11/2/14 Rev. David McArthur
Beauty and the Beast – Loving Ourselves
When we look at this experience of love we call God, how hard it is to let it be directed at ourselves!
Once very successful, but now in poverty, a merchant was riding home one night but got lost in a terrible storm. He rode toward a distant light, which grew brighter. The air got warmer and the forest, green. There was a large manor with beautiful gardens. The front door was standing open. No one ever appeared, but his every need was met. In the morning he left to return home, but first he picked a rose for his daughter, Beauty. Then the Beast did appear, “I have warmed, fed and housed you and have asked nothing in return, yet you steal from me. Your life is forfeit!” The merchant pleaded for his life, explaining he took the rose for his daughter, Beauty. The Beast relents, but only if Beauty comes to live with him. When she arrives, the Beast asks Beauty if she is there of her free will, and she answers that she is (to save her father).
We are all these people, including the Beast. The criminal, angry, animal things we do to others! The difficulty is we still carry the Beast inside and must deal with it in order to expand into the spiritual awakening. We can feel lost in the storm and seek the light. There it is warm and comfortable with all that we need. It is another state of consciousness. But there too is forfeiting of life. To go back to what is not real is the death. We try to deny and control our beast, but love transforms. We must bring beauty (the developing feminine self, our feeling nature) into our experience with the Divine to fully experience it.
Beauty declined the Beast’s many offers of marriage. She remained true to her integrity, as she saw the Beast as an angry, violent being. In time, she began to see and appreciate his caring way. She began to see his heart. However, she wanted to marry the handsome Prince (the mind) in her dreams, so how could she marry the Beast? She goes home for a while (a spiritual vacation), where she wakes up to her appreciation and love for the Beast. So she returns only to find he is dying. She holds him in her arms, and her tears bring life back to him.
The Beast again asks her to wed, and this time she says “Yes!” because now she knows she loves him. His beastly facade fades away. He is the handsome Prince she had dreamed of. It is by love that we create true harmony. It’s about loving ourselves—not about anything else but letting ourselves have the feeling of loving. Give yourself the hug that lets the Divine fill you and bring you into fulfillment. Beauty’s dreams told her that beauty is within all the time because God is good all the time! God is good all the time! All the time God is good!
Let this lead you to the consciousness of Happily Ever After!