Rioting Color

Morning Intuition, London, Cornwall. 14:30 pm, October 9, 2007

The Magic of Shared Beauty

You wrote these words of the magic of shared beauty as you were about to leave for the brief trip to Cornwall as the memory you had just at that moment was so deep and poignant that you felt you must not forget to take it up for a morning intuition on your return. Instead of following that course that you have come to love so well, it has recurred repeatedly in different contexts during the entire three days of the journey. And we have enjoyed it also, as you have shared it constantly with us. So let us examine it together because of the key word of "sharing," which is so central to the experience.

Would it seem to be stretching too far to say that what you feel on these occasions is not dissimilar from the feeling you have of intense joy when an exciting intuition expands its beauty and meaning through an expanse of Creation, whether physical or abstract, and you feel the necessity to share it as soon as possible with those you love? It is in the act of reaching out to touch another, and to find the oneness of your mutual thrill of joy in a united sharing of Reality. This is the essence of Beauty, which produces what can only be termed an ecstasy of inner feeling.

Let us hear you tell again of that great vision of beauty you beheld that late afternoon so many years ago in Hong Kong harbor, which you take such joy in sharing with those you love so deeply and simply
(Don recalls and describes the situation of the short voyage around Hong Kong Harbor in the small sailboat for tourists to see the sights of Hong Kong during a late afternoon cruise.)

I was very self-conscious as I bought my ticket for the short cruise that late afternoon in Hong Kong, as it is almost never my taste to participate in a deliberated tourist cruise or visit. I wondered if I had lost my head to make such an exception to a deeply held credo. But I bought the ride and clambered aboard along with the hundred or so other assorted nationalities so typical of the transient population of Hong Kong.

The boat put out from the berth almost immediately and began heading for several much larger boats which we were shortly informed were for the greater part floating restaurants, preparing for the evening meal by that time. I had had my fill of that type of tourist attraction on the Seine River boats anchored in several spots along the banks of the Seine in Paris, so I had no interest in staring at them.

So it was that I had little to distract my attention even in the early beginning moments of that memorable journey. And so it was also that I was perhaps the first to let my eyes stray to the sky above me and the waters through which our little boat sped along at a leisurely clip. At first I saw nothing out of the ordinary, although it was indeed a lovely scene of busy commerce and an incredible variety of shapes and figures and colors.

Then, as the colors in the sky brightened and deepened, I began to see that we would certainly have a spectacular sunset ranging over the plains of dusty China in the background. It had been a hot day during a hot summer season, and we had read in the newspapers of the dust that had been swept up into the air by windstorms over the Chinese mainland, causing further damage to the parched crops in the fields. In fact, I soon saw that the even brilliant crimson of the western sky matched easily the best I had ever soon in the Rockies, or Golden Gate at its most spectacular.

About that time I saw that others on the boat were beginning to take their eyes off the vessels parked everywhere along the shoreline and were taking increasing note of the flaming sunset. This, once observed, became riveting, and attention soon had shifted almost entirely to the phenomenal sunset blazing all round us on three sides. It was an incredible pyrotechnic display of color so brilliant that one would have labelled it as "gaudy" if it had not been so breathtaking in its intensity and extent. I had never seen anything in nature to compare with it.

The sounds of conversation on the little sight-seeing ship faded and ceased entirely as the entire assemblage stared riveted by the unbelievable intensity of nature on a binge of the rarest order. People stared enchanted totally by what assaulted them through every nerve and pore of their being. It was beyond comment, and no one attempted to break the silence that hung with regal intensity in the late afternoon fiery cocktail of nature gone crazy with the joy of its own creativeness.

Then, unexpectedly, I caught something out of the lower part of one eye. It was the cusp of a small wave shaded from the scarlet of the madhouse sky surrounding us, and---- it was the most liquid living gold I have ever seen, a total contrast to the sky. It was so unlikely and unbelievable that I thought for endless moments that I must have gone crazy in this silent bedlam of riotous color of the sky.

Then I saw another curling cusp with its interior lit with the same liquid gold. What joy unbelievably heaped upon the first banquet of riotous color of the China sky! How was it possible to have found the paint pot with so much golden paint after the heavens had certainly exhausted the utmost possibilities of nature in the splashing of the crimson that still lit the sky for an eternity of rioting color in the soundless silence of our quietly sailing little boat.

How quiet we all were. It was understood by each person on board that anyone making a sound was doomed instantly to a death so sudden and brutal that it could never be risked.

We sailed along in the deathly stillness of a beauty that had never had a birth and would never have a death. It would live forever in the immortal Truth of Beauty that only God could conceive and His millions of the minions paint from every atom on which they could pin their easels.

As I felt I could not bear one more moment of this unique thing I was striving with every cone cell to see and capture and hold forever, I saw the first person among my companions change the direction of their stare from the heavens to the seas. A silent gasp came from her beautiful and incredulous mouth. As if she were the director of the symphony, all the others caught the hiss of her breath and instantly obeyed her direction. With one concerted jerk they too stared below, and the incredible fact was that no one could croak the slightest caw of disbelief of what they all saw together, the total and perfect complement of what had kept them bewitched for--- I don't know, but it was an eon of experience we had all had by then.

What ensued was timeless and spaceless. It had escaped all of the dimension of Creation and mounted to the celestial Oneness of God Who, one sensed, was the One enjoying the beauty that only His divinity could possibly envision and paint onto the accepting canvas of Creation.

It was a celestial feast of manna and ambrosia with the accompaniment of the angels and archangels muted and chanting the silent praises of love, harmony and beauty.

It was the perfection of harmony that one day I hope to experience with Baba leading me by the hand when there will never again be anything but the presence of Oneness eternal and complete.

The Cleansing of the Truth of Oneness

In fact this is the story of the effect of a series of intuitions I had on forgiveness. The entire sequence grew out of the realization that the great religions have succeeded only very slightly over the centuries in making their combined effect felt on the bitter hatreds growing out of often disastrously cruel wars. This I believe has grown out of the dissensions between the religions themselves down through the centuries. This reflection led me to try to intuit an antidote to these ancient hatreds, and finally I was driven to conclude that forgiveness was the only conceivable manner in which there was some hope of progress. But progress through forgiveness! First, how, where and when could it be applied?

For weeks my intuition time each day was filled with the imponderables in forgiveness itself. It defied every scientific principle I knew to start even a method for measuring and handling this most intangible commodity. But I stuck it out stubbornly as one must do quite frequently with a deep intuition that herein lies a priceless solution if it can be persuaded to reveal its innermost working.

I went so far as to discuss the conviction I had had intuitively, that this had to be the approach taken, with several groups with whom I am in fairly frequent contact. In each case the reaction was like an earthquake, and there was excitement exploding almost uncontrollably until, each time, we finally parted ways to go home.
It was in the third group that the most stubborn and vociferous reaction of all occurred, and this from a fellow we all loved and who rarely lifted his voice in objection. But with this subject, it was clear we had hit something he could not control, and even when someone else was trying to voice an opinion, he continued to splutter just under his breath.

I tried suggesting that his action was all the more reasons to make the gesture of at least trying to forgive the person in his own family whom he could not even contemplate forgiving. He left, finally, in the back seat of a full car of friends, and could be heard all the way down the drive with his continued explosions drifting back to our ears.

When several days had passed and I found myself approaching the date for a month's absence from my old haunts I found that my morning intuition was the deep knowledge that I could not leave my close friend without some effort to calm him.
By spectacular good luck I managed to find this normally untraceable fellow in minutes, and told him at once that we must find the means for a face-to-face conversation.

He broke into my exhortation and said simply, "It isn't necessary." I heaved a sigh of dejection, as I was sure that he was announcing to me that he had already revisited the topic and found his inner reaction was unbudgeable. I tried harder, and again he said it was not necessary for us to meet. This time he went on: "When I was coming back from our meeting in he car I began to think, how small was the situation that I could not forgive, and as I saw that, I found a rush of friendship return for the fellow. No, it isn't necessary, we made a date on the spot to have a big celebration lunch together in two weeks at a deluxe restaurant and it is all already forgotten."
Note, he did not even use the word "forgiven."

I confess that I had hardly expected such a change so fast even in the best of circumstances, and here it had arrived almost of its own without work. True, at the time of the original meeting of the group discussing forgiveness, I had ventured that even in the gesture to attempt forgiveness, forces would be set in motion that would astound by their cleansing capability. But I am frank that what I said at that time was no more than an intuition based on absolutely no personal experience. But I have found that this is often a characteristic of an intuition, that one some way has insight into the future of events, and can predict with an assuredness at times which is almost dishonest when judged on my sainted mother's pretty tough principles.

rumi and shared beauty

Talking of sharing beauty, what about this from Rumi?

“We sit in this courtyard, two forms,shadow outlines with one soul,
birdsound, leaf moving in early evening,star-fragrant damp,
and the sweetsickle curve of the moon. You and I in around, unshelved idling in the garden-beauty detail.
The raucous parrots laugh, and we laugh insidelaughter,
the two of us on a bench in Konya,
yetamazingly in Khorasan and Iraq as well.”(Rumi).

The Magic of Shared Beauty

When I heard the word "blog" for the first time I was repelled by the choice. When I began to catch on to its potential for the ready expression of individuality, it frightened me, as it sounded like the perfect tool for the personal ego to seize upon and lift itself to its own imagined heights of glory.

Now, a bit later and a bit more calmly, I think it has the potential for me to share something of the beauty I have experienced many times now of personal intuition. Not that I can claim a monopoly or even an important share of beauty flowing from one's intuitive capacities, but over quite a few decades now I have found it producing material which has caused me to baptize the term "The magic of shared beauty."

I was perhaps already half way through the span of my lifetime when I first heard a close friend speak of the spiritual gift in this age of generalized availability of intuition to the average human being. I had been convinced already for some years of the great value of intuitive capacities, but had always thought of them being reserved to rare and favored individuals, whether by genetic structure or divine ordination I did not bother to try to decide. I had done just enough creative writing by that time to be impressed with what I could sometimes wrote with a minimum of planning and mental gymnastics. I was all for it.

I used my own intuition considerably during a project spent with a group of thirty-five hippies in one of the American ordained centers of early hippidome, discussing the basic principles of various brands of mystic belief. We had limited attendance to the experiment, which I had confessed as being a complete new venture to me, but I offered to bone up prior to each of the Monday night sessions we dedicated to sharing our thoughts during three months. And I even promised to conduct a second one when the first finished if they would not try to bring in anyone above the sanctified figure of thirty-five, as I wanted us to be able to trade thoughts.

Those three-month long groups continued for three years until I was transferred back to Europe for another job, but it was an exciting adventure in the shared beauty of intuitive thought and form that I had not dreamed of when I had offered to lead it.

It is something like that three years of sharing of creative thought that I would like to suggest between us in this blog. I would put a new one from the week's supply of morning intuitions onto the blog, and it would be open to the reader to reflect and if he wished, to enter his own thoughts during that time; and then a new one would be placed by me from my week's store of I hope intuited beauty.

I have no intent of trying to sell something, nor even answer any of the comments or even queries that might be posted by the readers. I introduce myself now as Dusk, and have a friend I shall call Sixteen, who will have a small group of carefully chosen friends who will read through postings, comments and queries, and if they agree that something needs deeply to be commented upon, they will do so, but I do not commit myself to any type of comment or suggestions.

I will try to keep the length of my postings of intuitions to a readability of one minute, if you are a fairly fast reader, but the words will not disappear from your screen after one minute. That just happens to be my sense of the span of attention of beauty that attracts me.

I propose the beginning phrase that draws me for my first blog: "The cleansing of the Truth of Oneness."