Beauty is his footprint showing us where he has passed

The Will of the Divine, says Mother, is to manifest and not remain withdrawn in inactivity or silence. If the Divine remained silent and inactive how could there have been any creation? It would have been a silent and empty world. The sole purpose of the Divine in creating is for Bliss or Ananda. We are born in it, as the Veda says, live and return to it. This Ananda of the Divine is manifested as Beauty, it is the footprint of the Divine showing us where he has passed and as the Mother says, the Divine manifests in the physical as beauty

Beauty is his footprint showing us where he has passed
Love is his heart-beats rhythm in mortal breasts,
Happiness the smile on his adorable face. (Savitri, Sri Aurobindo)

Beauty, love and happiness are the different manifestations of this Bliss. What are the conditions in which this power of Mahalakshmi and beauty in life be invited within us? What is the secret by which this great Power of the Divine is realized? In the precious little book, ‘The Mother’, Sri Aurobindo says that this “miracle of eternal beauty, and unseizable secret of divine harmonies” manifests in conditions where there is harmony and beauty in our “mind and soul, every outward act and movement and in life and surroundings”. Where there is disharmony and ugliness, falsehood and hearts filled with hatred, jealousy, envy, greed and where “love and beauty are not or are reluctant to be born, she does not come; where they are mixed and disfigured with baser things, she turns soon to depart or cares little to pour her riches.”

If the manifestation of beauty and harmony as Mother says is the greatest part of the Divine realization, why is it that true beauty is difficult to discover and understand? Mother’s prayer addressed to the Lord of Beauty (Jan 29, 1917) answers these questions. She explains that to violate Beauty is as great a mistake as violating Truth, as Beauty is the “divine language of forms and the consciousness of the Divine,” so if we don’t manifest it then our consciousness is incomplete.

But true Beauty is as difficult to discover, to understand and above all to live as any other expression of the Divine; this discovery and expression exacts as much impersonality and renunciation of egoism as that of Truth or Bliss.

It is difficult to discover and understand beauty as “Pure Beauty is Universal and one must be universal to see and recognise it”. One way to see and recognise will be to widen our consciousness and soar above the attachments and preferences to our family, nationality, race, language and religion, and realise that true beauty is above all this as it is universal and not limited by our preferences, personality or ego. Then we would see beauty in its pure form wherever or in whatever form it is manifested, as we are no longer limited by our ego and preferences. We will then be capable of seeing beauty as it is.

The Mother concludes the prayer of Jan 29, 1917 by invoking the Lord of Beauty and with great humility prays thus,

Give me the perfect understanding of Thy Law so that I may not again fail to keep it. Love would be incomplete without Thee, Thou art one of its most perfect ornaments, Thou art one of its most harmonious smiles...

Thou art not at all what a vain people think Thee to be, Thou art not at all attached exclusively to this or that form of life; it is possible to awaken Thee and make Thee shine in every form, but for that one must have discovered Thy secret...

O Lord of Beauty, give me the perfect understanding of Thy Law, so that I may no longer fail to keep it, so that Thou mayst become in me the harmonious consummation of the Lord of Love.

- Sudha

References:
The Mother by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram Press, Pondicherry.
Stories Told by The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
Prayers and Meditations by The Mother, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.
Savitri by Sri Aurobindo, Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry.