The Aesthetic Way, by Roberto Assagioli

The Aesthetic Way is one of the seven ways of Self-realisation and this one is about creating harmony and beauty in the world

By Roberto Assagioli, Undated, From the Assagioli Archive in Florence.

Spiritual awakening was in many cases, brought about, or favored by a realization of the beauty manifest in natural phenomena. Rabindranath Tagore has furnished us with some characteristic descriptions of such experiences. He writes:

“One day, I was walking in the late afternoon up and down on the terrace of our house. The splendour of the sunset mingled with the twilight shadows in a way which to my mind gave a peculiar fascination to the approaching evening. Even the wall of the house nearby appeared to put on new beauty. I asked myself if the disappearance of the ordinary trivial aspect of things could possibly depend on some magical effect of the evening light? No, most certainly not!

I suddenly understood that it was, on the contrary, the influence of the evening affecting my soul; its shadows had obliterated my ordinary ‘self’. As long as this self was in evidence in the full light of day, all that met my perception was co-mingled with it, and hidden by it. Now that the self was put on one side, I was able to see the world in its true aspect. And such aspect has nothing at all that is trivial; on the contrary, it is full of beauty and joy.

After this experience, I have tried several times deliberately to suppress my ‘self’ and to consider the world as a simple spectator, and I have always been rewarded by a sense of peculiar pleasure …

Shortly afterward; I acquired a further power of vision which has continued ever since . . . One morning, on the verandah of our house . . . the sun was just rising and could be seen through the foliage of the trees in front of me. All at once, as I stood watching the spectacle, it seemed as if a veil fell down from my eyes, and I saw the world interpenetrated by a marvellous splendour, with waves of beauty and gladness surging on all sides. This splendour penetrated in an instant through all the accumulated sadness, and depression that had oppressed my heart, and it became inundated with universal light.

In that day the poem entitled, “The Awakening of the Waterfall” burst forth from my soul and flowed down like an actual waterfall. The poem came to an end, but the veil did not, therefore, descend on the joyous aspect of the universe. Thus it happened that I could no longer consider any being or any object in the world as trivial or distasteful.”

Let us try to interpret such experiences. Why does the appreciation of beauty in external objects evoke man’s consciousness? The central and deepest answer was given long ago by Plato. He said that all beautiful appearances are reflections of a marvellous, eternal, absolute beauty, or a Beautiful Being. Plato gave a definite description of the aesthetic approach and of its successive steps.

“The true order of […]” he says in the often quoted passage in his BANQUET, “is to use the beauties of earth upon which one mount upwards for the sake of that other beauty, going from one to two and from two to all forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute Beauty and at last knows what the essence of Beauty is.”

Another way of interpreting the spiritual effect produced by the contemplation of nature (an interpretation which does not in any way negate the former but completes it)is in the realization of the symbolic character of all natural phenomena. We find a concise summation of it in the concluding lines of Goethe’s FAUST: “All that is transient is only a symbol.”

A simple instance of spiritual insight through contemplation of a natural phenomenon is given us by Brother Lawrence:

“In the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed, and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of God, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had set him perfectly loose from the world and kindled in him such a love for God that he could not tell whether it had increased in above forty years that he had lived since.” (1)

In others, possessing a wider and deeper outlook, the spiritual revelation is induced by the realization of the wonderful order, harmony, interdependence and coherence demonstrated in the universe. Here belongs Pythagoras’ intuition of the harmony of the spheres; ‘the divine law of proportions’ (Vitruvius), and in the human body (Leonardo da Vinci). In all these cases; the aesthetic approach is combined with, or rather leads up to, the illuminative one. It can be called insight or illumination through beauty.

The two interpretations just mentioned explain man’s reaction to the influence of the external world, but there is a deeper effect which consists in a more or less complete and lasting unification of fusion in consciousness between subject and object, between the individual self and universal reality. This has been clearly and soberly formulated by a psychologist who has not been afraid to admit the reality and supreme value of soul and spirit William McDougall. He writes:

“In moment of contemplation of beauty, the boundaries of our personality are in some degree transcended; we come near again to the universal spirit which glows, feebly or strongly; in each one of us; we partake more completely of it; we are in some measure re-absorbed into it.” (2)

Dr. Winslow Hall has described the same experience thus:

“For the soul now does more than pierce the veil of matter, it identifies itself both with the veil and with the Reality behind the veil. Thereby soul, and veil, and Reality are felt to be one. Just as ice, and water, and watery vapour are different states of the same substance, so are the material universe, and the soul of man, and the Oversoul just different states of the one omnipresent Reality, which Reality is God.” (3)

S; Northrup, in his book, The Meeting of East and West, considers the aesthetic approach, which he calls the realisation of “the indeterminate aesthetic continuum,” as typical of the oriental way of spiritual realization. He goes as far as to say:

“One has but to look at a landscape on a sunny day, with moving clouds in the sky, and take solely in its aesthetic immediacy to experience for oneself what the oriental has in mind when he takes the indeterminate Tao, Yan, Nirvana, Brahman, or Chit as not merely primary, but as the souce of creation and the receptacle at the death of all transitory differentiated things.” (4)

While Northrup ably describes the nature of the specific aesthete approach, he disregards every other kind of approach by means of which realization has been achieved both in the East and in the West.

From a certain perspective it can be said that the aesthetic approach emphasises the aspect of divine immanence. But there is the opposite and just as valid effective experience of spiritual Reality through transcendence, that is through awareness of the temporary and more or less illusionary character of all manifestation. The individual, in such cases, believes in, and seeks union with, a Reality beyond or above all appearances, through the elimination of all the contents of properly human consciousness. This is the typical approach both of Vedanta and of Buddhism in the Orient, and of such transcendental mystics as Meister Eckardt in the West. (See section on The Transcendental Approach).

The aesthetic approach, like the others, can have certain drawbacks and even dangers. The main danger would seem to lie in an attachment to form, to the outer appearance as such. This results in a one-sided emphasis on the part of the aesthete who looks for, and is content with the sensuous pleasure given by the perception of beautiful things. The difference between aesthetic and the one who attains spiritual realization through beauty is that the former remains glued to the first step of the Platonic ladder and refuses, or is not able, to ascend any farther. The difference lies in the love of a beautiful form, and love of beauty in every form and, on the highest level, in the love of essential beauty beyond form.

The revealing function of beauty present in nature is also expressed through art. (For brevity’s sake, the word ‘art’ will be used in its widest connotation, including poetry and music). Some poets have tried to express their vivid experiences of spiritual or ‘cosmic’ consciousness. Perhaps the highest example is that of Dante in the last cantos of ‘Paradise’–the third section of the Divine Comedy.

In modern times we have Walt Whitman and Edward Carpenter. Also the contemplation of works of art can induce the forgetfulness of and temporary liberation from the limitation of personal consciousness, as described by Tagore. Schopenhauer’s well-known theory is a convincing presentation of this spiritual function of aesthetic contemplation.

A more definite and conscious use of the revealing power of art has been made by Chinese painters, ably described by L. Binyon in these words:

”In this theory (in Chinese painters) every work of art is thought of as an incarnation of the genius of rhythm, manifesting the living spirit of things with a clearer beauty and intenser power than the gross impediments of complex matter allow to be transmitted to our senses in the visible world around us. A picture is conceived as a sort of apparition from a more real world of essential life . . .” (4)

However, it is well to make clear that, while art can have and has, in the best cases, this effect, not all art has it necessarily. In some cases it even can have a contrary effect, which is due to the fact that the psychological level and maturity of the various artists can be very different, and that also the urges and motives which prompt them to artistic creation are likewise very diverse.

In many cases an artistic production is an expression of the artist’s emotional life, and often of his personal complexes or, sometimes, of collective contents. Such expressions remain for the artist himself a catharsis, a liberation and often, although not always, a sublimation. The artist thus gets rid of the emotional pressures which disturbed him.

The corresponding effect of an artistic production upon others is not always uplifting; it may even be harmful. The “psychological devils” which the artist has released through his work can affect the reader or listener or observer so as to take possession of him, thus having a negative effect. An example is that of Tristan and Isolde where Wagner beautifully sublimated his unfulfilled love for Mathilde Wesendonck, but his passionate music has, in some cases, stimulated the listeners’ emotional nature to an excessive degree.

In a more general way, some of Chopin’s music can have, and has had an upsetting and depressing influence, especially upon adolescents. Much more harmful can be, and are, many artistic productions of a lower quality, which directly stimulate the passions and the senses of the public.

(1) Brother Lawrence, “The Practice of the Presence of God”

(2) McDougall, W., “Religion and the Sciences of Life,” Methuen Co. London, 1934, p. 15.

(3) Hall, W. Winslow, “Illuminada”, Daniel & Co., London: 1910. e.94

(4) Northrup, F. S., “The Meeting of East and West,” MacMillan Co. New York, 1947, p. 396.

The Way Of Symbols

(Completion of the Aesthetic Way)

By Roberto Assagioli, date unknown, from the Assagioli Archive in Florence. Translated by Gordon Symons. Original title: La Via Dei Simboli.

Another way of interpreting the spiritual effect produced by the contemplation of natural phenomena – an interpretation that does not conflict with the previous one, but completes it – is to realize the symbolic character of all the phenomena of nature. This was expressed concisely at the end of Goethe’s Faust: “All that is transitory, is nothing but a symbol”.

A simple example of spiritual vision through a natural phenomenon is that of Friar Lorenzo: “On a winter day, looking at a tree bare of its leaves, and reflecting on the fact that within a short time they would return again, and that later also the flowers and the fruits would reappear, he had a high vision of the Providence of God, which was never erased from his soul. A vision that freed him entirely from the world, generating in his soul such love for God that he would not have been able to say if he had since grown in the forty years since that moment ”. (Friar Lorenzo, The Presence of God – Casa Ed. Eucharistic League – Bibl. The companions of the Soul)

In others who have a broader and deeper vision, spiritual revelation is produced thanks to the knowledge of the marvelous order, harmony, interdependence and coherence revealed by the Universe. To this type belongs the intuition of the harmony of the spheres by Pythagoras, the “divine law of proportions” of Vitruvius, and the manifestation of the same law in the human body (Leonardo da Vinci). In all these cases, the Aesthetic Way is united, or rather leads to the Illuminated Way: it could be defined as inner vision or illumination through beauty.

These two interpretations explain man’s reaction to the influence of the external world; but there is also a more profound effect which consists of a unification, more or less complete and lasting, and in the fusion of the deeper awareness between subject and object, between the individual self and universal reality. This was clearly expressed by a psychologist, William McDougall, who was not afraid to admit reality and the supreme value of the soul and spirit.

For his part, Dr. Winslow Hall thus described the same experience in his volume, Illuminanda: “Because the soul now does something more than pass through the veil of matter: it identifies itself as much with the veil as with the Reality existing behind it. With this, the soul, the veil and the Reality become one. Like water, ice and steam, I are no other than different states of the same substance, so the material universe, the soul of man or  Oversoul are nothing other than different states of the omnipresent Reality; that Reality is God.

A beautiful and subtle description of the Aesthetic Way was made by F.S.C. Northrop in his book The Meeting of East and West. The author considers this Way – which he defines as the realization of the “indeterminate aesthetic continuum” – typical of the way of the spiritual realization of the East: “It is enough to look at a landscape on a sunny day, with light clouds moving in the sky, considering it only in its aesthetic immediacy, to understand what the Orientals feel when they employ supreme symbols for the indeterminate Tao, Yang, Nirvana, Brahma or Chit: symbols that are the very source of creation and receptacles for all that is transient ”.