Happiness lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
What is really good? The answer is, there is no such thing as good or evil. There is beauty. That which is beautiful, we call good. That which is ugly compared with the beautiful, we call evil: whether it is custom, idea, thought or action. This shows that this whole phenomenon of the universe is the phenomenon of beauty. Every soul has an inclination to admire beauty, to seek for beauty, to love beauty, and to develop beauty. Even God loves beauty.
In all ages the various religions have given different standards of good and evil, calling them virtue and sin. The virtue of one nation has been the sin of another. The virtue of the latter is the sin of the former. Travel as we may through the world, or read the histories and traditions of nations as we may, we shall still find that what one calls evil, another calls good. That is why no one can succeed in making a universal standard for good and evil. The discrimination between good and evil is in one’s soul. Everyone can judge that for themselves, because in everyone is the sense of admiration of beauty. But they are not satisfied with what they do themselves, they feel a discomfort, a disgust with their own efforts. There are many people who continue some weakness or some mistake, or who are intoxicated by some action which the world calls evil or which they themselves call evil, yet go on doing it. But a day comes when they also are disgusted. Then they wish for suicide. There is no more happiness for them. Happiness only lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful. Such an act becomes a virtue or goodness. That goodness is beauty.
( from the Sufi Message Series, Volume VII – In an Eastern Rose Garden: Chapter 31 – The Presence of God )
Humans are always seeking for beauty, and yet they are unaware of the treasure of beauty that is hidden in their own hearts. They strive after it throughout their whole lives. It is as if they were in pursuit of the horizon: the further they proceed, the further the horizon seems to have moved away. For there are two aims: the one is real, and the other false. That which is false is momentary, transitory, and unreliable — wealth, power, fame, and position are all snatched from one hand by the other. … People want something in life upon which they can rely; and this shows, whether they believe in a deity or not, that they are constantly seeking for God. They seek for God not knowing that they are seeking for God. Nevertheless, every soul is pursuing some reality, something to hold on to; trying to grasp something which will prove dependable, a beauty that cannot change and that one can always look upon as one’s own, a beauty that one feels will last forever. And where can one find it? Within one’s own heart. And it is the art of finding that beauty, of developing, improving, and spreading that beauty through life, allowing it to manifest before the inner and outer view, which one calls the art of the mystic.
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
Purest selfishness ends in unselfishness. Selfish people never entirely satisfy themselves. And when they ultimately do find a way to satisfy themselves, it entails satisfying others. This shows that all roads lead to God. Beauty is the desire of every soul and beauty is the essence of the Personality of God.