Beauty is not something that we do.
Beauty is not something to be acquired.
Beauty is not something to be created.
Beauty is not even something that we are.
We are not beautiful.
We do not create beautiful things in the world.
Beauty is an allowance.
We are vessels.
We are vehicles.
We are conduits for beauty.
Imagine a newborn baby.
They don't have to be taught how to be beautiful.
This child has so much beauty and joy and love that is coming through it.
And it doesn't have to earn it.
It doesn't have to do anything.
It doesn't have to try.
What happens is that over time we begin to suppress.
We begin to distort.
We begin to deny this beauty.
The beauty is prevented from coming through us because of our judgments,
Our filters,
Our distortions,
Our stories,
Our comparisons,
Our illusions,
Our fantasies.
Imagine having a piece of glass and on the other side of the glass is something that you think is very ugly.
And so you say,
I don't want this ugliness.
I want beauty in my life.
Okay.
And then you take some paint and you make this pretty little picture over the glass and you say,
Oh wow,
Look,
There it is.
Now this is beautiful.
When we suppress the beauty and judge and project our own distortions and perversions onto something,
We do not allow ourselves to see the beauty that is coming through.
Thus,
We find it ugly.
And so we paint on top of it.
The ego says,
All right,
This isn't what I want.
This is ugly.
Let's make it more beautiful.
The thing behind the glass doesn't actually change.
It doesn't actually go away.
And so we hide from the truth.
We distort reality.
We then live in a fantasy of saying,
Oh look,
This is beautiful.
But it's not because any time that we judge and suppress and avoid and deny and then cover that up with something that we think is better than that,
Any time we do that can only lead to suffering.
The ego comes in and says,
Oh,
This isn't good enough.
This is ugly.
So let me come in and make it prettier and make it better.
It's the ego that first decided and judged that it was ugly.
And then it wants to come in with a solution to cover up that ugliness,
To find it more beautiful.
This is insanity.
Beauty is not additive.
It is subtractive.
Beauty is not created.
It is allowed.
If we go out into the world seeking to create and add and do something to make ourselves more beautiful,
It's not going to work.
Because it gets us further and further and further from our true self.
And our true self is inherent beauty.
In order to become more beautiful,
It requires us to stop.
To stop the judgments,
The projections,
The distortions,
The suppressions,
The denials.
We are misinterpreting reality and giving it a meaning and taking it personal.
That is what's creating the ugliness.
Then trying to do something on top of that only creates another layer of distortion.
When we stop doing all of that stuff,
Our inherent beauty is allowed to come through.
From this we can conclude that ugliness is not the absence of something beautiful.
It is the rejection of beauty itself.
A beauty which is already there that only needs to be allowed.
And that allowing comes from stopping.
