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LETTER XXXV
THE BEAUTIFUL BEING
Yes, I have seen angels, if by angels
you mean spiritual beings who have never dwelt as men upon the earth
As a man is to a rock, so is an angel to a man in
vividness of life. If we ever experienced that state of etheric joy, we have
lost it through long association with matter. Can we ever regain it? Perhaps.
The event is in our hand.
Shall I tell you of one whom I call the Beautiful
Being? If it has a name in heaven, I have not heard it. Is the Beautiful Being
man or woman? Sometimes it seems to be one, sometimes the other. There is a
mystery here which I cannot fathom.
One night I seemed to be reclining upon a moonbeam,
which means that the poet which dwells in all men was awake in me. I seemed to
be reclining upon a moonbeam, and ecstasy filled my heart. For the moment I had
escaped the clutches of Time, and was living in that etheric quietude which is
merely the activity of rapture raised to the last degree. I must have been
enjoying a foretaste of that paradoxical state which the wise ones of the East
call Nirvana.
I was vividly conscious of the moonbeam and of myself,
and in myself seemed to be everything else in the universe. It was the nearest I
ever came to a realisation of that supreme declaration, “I am.”
The past and the future seemed equally present in the
moment. Had a voice whispered that it was yesterday, I should have acquiesced in
the assertion; had I been told that it was a million years hence, I should have
been also assentive. But whether it was really yesterday or a million years
hence mattered not in the least. Perhaps the Beautiful Being only comes to those
for whom the moment and eternity are one. I heard a voice say:
“Brother, it is I.”
There was no question in my mind as to who had spoken.
“It is I” can only be uttered in such a voice by one whose individuality is so
vast as to be almost universal, one who has dipped in the ocean of the All, yet
who knows the minute by reason of its own inclusiveness.
Standing before me was the Beautiful Being, radiant
in its own light. Had it been less lovely I might have gasped with wonder; but
the very perfection of its form and presence diffused an atmosphere of calm. I
marvelled not, because the state of my consciousness was marvel. I was lifted so
far above the commonplace that I had no standard by which to measure the
experience of that moment.
Imagine youth immortalised, the fleeting made eternal.
Imagine the bloom of a child’s face and the eyes of the ages of knowledge.
Imagine the brilliancy of a thousand lives concentrated in those eyes, and the
smile upon the lips of a love so pure that it asks no answering love from those
it smiles upon.
But the language of earth cannot describe the
unearthly, nor could the understanding of a man grasp in a moment those joys
which the Beautiful Being revealed to me in that hour of supreme life. For the
possibilities of existence have been widened for me, the meanings of the soul
have deepened. Those who behold the Beautiful Being are never the same again as
they were before. They may forget for a time, and lose in the business of living
the magic of that presence; but whenever they do remember, they are caught up
again on the wings of the former rapture.
It may happen to one who is living upon the earth;
it may happen to one in the spaces between the stars; but the experience must be
the same when it comes to all; for only to one in the state in which it dwells
could the Beautiful Being reveal itself at all.
A SONG OF THE BEAUTIFUL BEING
When you hear a rustling in the air, listen again: there
may be something there.
When you feel a warmth mysterious and lovely in the
heart, there may be something there,
something
sent to you from a warm and lovely source.
When a joy unknown fills your being, and your soul
goes out, out … toward some loved mystery,
you
know not where, know that the mystery
itself is
reaching toward you with warm and loving,
though
invisible, arms.
We who live in the invisible are not invisible to each
other.
There are tender colours here and exquisite forms, and
the eye gloats on beauty never seen upon
the earth.
Oh, the joy of simple life to be, and to sing in your soul
all day as the bird sings to its mate!
For you are singing to your mate whenever your soul
sings.
Did you fancy it was only the spring-time that thrilled
you and moved you to listen to the rustling
of
wings?
The spring-time of the heart is all time, and the autumn
may never come.
Listen! When the lark
sings, he sings to you. When
the waters sing, they sing to you.
And as your heart rejoices, there is always another heart
somewhere that responds; and the soul of
the lis-
tening heavens grows glad with the mother
joy.
I am glad to be here, I am glad to be there. There is
beauty wherever I go.
Can you guess the reason, children of earth?
Come out and play with me in the daisy fields of space.
I will wait for you at the corner where the
four
winds meet.
You will not lose your way, if you follow the gleam at
the end of the garden of hope.
There is music also beyond the roar of the earth as it
swishes through space:
There is music in keys unknown to the duller ears of
the earth, and harmonics whose chords are
souls
attuned to each other.
Listen…. Do you hear them?
Oh, the ears are made for hearing, and the eyes are
made for seeing, and the heart is made for
loving!
The hours go by and leave no mark, and the years are
as sylphs that dance on the air and leave
no foot-
prints, and the centuries march solemn and
slow.
But we smile, for joy is also in the solemn tread of the
centuries.
Joy, joy everywhere. It is for you and for me, and for
you as much as for me.
Will you meet me out where the four winds meet?
LETTER XXXVI
LETTER
XXXIV |
