Beauty Beyond Sight

Does beauty have to be seen in order to feel one with the object of beauty, especially considering a profound experience of tears and gratitude when entering the Duomo in Florence despite being unable to see it? Rupert says: ‘Your mind is trying to dumb down what is really happening, to dismiss it as some trivial experience – “it’s just because you’re on holiday.” The mind does this because in the experience of beauty, the mind was not present, and it realises if you have this experience again and again, there’s no place for it. The fact that you can’t see has opened a new channel of sensitivity in you. Buildings exude what has gone into the making of them, and you don’t need to see a building to feel that – you just have to be open, sensitive and receptive. The experience of beauty is the dissolution of the subject-object relationship. That’s why places like the Duomo are built – the ultimate purpose of art is not to draw you towards the object but to dissolve the subject-object relationship. When the dualistic tendencies of the mind dissolve, there is a deep relaxation in the body, which for you was expressed as tears. The overwhelming feeling of gratitude is the mind coming back online after plunging into awareness, before it appropriates the experience – it comes back suffused with the perfume of awareness.’

From event 05 - 12 April, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at Mandali, 5–12 April 2025

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