The Never-ending Quest For Beauty & Truth

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," - that is all 

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

Who said this?  

    Madonna, during her English accent phase?

    Ross Perot, explaining why people didn't vote for him for president?

    John Keats in "Ode to a Grecian Urn?"

Ding!  Ding!  Ding!  Yes, Keats fans, you are correct.

Two of my favorite words in the English language:

"Beauty"

"Truth"

Beauty launched a thousand ships to start the Trojan War.

Truth, as we all know, is the first casualty of war.

What is beauty and what is truth?

Throughout history the answer to both is subjective.

And yet somehow Keats finds them interchangeable.

At first I thought this was quite a stretch, until I looked at it 

from a metaphysical point of view.  Years ago, I was incredibly

fortunate to study under the Breslover Hasidic Rabbi, 

Reb Dovid Din.  It was during the mid-70's and Reb Dovid had

decided it was time to teach Kabbalah to men and women, 

Jews and non-Jews, anyone who was truly interested and 

open-minded.  This was not your celebrity-dabbling cult-like stuff

that has become "in vogue" today.  To quote Larry David, "Not

that there's anything wrong with that."

Reb Dovid would give a teaching that would start off with an

everyday point of view, then he would spin off on an intellectual 

thread, then a spiritual thread, then a biblical thread, then a

psychological thread, then an emotional thread, and then somehow

he would weave these diverse threads together into a brilliant 

conceptual tapestry of beauty and truth.

I learned from Reb Dovid, that we have energy centers in different

parts of the body that have different colors, vibrations and attributes.

In a later post I will go into more detail about the 10 Spheres of the

Tree of Life, but for our purposes, we will focus on the energy

center in the center of the chest that some of you may already know

as the "heart chakra."

In Kabbalah, this center is called by the Hebrew word, "Tiferet," which

means "Beauty."  It's attributes are Love, Balance, Harmony, 

Connection.  This is where your essence of self resides, your  

authenticity of self.  Your own personal truth.  Think for a minute about 

what you physically do when someone asks you how you TRULY feel.  

We all instinctively pat our chest area, our heart center, our Tiferet, our 

BEAUTY sphere.

This energy portal where Beauty and Truth flow in and flow out is the

connecting point between Spirit and Matter, Heaven and Earth, The 

Highest Form of Consciousness and the Most Common Everyday Reality.

It is also the midpoint between the spheres of Compassion and 

Judgement.   When you have an equal amount of compassion and 

judgement you will find  Beauty and Truth.  Loving Compassion for 

others and yourself.  Fair Judgement concerning others and yourself.  

In balance.  Shining your beauty.  Your truth.

This is a physical, spiritual and intellectual reality.  We don't need 

liposuction.  We don't need drastic diets.  We don't need to look or 

feel like some plasticized cynical ideal cobbled together by a twisted 

corporatocracy dedicated to the proposition of convincing you that 

you aren't good enough unless you purchase things that you 

instinctively know are not good for you.   We don't need to search 

for greatness or that "Higher Power" out there!  

 

     It's inside you.  In your heart center.  In your Tiferet.  

Your Beauty.  Your Truth.