed down toward the Dead Sea. They laid aside their outer garments as they journeyed south in this tropical valley, enjoying the luxurious fields of grain and the beautiful oleanders laden with their pink blossoms, while massive snow-capped Mount Hermon stood far to the north, in majesty looking down on the historic valley. A little over three hours’ travel from opposite Scythopolis they came upon a bubbling spring, and here they camped for the night, out under the starlit heavens. (124:6, 1374.5)

 

The intellectual discovery of harmony in nature

From the culminating section, “Truth, Beauty, and Goodness,” in the culminating paper of Part II, Universal Unity (56:10/646-48), come the following quotes (with italics added), designed to highlight the theme of harmony.

The pursuit of beauty—cosmology—you all too often limit to the study of man’s crude artistic endeavors. Beauty, art, is largely a matter of the unification of contrasts. Variety is essential to the concept of beauty.

Highest beauty consists in the panorama of the unification of the variations which have been born of pre-existent harmonious reality.

The attainment of cosmologic levels of thought includes:

1. Curiosity. Hunger for harmony and thirst for beauty. Persistent attempts to discover new levels of harmonious cosmic relationships.

. . .

Universal beauty embraces the harmonious relations and rhythms of the cosmic creation; this is more distinctly the intellectual appeal and leads towards unified and synchronous comprehension of the material universe.

. . .

The existence of beauty implies the presence of appreciative creature mind just as certainly as the fact of progressive evolution indicates the dominance of the Supreme Mind. Beauty is the intellectual recognition of the harmonious time-space synthesis of the far-flung diversification of phenomenal reality, all of which stems from pre-existent and eternal oneness.

 

Question. Go outside and find an example of a phenomenon in nature that you find to be beautiful. Describe the variety that you find to be harmonious. Note how John Muir does so in this example, describing Yosemite Valley with its granite walls and waterfalls: “rocky strength and permanence combined with beauty of plants frail and fine and evanescent; water descending in thunder, and the same water gliding through meadows and groves in gentlest beauty” (p. 105; this entire section of LTBGleads you from simple and obvious harmonies into more complex and difficult harmonies). If you want to take your experience of the beauties of nature to the next level, overcome resistance to the difficulty of the new intellectual challenge and break through.

Now you are ready for the quote about the Supreme that functions as the transition to the next section.

Appreciation of beauty as divine

The Supreme is the beauty of physical harmony, the truth of intellectual meaning, and the goodness of spiritual value. He is the sweetness of true success and the joy of everlasting achievement.  (117:1, 1278.5)

Focusing on the first part of this sentence, we begin our comprehension with the last phrase, “physical harmony.” After the exercise you have just done, combined with the reading in LTBG, you have an intuitive feel for what that phrase means. Bring that intuition to clarity. That is the foundation of your comprehension. Now add in the preceding phrase, which now reads: “the beauty of physical harmony.” This expanded phrase carries an implication (I think—smile!): That beauty itself is something more than harmony. To grasp the beauty of physical harmony takes an additional effort, abiding in the experience of harmony and waiting for the experience of beauty itself to dawn. This is a receptive, perhaps prayerful, time of peacefulness. You cannot hurry this realization. Finally, you are ready for the revelatory announcement: that beauty which has dawned upon your recognition of (physical) harmony is, in fact, the Supreme!

If you actually go forth into the prescribed course of experience, do the intellectual work, take the time to allow the dawning of the realization of beauty, and then savor the impact of the revelation of the Supreme, you are a member of an elite. Many other students of The Urantia Book have been led to these waters and refused to drink. It is so much quicker and easier to read than to tackle this project and grow.

We now pick up the series ofquotes return to this last segment

 

56:10.2 (646.3) Throughout this glorious age [of light and life] the chief pursuit of the ever-advancing mortals is the quest for a better understanding and a fuller realization of the comprehensible elements of Deity — truth, beauty, and goodness. This represents man’s effort to discern God in mind, matter, and spirit. And as the mortal pursues this quest, he finds himself increasingly absorbed in the experiential study of philosophy, cosmology, and divinity.

 

 

Universal beauty is the recognition of the reflection of the Isle of Paradise in the material creation . . . .

Physical matter is the time-space shadow of the Paradise energy-shining of the absolute Deities.  (56:10)

 

Universal beauty is the recognition of the reflection of the Isle of Paradise in the material creation, while eternal truth is the special ministry of the Paradise Sons who not only bestow themselves upon the mortal races but even pour out their Spirit of Truth upon all peoples. Divine goodness is more fully shown forth in the loving ministry of the manifold personalities of the Infinite Spirit.

 

Physical matter is the time-space shadow of the Paradise energy-shining of the absolute Deities.  (56:10)

 

Spirituality enhances the ability to discover beauty in things, recognize truth in meanings, and discover goodness in values. (100:2, 1096.1)

 

 

A Note about the Concept of Beauty and the Use of Language

 

Notice that the term beauty is not always used when there is a specific type of beauty that has its own proper adjective. For example, notice the term “comely,” which refers to physical attractiveness as a feature of persons. This is one way in which beauty is specified. The authors do not say that Jesus was (physically) beautiful.

 

This year he attained his full physical growth. He was a virile and comely youth. (127:1, 1395.6)

 

127:4.8 (1402.1) Baby Ruth . . . was a beautiful child but not quite socomely as Miriam, who was the belle of the family, if not of the city.

 

“Belle” is the feminine form of the French adjective that means beautiful.