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.