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AUM (1936) - 112:
112. It is rightly understood that so-called sacred animals were not deities, but were a natural consequence arising from local conditions. Even now people often speak about some sacred obligation meaning thereby, not a religious rite, but a useful moral action. The conditions of antiquity often required a special attention to certain animals, or trees and plants. Sacredness signified inviolability. Thus was preserved something rare and necessary. The very same protection contemporary people call "preserves." Thus, one should refer very carefully to concepts that are not clear. So much has been added to the province of religion that, because of its antiquity, superficial observers are completely unable to distinguish the fundamental from the stratifications around it. The temple even now is a gathering place where, along with ceremony, barter and sale take place, and local matters are discussed. The same piling up of confusion is still taking place. Therefore let us not be excessively harsh toward the term sacred animals and other long-forgotten archaic symbols. Supermundane - The Inner Life - Book 1 (1938) - 42:
42. Urusvati has developed her musical talent beautifully. This proficiency is achieved as the result of much labor in other lives. According to the Teachings of Plato, music should not be understood in the narrow sense of music alone, but as participation in all the harmonious arts. In singing, in poetry, in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, in speech, and, finally, in all manifestations of sound, musicality is expressed. In Hellas a ceremony to all the Muses was performed. Tragedy, dance, and all rhythmic movement served the harmony of Cosmos. Much is spoken about beauty, but the importance of harmony is little understood. Beauty is an uplifting concept, and each offering to beauty is an offering to the equilibrium of Cosmos. Everyone who expresses music in himself sacrifices, not for himself, but for others, for humanity, for Cosmos.
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