In the context of the material world being a facsimile of the spiritual world
The worlds of God are in perfect harmony and correspondence one with another. Each world in this limitless universe is, as it were, a mirror reflecting the history and nature of all the rest. The physical universe is, likewise, in perfect correspondence with the spiritual or divine realm. The world of matter is an outer expression or facsimile of the inner kingdom of spirit. The world of minds corresponds with the world of hearts.
(Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 270)
i find myself wondering – what is the function of beauty? Especially, to what degree and in what way does what we as a humanity find beautiful reflect the progress of our development? What does it tell us about our spiritual senses? How precise is this correspondence? Does the reflection of beauty in the physical world correlate to some specific or non-specific quality in the spiritual world? Or is this correlation only there to let us understand the virtue of attraction to beauty, to give us a metaphor for the natural attraction our souls have to the Ancient Beauty? Does the manifestation of that virtue apply only to spiritual beauty, or is it also somehow a sign of spiritual advancement to be attracted to the flower or the fine art or the genetic masterpiece? As the increased mixing of races leads to more and more beautiful human beings, is there something to be understood from that about the unity of mankind? It certainly says something that beauty plays such an important role in the evaluation of things created by artists and that that creation seems to be one of the closest things to revelation a mere mortal might experience. Can evaluating what we are attracted to and where we see beauty give us clues as to how our own spiritual development is coming along? Would an effort to consciously reshape one’s conception of beauty have a correlative effect on one’s soul? As an aspect of material existence that causes so much consternation and confusion, i’d sure be interestedto know- what is it for?
