the Beautiful Necessity

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This unity of all beings, their interconnection and interdependence, is the primary vision of mysticism.

It says that the virtue mystics practice is necessary not only because of its functional utility but because it is realistic. One should treat the other as oneself because below the surface we are all aspects of one being; the Golden Rule is not an arbitrary, culturally determined morality but an expression of the actual nature of the world.

Our continued existence as a species and our further development depend on our capacity for recognizing this reality despite the compelling influence of the object self.


—Arthur J. Deikman, exerpts

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Still your mind in me, still yourself in me,

and you shall be united with me,

the One Love, dwelling in your heart.


—Bhagavad Gita
Chapter 12, excerpt

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Let us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all is made of one piece; that plaintiff and defendant, friend and enemy, animal and planet, food and eater, are of one kind.

In astronomy is vast space, but no foreign system; in geology, vast time, but the same laws as to-day.

Why should we be afraid of Nature, which is no other than “philosophy and theology embodied”? Why should we fear to be crushed by savage elements, we who are made up of the same elements?

Let us build to the Beautiful Necessity, which makes man brave in believing that he cannot shun a danger that is appointed, nor incur one that is not; to the Necessity which rudely or softly educates him to the perception that there are no contingencies;

that Law rules throughout existence, a Law which is not intelligent but intelligence, — not personal nor impersonal — it disdains words and passes understanding; it dissolves persons; it vivifies nature;
yet solicits the pure in heart to draw on all its omnipotence.


—Ralph Waldo Emerson

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