The Library
The beauty we see in a single flower points to a MIND capable of thinking such beauty. In the end Nature and Art point to God.
3.3.6.1Listen ... The sunset's peace, the dawn's promise of hope, and the pleasure of beauty's presence are always worthwhile and should fill us with gratitude.
3.3.6.4,Listen He will accomplish this disciplinary work best if he retires to the quietude and contemplation of Nature, to a country seclusion where he can be least distracted and most uplifted. Here is the temple where aspiration for the Higher Self can find its best outlet; here is the monastery where discipline of the lower self can be easiest undertaken.
3.3.6.10Listen To look steadily at Nature’s own artwork for a while—be it mountain, valley, or moving waves—with growing deep feeling until the self is forgotten, is also a yoga practice.
3.3.6.13Listen In Nature’s solitary places, in its forests, mountains, and grasslands, it is easier to cultivate the philosopher’s trinity of goodness, truth, and beauty than in the crowded quarters of towns.
3.3.6.20Listen We need quiet places where the earth is left in its natural state and where men can seek in leisure and freedom to recover their independence of thought and to restore awareness of their inner selves--so hard to gain and so easy to lose in the modern world.
3.3.6.21Listen It is a soothing experience to sit in the grass high on the top of a cliff, to look out at the vast spread of sea, and then to let the mind empty itself of accumulated problems. As the minutes pass, equanimity is restored and repose laps one about.
3.3.6.35Listen In the beauty of a rose and the loveliness of a sunset the man of aesthetic feeling or poetic temperament may unconsciously find a reminder of the grander beauty of the Overself.
3.3.6.38Listen To the sensitive person, an unspoiled scenery of lakeland or woodland, sea or mountain, brings with its silent contemplation a nostalgic longing for return to his true spiritual home.
3.3.6.39Listen There is one quality which re-enters man when the spring season re-enters the yearly cycle. It is hope.
3.3.6.42It is a common experience that in shady woodland walks there is an effluence of peace in the atmosphere. We need not wonder that in such and kindred places it is easier to find the quietness within. It is true that men have found their way to the Overself in almost every kind of environment, but there was more help and less conflict when they were alone with primeval Nature.
3.3.6.44Listen From the hill on whose side I dwell, at the very edge of Montreux, my window looks across sloping vineyards. It has a long view. This means much when one has to live closed in a small apartment every day, every year, with fifty families in the same building. I like the freedom of solitude, the view through unobstructed space. To let the green scenery take my thoughts away into a pleasant harmony with Nature for a few minutes at least, is a daily need, not a luxury. To sit even longer and go far away in consciousness until an unworldly quiescence is reached, is my evening bread.
3.3.6.51Listen The gardener who waters his flowers and shrubs with loving patience receives love from them in return. It is not like the human kind, but is the exact correspondence to it on the plant level.
3.3.6.54Listen The flower's beauty is simply a pointer, reminding us to think, speak, and behave beautifully.
3.3.6.55Listen In looking for the beauty in Nature, a man is looking for his soul. In adoring this Beauty when he finds it, he is recognizing that he not only owns an animal body, but is himself owned by a higher Power.
3.3.6.72Listen There are moments when a man may sit alone with nature, when no sound intrudes and all is quiet, pleasant, harmonious. If he will enter into this stillness with nature and enter it deeply enough, he will find that it is associated with what most religions call God.
3.3.6.77Listen When we are disgusted with the pettiness of mankind we may turn in appreciation to the grandeur of Nature.
3.3.6.85Listen The beautiful in Nature, the singing of birds, the coming of Spring's colours recall the beautiful moods in ourself when glimpses revealed the soul.
3.3.6.99Listen A sensitive person may be gently influenced by such beauty of Nature to pause and gaze, holding himself still for the while, admiring and appreciating the scene, until he is so absorbed that he is lost in it. The ego and its affairs retreat. Unwittingly he comes close to the delicious peace of the Overself.
3.3.6.102The travelling Goethe wrote his friends in Germany about a Princess he met in Naples—she was young, gay, and superficial—who advised him to go to her large country estate in Sorrento where “the mountain air and lovely view would soon cure me of all philosophy!” Some of us, however, would only be more incited by them to philosophy.
3.3.6.103Listen
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