If the ideal of Beauty is so remote as to be unachievable, what then must the (human) mind compare it to?

       Do not tell me about the dozen roses. Or the sunset and the sunrise, the bowl of stars in a dark, speechless night. Nor should you point to a man unable to take his eyes off of a beautiful woman. Or of a man listening and dancing to a melody, nor a woman reading an author she loves in a quiet corner window on a rainy afternoon, children playing in the schoolyard at recess, glistening in the sun —- all of these too, do not tell me! And most vile and sinister of all, don’t you dare speak of beauty in the eyes of the beholder!

       You may disagree, but a man who truly wants Beauty, he must give his life to knowing it first, then if lucky, simultaneously composing it by any method he is preordained to create, be it music, sculpture, scripture, dance or thoughts or in permutation combinations thereof. There is no other way! Throughout human history thus, many, many, many names may hold positions of fame and fortune in cultures around this world as the sentinels of beauty. But a miniscule of them may qualify by what I deem is the essential true value of Beauty. To confound it all, Beauty does not have a language per se (or does it? could there be?….) So one either uses examples or the (Socratic) process of elimination to get to that pinpoint idea.

       Thus to say something pinpoint beautiful, you say: Taj Mahal! then you stop. You do not utter the Buckingham Palace or Schloss Neuschwanstein or the Byodo-in Temple in the same breath. You simply don’t, there is nothing else that will fit under that pintip! To make another blunt point: many acclaim Leonardo da Vinci as a seminal “artist”. I say he was not, not even close! His ideas were grand, beautiful, lucid, revolutionary, but his paintings are hardly noteworthy. Even if one studies The Last Supper, his magnum opus, its geometry is far more beautiful than the painting itself. The point is Leo was an engineer, an idea man, thus his constructions are truly beautiful. In fact, in worldly thought, machines, bridges, bodies and gears, in exploring what is in this physical dimension, no one is above Leonardo. And I do mean: no one! And in that, that mind of his has no comparison. But none of his artististic creations will ever be worth a toenail worth of Michaelangelo’s David. I hereby beg forgiveness of Mona Lisa: Da Vinci’s hand that laid the paint was more beautiful than her face. 

       Just one more (thought) example then. We humans interminably obsess about the supposed “greatness” of man, etcetera. In this department no other category holds our imagination more than the great conquerors of the past. So among them, there was Thutmose III, Alexander, Julius, Genghiz, Attila, Napoleon, along with scores of junior kings, marauders, plunderers of all lands and as many Nations. Curiously we humans tend to hold them up as “great men”. Be as it may, even in this bizarre pantheon, one example stands out as that pinpoint. Salahuddin! The (so called) Liberator of Jerusalem, who refused to put the vanquished crusader Christians and Jews to death. The defeated were given safe passage out of the city and instead of their blood, Salahuddin ordered that the holy mosque floor be washed with rose water! I ask then, which other “great conqueror” must you fit under that pin prick of beauty? 

       Even in the department of holiness, within the ethereal college of spirituality, of course there are rules, the books, the sayings, prayers, the parables, the hymns, and what else have you…. But even here, among all noble guidances for mankind to follow, there is that astounding, indescribable, most delicate, stand alone shimmering light, a single beam that comes out of an translucent crystal, piercing one’s conscience, nay one’s very existence! Example 1. Christ is on his Cross. The suffering, the agony, the horror of torturous sure death confronting that “man” must have been terrifying. Yet what does he speak? He asks on behalf of those directly responsible for the ultimate pain that was being inflicted upon him, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!” In the speech of modern times: I mean, are you kidding me? Which painter can paint thus? Which singer can sing this? Which writer says those words? Tell me if you can fit anything else under that pintip? And Example 2: Half a millenia before Christ in another part of the world, the Buddha lays dying, again, a slow painful death (from food poisoning). His disciples surround him in despair and sorrow. One such man asks the great master to at least show him the way by which the Buddha arrived at Nirvana before he passed on. Buddha’s remark was (paraphrased): “I had to find my own Nirvana, now you must go find yours!” Again, modern times, modern disbelief: are you kidding me? What god says that in their hour of end? And can you find anything else at all to fit under that pin prick?

       Now comes the most daring, most vicious, most violent and impossible question of all. Can you my friend know and make something equal or more that fits at the pin tip of beauty? You will know immediately that you have done so. All roses will shrivel and dry, all dances will stop, the pages of all books of all times will fly off to the skies and beyond, the stars shall be scrubbed by morning come. You will know what you have made. No man, their theories, their pretend expertise nor sagely wisdom, their money, their power, the obstacles they put in front of you can stand in your way. 

       This is because the Universe will know instantly what you made! And it is in her vested interest that that thing survives. 

       That and only that thing, nothing else, is Beautiful. Just as an example!