Beauty and Real Beauty

Have you ever felt what sets wings to your emotions as you suddenly exclaim,” What a beautiful thing this is!” For us anything can be beautiful, irrespective of person, place or emotion. Even a tragic movie ends, leaving tears into our eyes and our heart wells out saying it.... beautiful!!

So, really, to define beauty is as difficult as to define ‘point’ in mathematics. However, I would say everything, beautiful which is the object of happiness. But remember, not the source of happiness. The difference of object and source must be understood to appreciate this definition. Let me explain it through example:

When we meet our loved one after a long-time, our eyes become full of tears. We cry...But we feel happiness...I would call it beauty....
But how am I able to witness this beauty? It is because I have already bore the pain of being away from her.
The source of happiness is the pain. But Pain itself is not the happiness.

May be for one person, the clamouring of birds is just noise and for other it is the music of existence. For a same person, a flower seems an ordinary thing at one moment. And at the next moment, it starts appearing a beautiful gift of existence. 

Does it mean that beauty is only in eyes of seer?  Does it mean it is psychological? Does it mean that we have to squeeze the beauty by being in complete awareness? Well, I feel it is.

What makes TajMahal beautiful? What makes a golden sculpture more beautiful than iron sculpture?

When we see an object, we perceive an image in the reflection of many things. Like if we are seeing a historical building, its history and mystery is as important as its infrastructure in judging beauty. 

Even gold and diamond are regarded as beautiful, not only because they are but also due to rarity and usefulness. For a child, I think marble and gold would not make a difference in terms of beauty.  

What makes a woman/man beautiful for man/woman?

It is his/her desire, in the shadow of which they define beauty. Well, sex is an important aspect but it is not the only one; care, compassion, security and many other things plays a vital role in judging the person beautiful. 

He likes SRK( actor) but his liking is just projection of his subtle desire to be like him. He likes Aishwarya because consciously and unconsciously he wants to posses her.

One calls Mother Teresa beautiful, not because her appearance but due to her philanthropic works.

One likes Ferrari not because it looks but it would fill his subtle desire. Now this desire is also product of many things (human instincts).

Why do people consider fairer people more beautiful?

I think it is just conditioning of mind. Black people had been subjected to slavery, humiliation and disgrace for many centuries. Consequently, people’s minds have been conditioned to accept this bitter and atrocious fact even today. It is imperative to ponder as there are some communities where measurement of beauty is just reverse of general thinking. Even Krishna, who is considered as the most beautiful person on earth had dark complexion which itself shows dark was beautiful in the past. Society fills our mind with prejudices and dogmas, in the reflection of which we judge beauty.

What I conclude is when we see an object we judge it according to its attributes in every dimension like history, mystery, pain endured, rarity and usefulness. Beauty is a function of those attributes which are just projection of our desire. 

World would be always discriminated in two parts- beautiful and ugly if we did have desire and conditioned mind. 

Real  beauty...?

As I have not experienced what real beauty is, so at most I can give a hypothetical explanation of real beauty. When one sees an object without any judgement of good or bad; without any history or mystery; without any desire, I think the emotion he feels at that very moment would be Real beauty. And beauty of this assumption lies in the fact that in this way everything would be beautiful. An eternal beauty would be in one’s eyes. This might be the beauty which is explained in our scriptures and is felt by very rare personalities like Buddha (after enlightment).

This is my entry for participating in The Yahoo Dove Real Beauty Contest. Click below to vote me if you liked the post.