Page 153 - Bodhayanti Parasparam Vol 6

Love is the Inner awakening to Reality
beautiful at least in the sense that whatever is considered as beautiful by us casts a spell on and has tremendous attractive potential for the beholder who really imperiences this beauty. There is a grandeur, order, inherent symmetry and harmony in Nature even at the level of matter which have created the sense of beauty in all discerning men of cultured minds and hearts. Thinking (cognition) and feeling (affection) together contribute in this apprehension and unceasing admiration of beauty in Nature. Nature is but an expression of God and hence it is natural to hold that beauty is an inalienable attribute of God.
Man has always attempted through the ages to capture this inner feeling in outer expression through depiction in sculptures, paintings and ornate word pictures, that is poetry. Anthropomorphism in all such representations, though quite a gross representation of Reality is perhaps an inevitable consequence of man being man.
In this context we should note that the sense of beauty referred to is not produced by external factors relating to shape and sensible features alone but something larger and deeper all of it being felt deeply in the heart. It has been rightly said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and Laila was a great beauty only to Majnu. In a way it is to be admitted that love should emerge first in the heart and automatically the lover starts seeing the beauty in every gesture and every movement of the beloved howsoever repelling or ugly it may be in others’ eyes. There is a lot of poetic literature in all languages composed by a great many lovers of God conveying this immaterial transcendent beauty of the Divine Beloved exerting its invincible charms over the devotee. However it is quite possible that the devotee gets stuck in this phase of admiring and being held in the thrall
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