"Beauty will save the world"

Abstract

The author explores the statement from a character in a Dostoyevsky novel “Beauty will save the earth” and its connection to the emergence of a new spirituality on the planet at the beginning of the 21st century. This spirituality is global in scope and is rooted in the immediate experiential apperception of the inherent beauty and deep order of all Life on earth. All humans are capable of this experience at those moments when we are able to let go of any identifications that limit our perception of this reality. The term the author uses for this experience is “kosmos” (Pythagoras) and it entails simultaneously a deep connection with all Life and the realization of oneself as a completely unique being. This spirituality also entails a re-owning of the projection of our soul onto God and the realization that we humans are “the Saviors of God” (Kazantzakis) and co-creators with the Divine. This requires from us spiritual maturity and responsibility and also the realization that earth is heaven, or not, depending on how we think and feel and act in everyday living, toward ourselves and all beings. This spirituality also embraces the body as divine and Nature as sacred. It is not dependent on religious forms, but may infuse them. It is in this meaning that the author proposes that the experience of beauty will “save the earth”.