Beauty

Beauty is the manifestation of love. It is a way of expression. We can express beauty in many ways – through our body, clothes, speech, interactions, art, home, environment, etc. Beauty is an expression of harmony but it is also an upliftment of energies – physical, interactional, emotional, and with ideas.

Beauty is the essence of our self, our heart, our soul, and this is meant to manifest in body, mind, and world. We are all here to manifest our inner potential beauty, in every type of field and way. In each person are the seeds of beautiful qualities and potentially beautiful manifestations.

Beauty is not just the way of women; men need to be beautiful too. Everyone finds their own way of beauty. But unless beauty is a goal, it doesn’t just automatically happen. Make an intention to be beautiful and express beauty.

It is useful to notice in oneself what is not beautiful. We should not do this with our physical bodies, because this leads to vain criticism of oneself, but it is useful when it’s about our emotions, thoughts, speech and expressions. Then, by noticing and admitting what is not beautiful, we can make an intention to change these un-beautiful habits into beautiful expressions. But we truly have to want to change, which requires letting go of and eliminating those unbeautiful habits. If we decide and will to change, and are willing to keep notice on our self, then new ways of beauty will come about.

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One kind of unbeautiful action is imposing one’s will upon others. This can either be overt or as a subtle manipulation. To notice and admit to this can be difficult. We often want others to be as we would like them to be, and we sometimes get irritated or angry when they do not. We have certain ideas about how others ought to be, especially in relation to us personally, and we judge them accordingly. These are difficult patterns to notice in ourselves. But we can question about this – like, why should others be just the way I want them to be? Can I not give them the right to be as they are and decide what they decide, without my heavy judgment on them or, even worse, my attempted manipulation of them to be different or act differently.

There is a kind of judgment based on right justice and intrinsic good, such as judging someone who is hurting others or animals, or other parts of nature’s beauty. We are not saying here to never make judgments, for some kinds of judgments are righteously about true justice. The judgment patterns we are speaking about here are to do with our self-desires for others to be as we want them to be – for our own gratification or comfort – like when we have an ideal for others to be that is really based on the little perspective of just my-self or based on my own desire. It is like wanting others to satisfy oneself by being and acting in certain ways; and if they do not, we tend to be upset and judge them, and maybe even work to manipulate them to change, or we directly impose our will on them. These are things we might watch for in ourselves.

Beauty

Beauty is a real property in the world and in ourselves. Teachings say that God created beauty, or that creation is essentially beautiful, or nature is beautiful, or the universe is based on an underlying beautiful geometry. Beauty is a reality. It’s not just an idea made up in the human mind. Creation is evolving towards greater and greater beauty. This is, in fact, part of the whole purpose of existence. But this is not just about physical beauty or beauty of form; there is also a potential beauty of ideas, emotions, and deeds. That is, what we think, what we feel, and what we do can also be beautiful.

So there are many possibilities of beauty. But what are some common features of such beauty? Or in other words, what makes something or someone beautiful? One related essence of beauty is harmony. Another related essence is love. Another essence is vitality. Another is luminosity. Another is truthfulness. Another is excellence. And another is enjoyment. Some kind of mixture of these seems to make beauty.

To repeat these seven essences of beauty, they are

harmony, love, vitality, luminosity, truthfulness, excellence, and enjoyment.

If at least of these are combined, there is beauty. We can consider these latter.

The way we know beauty, though, is not by any set rules of what beauty must look like, and neither do we know beauty by reasoning. Rather, we recognize beauty by an inner sense of beauty. Or we could call this a natural sensitivity to beauty, which is as much an inherent human capacity as is sight. We sense what is beautiful, or what is not, and we even have a rough capacity to weigh its intensity. Many philosophers have argued that beauty is just subjective and that its judgment is as inconsistent as is the diversity of people. There is some truth in these views, as there is often some truth in most views, but what is being neglected is that there really is in each human being an objective sense-capacity to know beauty, though this is a higher-order capacity which requires a finer degree of maturation. So we are saying here that beauty is known by an inner sense, or sensitivity. And it is not merely a variable whim of each person.

Yet, no matter what philosophy we have about what beauty is, the effects of beauty are undeniably significant. Beauty affects us powerfully, both in a sensorial and emotional way. What or who we experience as beautiful emotionally moves us, uplifts us, and sometimes transforms us in this very moment. Perceiving or experiencing beauty in a person, or in the natural world, will transform sadness into joy, depression into enthusiasm, or disgust of life into love of life. The effects of perceiving beauty and also of being around beauty are greater than we might think. For example, one effect of beauty is to bring harmony in oneself. As already mentioned, one of the essences of beauty is harmony. So also, one of the effects of beauty on ourselves is harmony. Beauty brings us into inner harmony. And with harmony comes healing and good health. So for healing and good health, perceive or experience beauty.

This can be happen in the following ways. One can look at others, or wherever one is, and find some beauty there; remembering that beauty can be inner as well as outer, and in action as well as in physical form. See anything beautiful about them, whatever it is, and remember to also see into the innerness of them and see the beautiful qualities they often express. Also, one can create more beauty in one’s home or place. Then beauty will be more around. If we have beauty around us, then we will be vibrationally immersed in greater harmony and love. Another way to experience beauty is to imagine or visualize a scene or something beautiful. Or meditate on beauty. This is a very easy way to create healing, health, and harmony in one’s life; because each time we experience beauty, even if imagined, the effect is to bring health and harmony. Just thinking about beauty creates harmony and health in oneself.

The fourth way is to find beauty in oneself. This does not have to be narcissistic. There is nothing wrong with having an appreciation of oneself; it is good to appreciate qualities in oneself. Yet this is not about looking at oneself in the mirror. The more significant beauty to discover in oneself are qualities of the heart and abilities of the mind. In other words, look inside, look at the inner side of yourself, and discover what is beautiful there. What is good, what is loving, and what is uplifting? Discover, perceive, experience your own beauty, your own beautiful qualities and capacities. Realize this: the most beautiful feeling and sense inside yourself is your own soul. This is the truth of who you really are. This is your innermost and most luminous beauty. But this luminosity of inner beauty is only realized when one penetrates to the core oneself. The average person will probably have no experience of their luminous beauty from within. It is still dark because the soul is buried down so deep, like a treasure unknown. Go find this buried treasure! This buried light! This buried beauty!

Finally, the goal is for our own self to be more beautiful… with love, luminosity, vitality, harmony, truthfulness, excellence and joy. When we experience more beauty outwardly and around us, or even imaginably, we become more beautiful in ourselves, and beauty also awakens our inner divinity. So there is a complementing relationship between beauty around us and our own beauty – of our ideas, our emotions, our activities, and body. Beauty experienced around us, whatever it is and wherever it may come from, influentially nurtures our own beauty. And then, our own personal kinds of beauty influentially nurture the inherent beauty of others, and we also make our surroundings more beautiful. So beauty builds beauty. Beautiful places and surroundings build more beauty in us and also influence us to be more beautiful in our actions and creativity. Beauty around us even creates harmony and health in our body, emotions, and mind.

Of course, we could say basically the same about love. Love builds love. Love in our surroundings influentially develops our own inherent love -- our heart of love, our love radiance and our love expressions. And conversely, the love we have and express influentially builds more love in others and in the whole world.

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Joy is a self-quality that is found in the heart. It is already in the heart, just as love is already here. We just need to discover it, or uncover it. And this Joy is not dependent on outer circumstances. It’s not like joy will come forth, if only certain right things happen. That is, it’s not like certain things must happen for one to experience Joy. It’s not like I will experience Joy only when I have this or get that. Rather, Joy simply springs up from within being, without any dependence on something making it happen. Joy is actually independent of external circumstances, independent of both physical and social interpersonal causes. So find this abiding, self-subsisting Joy, and let it bubble up. Let Joy spring forth from the depth of our being. Though it usually starts as an inner subtle feeling, rather than a jumping up and down intensity.

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Joyful heart

Having joy is a quality everyone wants.

This is our true self

Inner and outer beauty.

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Life has its own special energy. We are in it, and we are sustained by it. Know that I am in Life. Feel this Life Energy. Connect with Life, with Life Itself. This is my Life, this is our Life. So by connecting consciously and energetically with the Life Energy Itself, one becomes connected with all life and everyone and everything. In addition, the Life Energy flows through the one who is consciously connected and in tune with this Life Energy and Matrix. Be connected, in tune, and in harmony with this Life, which is actually our Living Mother, our Uma.

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