Within each us is our soul, which is divine. But this inner divine soul is so often unnoticed, unrealized, and unexpressed. For many people their inner soul is hidden in the darkness of their unconscious. Their soul has not yet emerged into realization, nor expression. Probably for most people this is true, even for spiritual aspirants.
Jesus was a great teacher of the soul within, the divine spark and divine seed that is within and usually hidden. Jesus taught that within each person, no matter who they were and even no matter what sins they may have produced, they have a divine soul within. The Divine is within each person. Where is the Kingdom of God? It is within you.
But this soul of ours, this divine soul within us, must come out from its present unknown-ness and into knownness. We need to let our inner soul emerge into consciousness and then into expression.
Our divine soul is our seed from God. So in this seed is God, or shall we say the possibility of God, the God potential. We are not saying here that any person is God, but just saying that any person has the God-potential within. This is the God-potential for being a Knowing Consciousness, for being an All-Compassionate Love, for being a Creative Artist in life, and for bringing Goodness and Beauty into the world.
Our soul is an inner light within us, but at first notice this soul-light is rather dim. Though really, the light of our soul is simply obscured. It is obscured by the many layers of clouds - the clouds of our personality moods and our conditioned thinking. So our soul is a light within us, yet ironically it is very often resting in the dark, in the darkness of our neglect and uninterest. But if we look in that inner direction, looking into our self with interest and inquiry, our soul will begin to emerge from the depths of our being, those depths which seem so dark but, in fact, have so much light to be revealed.
So unveil your soul which is hiding in the depths of your being. Well, really it is not hiding at all. We are hiding it. Our soul really wants to emerge and come out to be fully expressive. Our divine and beautiful soul wants to dance in us, and through us, and dance in the world. Our soul wants to sing and dance and be all it can be.
Let your light shine. Let your soul shine. This is the teaching of Jesus. Let the light of your soul come out. Let your inner beauty shine out. The light within us is beautiful. This is our soul light, our soul beauty, and this needs to come out into expression. It needs to come out of the closet, out of the cave, out of hiding. It needs to come out of latency and into actuality.
Your soul is light and beauty. The light of our inner soul is beautiful. This is our inner beauty. Beauty is quite difficult to describe or define. It appears to be one of the mysteries of life. But it does have something to do with light.
We each know very deeply that we are really a light that could come out to be expressed and seen, and we know that we really do have an inner beauty, even if this is way down deep and not always expressed. We each know this secretly, but it would be embarrassing to talk about it, or maybe we fear that others will think we are egotistical - if they knew that we really believed in our own inner light and beauty. But be proud of your inner light and beauty, and then let it out. The people we admire do this. The creative artists and musicians do this. They let out and express and share the beauty that is within them, or maybe it's the truth within, or maybe its the goodness within. For truth and goodness are also important qualities of the soul light. So is intelligence and also love. All of these qualities are parts of our inner beauty.
Another important quality of our inner beauty is radiance - or we should say the possible radiance of our soul, our light, our beauty. For really, it is this possible radiance that wishes to come out. It longs to come out. It needs to come out. So all of this needs to be considered, because it is essentially about you. It is about your light, your inner beauty, your inner soul becoming radiantly expressive and manifest. May all of this become real for you; but you have to make it real.
What can happen is that the light and beauty of our inner soul radiates into all three dimensions of our personal self. These three dimensions are the mental, emotional, and physical.
Thus, the light of our soul can radiate into our mind and thoughts, bringing greater light and beauty into our thinking and higher spiritual ideas into our mind. This light of the soul is the key to having greater spiritual intuition; for the soul brings spiritual intuition into the faculty of mind.
Second, the light of our soul can radiate into our emotional being, bringing greater light and beauty into our emotions, uplifting our emotions to higher vibrations and higher qualities. Then, our emotional experience in life and with others becomes more filled with beauty, with joy, and with love.
Third, the light of our soul can radiate into our physical body, bringing purification, strength and healing to the physical body. Remember that our inner soul only wants health for the body; our soul wants a healthy body to experience life with. Sickness comes from faults in the world and from errant energies of the outer world. In contrast, our inner soul radiates and brings light energy into the physical body; it brings us strength and healing. It brings us good health and protects us.
Now let us add one more dimension to this. The above discussion focused a lot on our inner beauty emerging out and into radiance, and how our inner soul can radiate into all parts of our personal self and then into the world around us. Yet there is also beauty in repose and quietude. There is also beauty in just being, or in just being inward and in the peace of one's inner being. So our inner light does not always have to be outwardly radiant and manifestly expressive. It is wonderful to be radiantly bright and expressively joyful in the world, being a bright light that uplifts others around us. But there are also times to be more inward and quiet in our light, to just be in the light of our inner soul, being consciously at peace and resting in our inner beauty. This quietude and repose, within our own being, is also important. So our inner light does not have to be bursting out into the world at every moment. There are times to be just inwardly quiet and in the peace of our inner being.
Beauty gives us delight
and joy, and it uplifts our emotions to a higher resonance. Real
beauty has this power. Beauty can come from within us, but of course
beauty can also be experienced in the world around us, especially in
the natural world. Beauty experienced in the outer world nourishes our soul. So, inner beauty comes from our
soul, yet outer beauty nourishes our soul.
Maybe this is because our soul recognizes beauty. Imagine for example, a beautiful rose, or imagine anything beautiful, or any beautiful experience. Maybe our soul recognizes this beauty because it too is beauty. Maybe it recognizes beauty because it and the seen beauty are both gifts from the Beauty of God. Maybe it is because any outer form or expression of beauty uplifts one's emotions to a higher resonance - which then awakens our soul and gets our soul singing with this beauty. Maybe, when we perceive and feel beauty, it is because our inner soul is feeling a beauty-resonance with this. Maybe our inner soul comes more alive and resonating when in the conscious presence of beauty. Maybe, very simply, the power of beauty nourishes our soul, awakens our soul, and inspires our soul to express its own unique beauty.
considering what beauty is and how it is known
Many claim this or that to be beautiful; but the real test of anything having beauty is if it gives us delight and joy, and uplifts our emotions to a higher resonance. If something does not do this, or worse, if the opposite occurs, then it has no beauty. The same goes with people, their qualities and actions. If we do not experience any delight or joy or emotional upliftment, then beauty is not there.
This does, of course, sound like a subjective sense of beauty, dependent on one's own emotional reaction; yet we can only trust our own self to discern what is beautiful or not. Thus, we have to trust our own sense of beauty, our own feel for it, our own experience of it; otherwise, we would merely be left to believe others or some fixed definition of what beauty is, or of what is beautiful. Therefore, our knowing of what is beautiful depends on our subjective experience of how we are actually affected. So the degree of beauty (in something, someone, or in an activity or event) is known by how much joy, delight, and emotional upliftment is evoked in us; and according to this, we are grateful for that particular manifestation of beauty.
Yet since our knowing and experience of beauty depends on our emotional response of joy, delight and upliftment; we need to be ready and open for this to occur. For instance, one will not likely experience any emotional upliftment or joy, if one is stuck in a gloomy mood or if closed down emotionally, even when in the presence of extreme beauty. So the very possibility of experiencing any degree of beauty depends a lot on our emotional readiness and openness. Thus, we need to have a favorable aesthetic attitude, in order for beauty to 'reach us' and evoke some joy and delight in us. It's similar to how an experience of love depends on our own receptivity and attitude; for it could be that a person is present with love for me, but I won't feel anything if I'm emotionally shut down and not open to this.
Also, in addition to this needed subjective aesthetic attitude, one also needs to have the objective senses open and ready, ...having an actively functioning perceptual capacity. In other words, one's perceptive abilities need to be working well. Simply put, we need to have our eyes open for beauty, in order to create a possibility of actually seeing beauty. Thus, be awake to beauty, then beauty may appear.
Therefore, in order to have experiences of beauty and to discern what is beautiful, one needs a sufficient aesthetic attitude, which includes being very perceptive, open-minded, open-hearted, and open to experiencing joy and delight and of being uplifted. For if any of these attitudinal conditions are missing or are dim, then one's experience of possible beauty is greatly impaired and one's aesthetic judgment is distorted. Thus, by having the best possible aesthetic attitude, as a necessary and favorable pre-condition for experiencing and recognizing beauty, we move away from a restricted and impaired subjectivity, towards a more expansive and open subjectivity. This results in a greater ability of spiritual discernment about what is beautiful. It also increases our experiences of beauty because of our greater degree of perceptual and emotional openness to beauty.