[Only pages 29 and 30 of the manuscript exist in the archives—Ed]

The science of suggestion, the Mantra Yoga of the Hindus, and the art of Oratory show that sound is a general channel which does touch the human emotions. When the part that breath plays in speech as well as in sound and thought is better understood it will become possible to awaken or modify and control any emotion. But there is also a deeper side to man, which is at the very center of his being, which con be awakened by sound and music. When the musicians return to Nature and to “Nature’s God”, this too, will be more generally known and there will be a real science of Music.

XIII

Because man has been looking outward, experiencing life on the surface, he draws his knowledge through the senses and all his emotional and mental life are more or less connected with the external world. It is true that there are many types of nocturnal experiences which are sometimes derived from the daily life, sometimes from the state of the body but at other times they are the result of a mental condition or the evolution of the person. For instances it has been the interior experiences that have brought the greatest light and caused the greatest stirrings.

There are people who begin with the premise that the higher life is non-material and they go to any extreme to get away from the material world, even overlooking the possibility that God is there. They therefore cultivate psychic faculties which, because they do not feed upon the eternal fountain of vital energy, which is to say, the Divine Life as focused through the human personality, become sources of terror and destruction. One can often see this in the work of artists who possess some degree of clairvoyance.

While this sort of transformation is possible, it may be just as much retrograde motion as progress. To restore the animal faculties such as instinct is not harmful but to re-train the mind so that it may act more as that of any animal, and re-gain therefore certain psychic faculties and keenness of sight and hearing beyond the strictly material, is a return in the wrong direction which aborts evolution. Evolution consists of refinement and refinement in turn may awaken a clairvoyance and a clairaudience of another type, which faculties can be cultivated along with the growth of intellectual and all mental and psychic powers. Only the forward progress takes one beyond the senses.

Besides this, all types of mediumship and doubtful nocturnal happenings do not free one from the sensual life. And it generally happens that when the emotional life is not developed, the emotions as well as the mind suffer, and there is no real path to Beauty. If one examines the books, the paintings and other creations which are supposed to come from the unseen through the medium of spirits, one seldom finds much upliftment in them. One might as well declare that an X-ray picture is art. It is not, it is a scientific wonder, no doubts it is not art. Neither does anything like clairvoyance necessarily take one towards Beauty and may easily take one away from it.

Neither does the aesthetic faculty find its home in the mind. Mind is the accommodation for intellect and for definite faculties such as memory, reason and identification. While there are states and conditions of mind they do not necessarily include joy or sorrow. One can be a deep thinker and experience joy, or suffer sorrow; and also the one with little mental development can go through the some states. There are no ways of  measuring these things. Nor does one know who enjoys the cinema the most.

On the other hand there may be a tendency to leave the mind out of every question connected with Beauty. Yet it may be asked, what is it that holds together the ideal of the picture that the artist will paint? What is able to retain the melody and theme of the composer? Indeed whence and how the ideal? How and whence the melody? Wherefrom the words that the poet employs? The more one studies such questions the more one will realize that the mind is not necessarily the deepest part of the personality, at least so far as Beauty is concerned, and yet the mind cannot be left out of any reckoning. It is there for a purpose and even in Aesthetics it has a high position.

Besides, what is imagination? This is a faculty of mind, when the internal forces seem to operate as if uncontrolled by any will. When the will-power is directed, then the imaginations turn into impressions and this can become a veritable transmutation, even a changing of water into wine. One can read in “Cosmic Language” and the commentaries thereon how this occurs, and what is the place and purpose of each aspect of mind in the whole universe.

Then people are trained in the spiritual concentration they will discover the source of beauty and power within and without themselves and also discover a new aspect of appreciation which cannot be established by any forceful external habit unless one has the seed within. Without this seed there is no possibility. When there is this seed-quality, concentration will develop and perfect it more than anything else. And then there comes a state when the mind is given the contemplation upon Beauty which is very close to the contemplation on God Himself.

No doubt the enjoyment of Beauty seems superficial to some and they deny its spirituality. But if we look at such people we find that mostly it is they themselves who lack something and what they call spirituality is largely a definition or concept of their own selves and not the actual life in its fullness. It has been explained that Beauty can be known and appreciated, but to define it is to desecrate it, to dethrone it. Only when the thoughts are held by feeling and by life can we reconcile the various conflicting tendencies we find in human kind.

The zest for Love is one great aspect of the zest for Life. Often this is misunderstood because a concept of life is not life and is limited by one’s power of conception. In other words, if life is definable it is the offspring of minds and then mind cannot be the product of life. The ancient Greeks picture Minerva as being born whole from the brain of Zeus, the all-pervading God, the Living-God, to be exact. This beautifully picturizes the truth, that thought and intellect are born from divinity, that they represent one aspect of divinity which plays a most important role in life and which is our channel for much of the experience of life.

We do not expect the artists of today to do obeisance to Apollo and the Muses, or to be devotees before Minerva in any literal sense. But we can all learn from heart-intuition by listening and we can then express ourselves through the various channels and thus become the Muses. If we receive our inspirations from a mighty source, as if, so to speak, from Minerva, then the Muses will become our veritable servants and we shall be in turn their instruments.