Embodying Beauty: You
“Do you know how beautiful you are when you are seeing the beauty in someone else?”
TARASA B. LOVICK
No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it cannot be ugly. Because there is so much ugliness in the world, and knowing that beauty and truth are two of life’s great champions, I feel compelled to write about them. All we have to do is look for beauty, it is everywhere, awakening the soul to act—to love. Many people forget the soul's important role in happiness; beauty illuminates the soul—love. Beauty is whatever gives joy.
If you look up the word “beauty,” you will overwhelmingly conclude that it focuses on outward appearance.
The thing about beauty is it lives among the poor, as well as the rich, and it appears in the faces of newborns as well as the faces of grandmothers. Beauty is the ultimate shape-shifter. If you ask anyone about what they consider beautiful, you will get as many answers as people that you ask. Such an intangible thing as sound can be beautiful or ugly. If someone scratches their nails on the chalkboard, that is not the same as listening to a melodious cello. There is a beauty that takes the breath away, like the beautiful supple grace and strength of the ballet dancer flying across the stage. But we are thinking outward. What about the inward beauty? The most radiant beauty of all is spiritual beauty, which flows when the heart is calm and open, and the soul can express itself from connection—consciousness.
What is the inner beauty?
The Bible says, “Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart.” Hmm. Moses ran from justice. Jonah ran from God. Rahab ran a brothel. Sarah ran out of hope. Lot ran with the wrong crowd. David committed adultery and arranged the death of Uriah. Peter denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed. Paul mercilessly persecuted Christians. Clearly, God saw what no one else saw. God used them all. What did all of these characters have in common? They each had a heart after God. In the end, that is all God needs—an open heart. Others measure your shoe size or net worth. Not God. He examines hearts. When he finds one, God calls it and claims it.
Inner beauty can be described as who you are without any layers of false pretense; you see yourself just as you are.
And you experience the divine seeing and loving you, just as you are! That love is the magic of all those characters listed in the Bible earlier. They could be anyone, like you or me. Knowing this gives you the freedom to accept yourself—all of you, even those parts driven by the ego. You would like to deny the jealousy, lust, greed, meanness, etc.. Or, it could be the unconscious parts of you, too. Carl Jung was the first to articulate the shadow concept as the hidden, repressed, and denied aspects of our humanity. Those aspects of ourselves are unconscious (which means they can influence our decisions without us knowing it). For many of us, the individual shadow is easier to grasp; for example, falling into a state of self-pity or projecting our character flaws onto others. When you love yourself shamelessly, you’re most beautiful—shadow and all. Remember, if your soul is pure (which journeying through life accomplishes), your inner beauty radiates love.
We should be embracing this inner beauty and truth, not demonizing it.
When the internal is elevated and beautiful, it will show through to the external. That’s one reason that joy is considered a strength in spiritual dimensions. Think about it for a moment. Joy is a strength because it results from a deep eternal bond with your divine—a strong connection of infinite love.
On the other hand, the root cause of a person's inability to trust is that they lack inner faith and do not experience this inner goodness. Teaching trust is so much more powerful than teaching people to hate themselves because they are “white privilege,” for example. We are not all black, yellow, brown, red, or white. And we don’t have to allow violent ideologies to cause us to hate ourselves (or another) because of skin color or any other outward defining factor for that matter. The world doesn’t become compassionate by teaching hate. The world becomes beautiful when we know that we are loved, love ourselves, and are capable of loving others. Experiencing connection to each other is what makes us happy; this is what consciousness is. This is important because happy people don’t hurt other people. Happy people live from their inner beauty and truth—they feel a deep inner connection to their divinity and humanity.
Have you noticed that happy people are beautiful?
It is important to understand that beauty starts inside you, and only you are responsible for nurturing it. Happy people don’t compare themselves with others; they don’t need to. Happy people don’t judge others. Happy people don’t try to control others; that is manipulation. Happy people are living a life of love that flows from their hearts. Happy people can feel compassion—to feel connected to others and nature. Happy people are true to themselves.
Real beauty is to be true to yourself.
Your true nature, goodness, and God inside you have a purpose. Happy people trust themselves. They have the power to help themselves, and they ask God for help. When you see that you have the power to change your decisions and trust your heart, you have discovered the sovereignty of love.
As Carl Jung says, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
