“Beauty will save the world”
– Fyodor Dostoevsky
The above quote by the great Russian novelist may initially seem like an idealistic lie, as beauty may surround us from time to time, but suffering continues its vicious cycle. However, this quote deeply resonates with the gravity of experiencing Europe’s sacred art and cathedrals, which can capture our attention like a lightning bolt of divinity. When you see the grandeur of objective beauty that radiates and humbles oneself, you can never perceive the world in the same manner. True beauty as a virtue helps us understand the other two virtues, goodness and truth, without overly intellectualizing and understanding through a more intuitive sense that there is a mysterious quality in our place in the cosmos, where we carry a spark of divinity. We also see beauty interwoven in nature’s simplicity (see the section regarding sacred geometry).
Relativism and Modernity
The ideological fads of today, which incorporate the mind as being solely a tabla rasa (a blank slate), as John Locke described, have had and do have consequences on how people grasp objective qualities. For example, to understand this statement, consider the reality of embodying a virtue such as courage, which has objective qualities. Relativism can impact the ability to personify courage. Therefore, encountering courage becomes improbable and, in the subject of beauty, impossible.
Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Reflect on the description of Plato’s allegory of the cave in The Republic, where the psychologically unconscious (in Jungian terms) prisoners are heavily chained in a cave facing a wall, seeing and experiencing the so-called grand shadows and echoes, believing this is actual reality. However, if they left the dim cave and came in contact with the sun’s bright rays, it would be so intense that the sight of ‘truth’ would appear false compared to the ‘real’ shadows and ‘echoes’ of the cave.
How does Plato’s allegory link to relativism, modernity, and beauty?
Well, consider how some people unconsciously remain chained in their modern paradigm of relativism. Even though some may claim truth is subjective (a contradiction). When beauty strikes a man’s mind, heart, and soul at the most profound level, it may become too bright, like the rays of the staggering sun in the cave allegory, resulting in a turning away rather than confronting the depth of truth related to existence and beauty.
Fear and Beauty
Cliched, but realising how small you are in this vast planet, not forgetting the grand abyss of the universe, can be daunting, if not bring existential dread to one’s soul. Now, also integrate that experience when you perceive a beautiful object. The more you enter into a reciprocal mystical dialogue with the world and its elements, the more you can perceive and the more the layers of a hypothetical object can reveal themselves to you. This allows perception of the transcendent beyond the artifact or the natural environment. It takes a certain level of awareness and wisdom to be more sensitive to this unfolding, but paradoxically, this encounter can overwhelm you relatively quickly.
Now, picture two scenes from Exodus in the Old Testament. First, the creation of The Golden Calf, the idol, which deviated the Jewish attention from the highest truth – God. This idolization can distort beauty by becoming a distraction, while true beauty in artwork and sacred architecture allows you to connect, perceive the layers, and see beyond them to gain access to something more profound, more transcendental than simply the object itself. Secondly, in the scene of The Shining Face of Moses, Aaron and the people were afraid to come near Moses; this, in essence, is how actual beauty functions, a thin rope between fear and beauty. When you perceive sacred art in its holy cathedrals and visibly engage with it, there is an intuitive sense that the art speaks of a profound truth, yet we are so finite that we are incapable of totally grasping what it means.
Beauty Is The Master
Iain Mcgilchrist, in one of his influential books: “The Master and his Emissary”, describes, through neuroscientific research and analysis, the subtle and complex nature of differences within the brain’s two hemispheres. The in-depth work by Iain goes beyond pop psychology caricatures of hemispheric differences and into more complex systematic wholes and then into how the divided brain has shaped various cultures and their civilizations throughout history, for better or worse. The relation to beauty is that the right hemisphere can view the gestalt, which is paying attention to the whole picture without needing to know and break it up into little parts in our attempt to understand from a black-and-white sense. When viewing beauty, you gain access to the capacity to see the whole, and this is where beauty strikes beyond the intellect, where the left-hemispheric part of the brain if it becomes the ‘master’, over-analyses the parts and diminishes beauty.
However, beauty is also nuanced. It’s not one vs the other, but rather, both truths that co-exist, so not as a contradiction, but a union of opposites and the reality of the ‘paradox’. So even within the brain structure, the dynamic union of both the right and left hemispheric parts of the brain, when brought in harmony, can help modulate our attention in a manner that enables us to see a clearer but also a fuller depiction of reality simultaneously. The right hemisphere can be the lightning bolt of divinity, the lightning path, but only if you pay attention to the beautiful world that grants the rite of passage to the right hemisphere engagement. The left hemisphere then can allow a more detailed revelation, the scholastic path, which, for some, they remain stuck in this way of viewing the world, and this is where rigid dogma can infect the pursuit of viewing the whole picture. However, if the whole picture can be seen again, the left hemispheric form of attention is synthesized back to the purview of the right hemisphere, offering the capacity to move beyond worshipping the object itself, but only if the conditions to connect with something loftier are open internally.
Seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Sacred Geometry
Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
The universality and timeless nature of artifacts across cultures and eras imply an inner-felt connection with the cosmos. These cosmic principles are perceived as projections of the grand universe by envisioning the patterns laced throughout nature in its variety of seasons and life spans. You can think of the famous “golden ratio” associated with the longitudinal section through the shell of the Nautilus and how it has been critical for aesthetics and an expression of divinity. You can also think of honeycomb shapes which have been extrapolated and used in sacred spaces such as the Mustansiriya Madrasah in Baghdad.
Why are these intricate patterns seen as beautiful?
The virtue of Beauty is associated with this unconscious drive to seek order and connection with divinity (perfection) and the cosmos. It also offers us glimpses into the divine through sacred spaces, which are used in the world’s religions and spiritual traditions. These patterns include mathematical properties and abstract truths that allow us to use, project, and create material manifestations. So, these are all cosmic hints to the unwinding of the abyss of the universe.
What About The Ugly?
So, if there is something such as objective beauty, is there objective ugliness? Of course, this is not a superficial statement but a question of profound symbolic, spiritual, and psychological importance.
Lucifer
The brightest among the angels, the light bringer, was devoid of love and a flaming sword for justice. He brought hate and a spirit of vengeance, revealed complex chaos, and deified himself above the universal creator, God. His ugliness became apparent, and he descended into the dark depths of the underworld—Hell. He continues to warp souls by manipulating external beauty, bringing more lost souls into the abyss of Hades.
Be careful—As I suggested, external beauty has an objective quality, but the truest form of beauty orientates itself towards the highest good. Like any tool in life, it’s your intention behind an action. Do not let your pride or ego prevent you from seeing this truth.
So, Can Beauty Save The World?
It’s the tendering, growth, and high cultivation of the triadic unification of mind, body, and soul. You will beam beauty into the world and seek true beauty in that answer. Bondage to desire leads you to the realm of sin and the realm of the fiery underworld. The redirection of desire to the highest good and detachment of desire are antidotes against evil. Identifying what you can’t control and remaining a victim is also a road to ugliness. Rise beyond the victim mentality, and realise you should aim up in life. As imperfect human beings, we will trip and sin. However, we also strive towards perfection in a way that makes us divine, as seen by the unconscious drive towards creating and being in sacred spaces.
In its holy architecture, beauty reflects the cosmos and the quality of man’s soul. As modern man craves the sacred and the beautiful, we need to ensure the quality of our hearts is in the right place. Beauty will save the world, but only in the most profound sense, oriented to the highest good.
The meek shall inherit the earth.
