"Its Beauty Is Immense”

This was one of the descriptions that the ancients used to describe the Soul that resides in each one of us. That Divine Aspect that connects us directly to our Creator. Some refer to it as Soul and some as Spirit.

To reach this Divine Aspect, that is the direct link within ourselves, the ancient philosophers shared that we must rise up to a higher vibration which is reached with even the simple concept that ‘we know better than we do.” When one has the feeling that “we do not yet possess ourselves.”

Although many spiritual systems require long or intensive physical and mental regimes to reach enlightenment, there was another system that was used by some ancient teachers that took another approach.

This approach did not require a castigation of self and a constant questioning of why a particular action was taken. This approach was an offering of the earth-ego to work in conjunction with the more Divine Aspect that is within.

The Divine Aspect that is a wiser, loving, friend and teacher that we all possess, or we might more accurately say that we are within.

When you have the concept that we are here in the schoolroom to learn and that our Teacher is within and without, and you understand that “every sound that is spoken over the round world which you should hear, will vibrate in your ear,” you are becoming more in resonance with your Divine Aspect and Teacher.

“Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to you for your aid or comfort, shall surely come home though open or winding passages.”

When you are open and aligned with your Teacher within; every friend that should be a part of your life “shall lock thee in his embrace.”

When we raise from our personal ego-self, to follow our internal Teacher, and recognize that the heart within ourselves is the heart within all, when we understand that there is not “a vale, not a wall, not an intersection anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all people, as the water of the globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one, then we understand we are all One.

All things are sacred, all people are sacred and rather than just creating little shreds and patches as we go through life, we begin to live in a divine unity and understand that we are a thread in the total tapestry of life.

Emerson said, “The heart, which abandons itself to the Supreme Mind residing within finds itself related to all its works, and will travel a royal road to particular knowledge and powers…”

An aspect of the Creator is in your very being. That which you need is yours NOW, if you could raise yourself to the recognition of your true relationship to your internal Teacher.

The beauty that is your ‘Higher Self’ is immense. You align yourself to this higher aspect within when you have a heart that gives love and is open to receive love.

When you remember throughout the day that your inner Teacher has placed you within your activities to learn, and when you acknowledge this Divine Presence throughout the day and many times during the day, you bring your you have a greater understanding of life and why you are confronting particular people and situations.

Your Inner Teacher does not leave you alone and does not give you more than you can handle. Your Teacher instructs, supports and loves you.

When you listen, your Inner Teacher provides you a higher perspective of what is taking place along with the most spiritual approach to a situation.

Every religion and philosophy speaks of this higher aspect within us and how it supports, enhances, protects and guides us when we are open to its Presence within ourselves.

You don’t earn this Teacher nor do you have to join a group or follow any particular teachings to have access to this Divine Presence. You only need to raise yourself to the recognition of your true relationship with your Divine Self.

I used several terms to describe this inner source so that you will find the one that is most comfortable and resonates with you.

To inspire and empower. With love, in love and through love.

The One, The Beautiful and the Good

The Platonic Triad of the past was used to remind individuals that there is more to life than just the collection of ‘things.’

The One referred to the substance of all natures and being is the essence of the Creator. The Beautiful referred to the perfection of all natures and being, their rising to their highest and best. The Good referred to the proper utility of all natures and being.

Plotinus declared that the most worthy profession is the service of the beautiful and the destruction of beauty was the most heinous of all crimes.

The ancient Greeks emphasized the necessity of esthetics and established reference to the beautiful as one of the pillars of the State.

“In addition to the beauty of form, we have beauty of sound, which is harmony; beauty of mode or tempo which is rhythm; beauty of morality which is virtue; beauty of mind, which is intellect; and beauty of spirit, which is the ultimate good.”

We say people must eat in order to have the physical live. Not only do we need physical food, but there is a spiritual nature within us which must be fed with a superior diet for its highest and best development.

Sitting in a building one day a week and repeating words that have lost their energy might just be akin to taking in GMO foods. It is not about talking, it is about living and acting the philosophy behind the words.

The soul is fed through your eyes and other senses. The soul is fed through your thoughts. Incongruity regarding what you know is right and how you are acting causes the soul within to suffer. Those things that are grotesque and distorted are a poison to the soul.

He who surrounds himself with beauty nourishes his esthetic nature and will reach his highest spiritual potential. Beauty is essential to human survival and without its influence, people steadily deteriorate ‘into a state of crassness and degradation.’

Whoever reads the lives of the ancient giants of philosophy will be convinced that they studied things more than words, they looked to participate in a wisdom that included the understanding that a higher essence was contained in our physical vehicle.

The fears, hates and worries of people show that they have an undirected and bottled up emotional energy. When people involve themselves in esthetics they give a healthier channel to the impulses of their nature. When one is truly dedicated to the beautiful they will not fail to develop an inward grace.

“Nearly all human beings are in some way emotionally inhibited. Those inhibitions often break out in unbeautiful action and thought. These periodic outburst usually are attended by unfortunate consequences.

It was the profound writings of Ficino, during the Renaissance, that stated the fact that beauty generates love. The Divine Beauty created by God and placed within nature and all creatures allows them to recognize the Beauty without. When you allow yourself to recognize the Beauty without, you stimulate and generate the aspects of love because beauty looks to reunite with beauty.

The ancient writers said, “Love arises, then, from beauty holding to itself and yet going out from itself and finally returning to itself. So the generating aspect of love, seeks its final rest in its source, beauty.
Beauty holds to itself because it is the splendor of the Divine Goodness, and Goodness cannot ever become other than itself.”

Although 2300 years have passed since Plato’s Symposium on Love, it still stands as a high point of philosophical value. The love of a single form of beauty is then deepened into an impersonal love of all beautiful forms. The soul aspires to an appreciation of beautiful laws, institutions and sciences.

“Although specific objects of beauty are still of value, the soul cognizes clearly that they are but relative instances of true beauty. This expansion of consciousness makes one aware that the IDEA OF BEAUTY inherent in the soul is more to be desired than any of its outward expressions.”

“Taking its meaning into itself the soul knows beauty as a universal IDEA and henceforth people are capable of pondering the beauty of reality itself, and ‘Beholding beauty with the eye of mind’ they will be able to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities.”

If you believe in beauty then clap you hand as you read this now. Let this be a reminder that there is something grandeur that rides within our physical vehicle. This something does not carry the babbles of this earth plane on its continuing journey.

Navajo Walk in Beauty…

As I walk with beauty
As I walk as I walk
The universe is walking with me
In beauty it walks before me
In beauty it walks behind me
In beauty it walks below me
In beauty it walks above me
Beauty is on every side
As I walk I walk with beauty.
​
To inspire and empower. With love, in love and through love.

Although in our modern era we equate dream interpretation with the work of Freud and Jung, there is a rich past concerning cultures that held dream interpretation in high regard.

Assyrians, Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks and Romans were all convinced of the significance of the messages in people’s dreams.

Important decisions in the areas of politics, religious quests, economic decisions and personal decisions have rested upon interpretations of dreams. In our modern era inventors have stated they came up with their inventions through dreams and several Nobel Prize winners have said that their prize winning research was assisted through information they received in their dreams

One should always give thanks for the unlimited supply that abounds and that is available for us to receive.

Most of us are bound by the barrier of what we see with our physical eye. The old philosophers taught that one must condition your mind toward the concept of unlimited supply. You must learn to break the barrier of limitation.

You must learn that you have what you want or need; not believe what you think you see. You receive what you see, you have access to all that you want.

Tinkerbell's light is fading, and has almost gone out.

In the wonderful little movie Peter Pan there was the scene where Tinkerbell had been poisoned and her light was going out. Next we heard, clap your hands if you believe in Fairies! Peter Pan was asking us to bring back the light, bring back the energy, and bring back the magic.

We are losing the idea of our own magical abilities, we are forgetting whom we are and what we are capable of manifesting within our world

The ancient philosopher-physicians believed that dis-ease arose from five basic causes.

Sidereal and Astral Causes – Sidereal and astral influences have an effect upon our invisible etheric, astral and magnetic bodies. The ancients believed that rays from the planetary bodies set in motion various rates of vibrations that become diffused through our physical body and cause imbalances or chemical changes.

An ancient philosopher once wrote that a wise person in the midst of a storm prays to God not for safety from danger, but from deliverance from fear. This ancient wise man stated that it is the storm within which endangers him and not the storm without.

Montaigne said, "Look into yourself, discover yourself, keep close to yourself…it is other people and situations that steal you from yourself."

Another philosopher wrote that a "person looks upon himself as a mere circumstance and not as the solid, adamant, mundane ground plan of the real universal person that resides within." Could it be what several of the ancient philosophers stated, "The experiment of the philosopher is that life is but a separation from a higher reality meant to bring within his optics the comprehension of a fact that a greater self resides within."

A philosopher from the past made the bold statement that ‘every person knows all that Plato and other philosophers can teach them.’ ‘Each of us is already that which the great philosopher’s teach and we are even more profound than what the philosophers intimate.’

An old teacher made the statement regarding some people he had met, “there was only a few times that a spark passed out of them, yet they exist as a flint, while they should be a sun.’

Some of the ancient, mystical-medical-philosophers, assumed that health was the normal state of people. They realized that the way of health was the way of nature and actions and activities that conflicted with nature destroyed health. No matter how strong or powerful a person might be, one must keep the laws of nature and the universe. The wise ones of the past realized that no person could break these laws and still flourish in perfect health.

It became clear to the old wise philosophers that as people became more engrossed with the lore of the accomplishments of mankind and began leaning on people-made ways, people broke faith with nature and with that, they broke faith with Health.

Several hundred years ago, philosopher-physicians made some wonderful observations of the world around them. A few of the great Renaissance thinkers were alone in their thoughts and some faced harsh criticism for their beliefs.

Great discoveries were made by these profound philosopher-physicians due to the fact that they functioned according to their own light and were not influenced by the opinions of those about them. Paracelsus, as a professor in the University of Basel, burned several textbooks saying, “This is what I think of precedent.” Paracelsus stated that the world might be better off with some of the medical books in the fire because the authors were not qualified to teach and their works were pedantic, or characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for academic knowledge and formal rules rather than the truth.

The ancients believed that the person who could achieve a quietude within his consciousness was best equipped to resist any and all incidents and accidents that might enter his life. They believed that the reason that most people have not been able to reach a sufficient level of awareness is due to neglect.

Neglect can come as a result of ignorance, indifference or a lack of will power. One story that has come down through time regarding Plato is that he had received a piece of land to establish his academy that was a swamp and very unhealthy. He had only been at the property a short time when he became sick with a fever and his disciples were afraid that he must leave the land and find a better area for the academy.

When we look at some of the ancient disciplines practiced thousands of years ago we must realize some basic differences between schools of learning then and now.

Many of the ancient philosophical schools looked upon knowledge as a way of life. One of the more profound ancient schools was the Pythagorean School at Crotona. Individuals were instructed and conditioned on how to ‘live well.’ In our modern schools the emphasis on education deals with learning facts, figures, ideas and concepts, but there is not sufficient time spent on how to ‘live well.’

The ancient Greeks had a statement, “The gods on high Olympus laughed.” Humor has been underrated in today’s society because some people are quick to point out that the seriousness in virtually every phase of our existence leaves no time for humor.

The attitude of the classical Greeks was that if God did not have a sense of humor the Creator would never have fashioned man. Although known for their philosophical viewpoints, many of the ancient philosophers had great wit and humor.

One early writer, Diogenes Laertius (3rd Century CE), included in his writings some of the humorous anecdotes of the ancient philosophers. Another good source for anecdotes of some of the ancient philosophers can be found in Thomas Stanley’s work, ‘The History of Philosophy.’

The general definition for prodigy is anyone who becomes great in a particular field at an early age. While we find that many people have met this definition in a multitude of different fields, music seems to have more prodigies than all the other fields combined.

Although there have been slight variations in the definition of a prodigy, the best definition is ‘a child who shows early signs of extraordinary talent or exceptional ability. A youngster who is too young to be as old and talented as he is.’

Most of the early composers started out as performers and were expected to compose compositions spontaneously on their instruments.

Wolfgang Mozart (1756-1791) at the age of four years old was able to play long musical compositions from memory and he composed short works at five years old. At seven years old, Mozart spent an hour at the organ in a Heidelberg church; ‘the dean overcome with emotion, ordered an inscription carved on the organ case attesting to the name and age of the boy and the date of the modern miracle he had witnessed.’ At eight years old Mozart played in London together with Johann Bach and Mozart was billed as a ‘Prodigy of Nature.’

The doctrine of sympathetic resemblances is an ancient concept that had to do with the idea that growing things reveal through their structure and form their usefulness to people. Through their color, aroma and form plants revealed the physical condition and organ of the body that could be benefitted.

This concept reached a zenith as it was taught in Constantinople in the 1500s. A person did not have to be smart in the sense of book learning, because even simple people discovered the healing aspects of plants through using their instinct and intuition. Through the sensing of the design of the plant structure they discovered the organs that would be assisted through some part of the plant.

The development of spiritual insight was one of the cornerstones of the ancient mystery schools. Physicians were taught to search within themselves for the spiritual insight that would help them recognize the energies in plants.

Color has a profound effect upon humans, animals and insects. Back in the early 1930s a brochure advertised that you would be free of flies and ants if you kept a red glass in the widow of your room. It has been proven through experimentation that various colors have profound effects on all types of insects.

The use of color therapy on people dates back to the earliest Greek period and there are even earlier references in Egypt and India. The Greeks used specific colors on their architecture in the belief that the people living in the community and walking by different colored buildings would be effected enough to produce needed social changes within the community.

The ancient Greeks and Egyptians utilized optical and auditory therapies which they believed could come through the eyes and ears so they incorporated:

• Music therapy
  
• Religious ritual
  
• Sacred Chants
  
• Mantras
  
• Harmonious surroundings 
  
• Great art
  

In ancient times imagination was looked at as one of the most dynamic factors in human consciousness. The ancient philosophers believed that through imagination people came the nearest to attaining total freedom and advancing individual growth as well as the collective growth of the planet.

In today’s world the term imagination has connotations far different than in ancient times. Today we say that someone is just imagining something as if it is fantasy and unreal. The ancients described idle, delusional and misplaced thoughts as fantasy. Imagination was considered by the ancient philosophers as an important tool and our greatest gift from God.

Paracelsus (1493-1541) is the shortened name for Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombatsus Von Hohenheim. Paracelsus was the first to develop systemized health methods. He did not personally write much, but he had several assistants that recorded most of what he had to say regarding health and philosophy.

Paracelsus believed in working with nature rather than just accepting the writings of ancient texts, especially when it came to addressing health problems.

The hermetic philosophers, a group to which Paracelsus belonged to do to his philosophy, held that while they acknowledged a Supreme force of Good, which was the underpinning of the world, human beings were given the ability to co-create and manage the creative energies that fashioned our visible world.

Following are some selected keys of Paracelsus and the hermeticists, with additional commentary on some of the points.

Some ancient philosophers held the concept that when people are thoughtful of the world, then the world would protect them. The philosophers also believed that when people labor for the common good of others, then the common good would labor for them.

Some of the older philosophers believed that a partnership must be created between a person’s physical body and the natural world that surrounds it, as well as between the physical body and the invisible energy fields that sustain the body’s existence. When a person is in balance and harmony with the great energy fields, there is a greater opportunity for longevity and health.

Approximately 500 years ago, a medical doctor, who also was an alchemical philosopher, had the belief that locked within each individual’s personality, was the secret to their own health. In order to determine if this was true, the doctor made it a point to meet, work and learn all he could about as many people as possible.

The doctor was not interested in learning some generality, he wanted to observe how people reacted under all circumstances and pressures. Through his contact with people he made them happy, mad, got them intoxicated, all the time observing their actions and reactions.

The doctor also looked back into the people’s lives to find out why healthy persons were healthy and why sick persons were sick.

The ancient philosophers long held the belief, ‘that which is below is like unto that which is above, and that which is above is like unto that which is below.’ Through this analogy the ancients were able to understand the operation of the Grand World, the macrocosm, based on the patterns they observed in the small world or microcosm.

Philosophers such as Robert Fludd, Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme and other of the Rosicrucian philosophers believed the various worlds of matter operated following precise mathematical formulas and harmonies. They found repetitions of several basic geometric forms throughout the kingdom of trees, flowers, plants, ferns, snowflakes, people and the cosmos.