To: am-global@earthlink.net
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2012 07:00:36
From: “Hitendra Deva”
Subject: Are You Concerned About Beauty?
Baba
“Ba’dha’ eseche bheunegeche toma’r…hoyeche…” (PS 2647)
Purport:
Baba, by Your grace all those obstacles which have come on the path have been pulverized. They got completely destroyed. Whatever horrifying things were there – fog, dilemma, confusion – all disappeared into thin air. This happened only because of Your divine grace.
In a ghastly attempt, the bad days – the foggy weather – wanted to swallow everything. They tried to submerge everything into cimmerian darkness. However the demons’ dances, and the days of hellish creatures and their kingdom of doom, are gone forever by Your grace, by Your karuna.
O’ Parama Purusa, the Charioteer of the chariot of effulgence, You have come. All the confusion, illusion, and dilemmas have been wiped away from everyone’s mind. It is Your grace.
Baba due to Your holy advent the bondage of ignorance and staticity, and the serpentine noose of maya have been destroyed. With the presence of Your august advent, Your arrival, all the sins have gotten destroyed. Now everything is saturated with divine effulgence. Baba, You are ever-gracious…
== ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR BEAUTY ==
Namaskar,
Beauty…
This is one big trend all around the globe these days – now more than ever. All want to become stunningly beautiful.
And there is nothing wrong with that…
…except that people are looking for beauty in all the wrong places – i.e. externally – and it is wrecking their lives. Their misguided search for beauty leads to anxiety, depression, divorce, trauma, frivolous expenses, financial debt and all kinds of psychic complexes and afflictions.
We may even find traces of this ill-conceived quest for beauty in our Marga, though in the general society it is much more rampant, exponentially so.
We should all be aware, lest we fall into a similar pattern. Also with awareness comes the ability to help others and convince them of the truth in a compassionate way through logic and reasoning.
TRENDS, TRENDS, TRENDS
The trends about what is beautiful vary from place to place, but now in this materialistic era, all parameters of beauty are based on the most superficial aspect of the human experience.
In the US and Europe, white-skinned people generally think that “having a tan” makes them more beautiful. Thus most everyone in those areas wants a tan, or brown skin. To get that, they may lie in the sun, lie on a tanning bed, or even have it sprayed on like paint.
In India, now it is more fashionable or beautiful to have light or white skin. For this reason ladies may not even go outside in the sun for fear that their skin will get too dark.
Yet these trends come and go like the wind. One day one wishes to look dark, and the next white. It can flip-flop anytime. Yet on these whimsical and fleeting styles, people form their crude judgments of a person and formulate their own look as well.
Baba says, “The notion of what is beautiful or ugly, or good or bad in human beings changes from age to age, and in different environments. Those who are black-complexioned will say, “How beautiful black is. Why is that man so white? Has he contracted leucoderma (white leprosy)? How repulsive, how utterly repulsive!” That is, human judgement is relative; it changes according to time, place and person.” (AV-8)
And not just skin colour, but each and every aspect of the physical body has a trend, or look, or way that is deemed as beautiful. And people go bonkers trying to achieve that.
They may spike their hair, expand their lips, paint their face, tattoo their body, pluck their eyebrows, squeeze their feet into small shoes, whiten their teeth, grow their nails, paint their toes, and the list goes on and on.
We have all seen it.
They may even visit plastic surgeons to make their nose or other parts “absolutely ideal”, i.e. beautiful. They may body pierce themselves all over thinking that this makes them attractive. Or they may get a liposuction or tummy tuck in order to make themselves look skinny.
In the past in India and other poor countries, being fat was a sign of wealth and prosperity – they all wanted to be fat. That was desired and beautiful. Now in those same places, all that has changed. Especially where the internet is big – like in the Indian cities – all want to be thin now, because that is the rage in the west.
No matter where one resides, to gain that look – of being beautiful – people are willing to do anything.
Even in these tough economic times – when cash is sparse – people are spending thousands and millions even billions of dollars on various cosmetic medical procedures or beauty supplies in order to enhance their look. It is a mega industry at present.
And the one who suffers most is the individual – they become a victim of the times. They ruin their peace and composure by indulging in this quest for beauty externally, which in truth is destined for failure.
POINTS TO NOTE
1. Although beauty varies from place to place and era to ear, people in the same place and in the same era chase after the same look. They all want to be thin, or have their hair in a particular way, and dress according to the day’s fashion etc. In essence, they become mirror images of one another – when in truth diversity is the spice of life. Mother nature makes us all different, even if our parents are the same. By this way the gene pool of our human society gets stronger and more developed. To chase after the same look is to going against nature.
2. The beauty business corrupts people’s mind into thinking that beauty only resides on the outside. They have so many tricks for brainwashing people, especially young women and teenagers. This is their big market and they spend huge money convincing them. In turn, the beauty industry takes in billions. The entire situation is most unfortunate.
3. People naively think that by becoming more beautiful then all their problems will be solved and everything will be alright – i.e. they will be happy and all will adore them. This is their day-dream fantasy as well as the reason why they chase relentlessly after external beauty.
4. Now more and more people are goaded toward external beauty at a younger age. This imposes a terrible inferiority complex that “I am not beautiful enough.” Generally self-conscious feelings about one’s looks occur when one is going through adolescence. But today, in countries like Brazil and India, girls of 3 or 4 years of age are being dressed up like
dolls and the children get the teaching early on that external beauty is everything. This is a terrible tragedy and brings about the demise of the human condition.
5. And there are more points, write us with your thoughts.
NO-WIN SITUATION FOR ANYONE
All in all, chasing after external beauty is a no-win situation for anyone, neither for materialists nor for spiritual aspirants.
Materialists, or common people, bank all their happiness on external beauty and allurements, which is itself fleeting. Most of the time people are too self-conscious to delight in what beauty they do have, and even if they do enjoy their “beauty” what they fail to realise is that their beauty will not last. It is impermanent, temporary. It will wane, wane, wane with the passage of tiem. Seeing this, people get distressed and depressed. They worry about thinner hair, flabby thighs, droopy skin, and so many other things. To make matters worse, people are living longer now than ever before so while their “beauty” may begin to decrease after the age of 30, 35, 40, or 45, they now live longer, up to 80, 90, or 100 and in that case they merely extend their days living in that depressed state. Such is the fate of materialists.
And spiritual-minded people also run into trouble by chasing after external beauty. They may have lived a most dharmic life and helped others but because of their lust for external beauty all their good efforts get wasted and instead of progressing on the path, at the time of death they get turned into bodyless microvita. Such a horrible fate.
Baba says, “Though siddhas are elevated human beings, those who have some aesthetic attraction for physical objects like money, ornaments, etc., become kinnaras after their demise. As spiritual aspirants they are elevated to some extent, and as human beings they are decent, but they prayed to Parama Purus’a for beauty instead of for Parama Purus’a Himself. Such people, after their demise, attain the status of kinnara devayonis.” (MVNS)
So neither the common materialist nor the advanced sadhaka benefits by chasing after external beauty – yet so many engage in this way.
WHY THEY DO IT
The next – or obvious – question then is why do they do it. Why do people chase after external beauty?
The answer we all know.
When people do not seek peace within then their mind turns to the external sphere for happiness, acceptance, and approval. And one of the closest external qualities we have is our bodies. Thus people seek attention and respect based on their external looks, i.e. “beauty”. Their figure, hair, shape, softness etc.
But this leads them nowhere other than their demise.
And tragically the trend is only growing. Now more than ever people are mentally imbalanced due to materialism, and in that precarious state they invariably look more and more for external beauty as their great value in life.
This then makes them more insecure and worried and ultimately sets them up for “the big fall” when their beauty invariably wanes as the body decays.
So it is a vicious cycle.
In contrast, if one is able to find peace within, then they are not so concerned about their superficial looks. Already they have found beauty and value in life. And that is the real beauty that will bring peace and happiness.
WHERE THE REAL BEAUTY LIES
Here Baba graciously guides us where our real beauty lies.
Baba says, “Perhaps you know that mental beauty exercises some degree of influence on the human body. A woman who is unattractive but is mentally elevated or has a loving nature will look beautiful to others. You must have heard that to a child, the most beautiful woman in the world is his or her mother.” (MVNS)
Thus beauty – ie lasting beauty and attraction – lies in the benevolence and sentientness of mind.
As a person gets to know your mind, then they will find you to be more and more beautiful, so long as your mind is spiritually inclined. That is why people who come close to you and become your friend value you for your behaviour and conduct, not for your looks. So long as one’s mind is vibrated, one’s conduct will be proper, and others will be attracted to you. So the point of allurement is the mind not the body. That is where lasting beauty exists. That is Baba’s guideline.
Proof of this is that these days so many marriages are made based on purely external beauty and sexual attraction. But then, as they get to know one another and see how the other thinks and behaves, then they develop distaste for one another until finally they fight, beat each other, and ultimately divorce. Countless high-profile, glamorous marriages have destructed in this way. And it happens to common people as well.
The point is that if you do not like the way a person thinks and behaves, then they will not be beautiful to you, irregardless of how physically attractive they are. And vice-versa.
Whereas, if one’s behavior and dealing are benevolent and charming, then everyone will be attracted to you and find you to be beautiful.
That is Baba’s magic formula.
Thus if one is concerned about beauty – they should ensure they are concerned about their psychic beauty, not the physical one. Only the beauty of the mind can bring about happiness and welfare to oneself and others. Only then can on be truly beautiful in the eyes of others.
BABA’S BLESSING
By His grace here again is His divine teaching. By adhering go 16 Points, doing sadhana, singing kiirtan, and being strict in yama and niyama, then one’s beauty will increase more and more.
Baba says, “Perhaps you know that mental beauty exercises some degree of influence on the human body. A woman who is unattractive but is mentally elevated or has a loving nature will look beautiful to others. You must have heard that to a child, the most beautiful woman in the world is his or her mother.” (MVNS)
Namaskar,
Hitendra
Note 1: BABA’S COLOURFUL DESCRIPTION:
HOW THE NOTION OF BEAUTY CHANGES
Baba says, ” Just imagine the situation that will arise in the future as a result of humanity’s ever increasing thirst for knowledge. To meet these developments the nerve cells and nerve fibres will have to become more complex. Consequently, the human cranium will become larger and the size of the head will increase. The hands and feet will become weaker and weaker and human beings may even lose the ability to walk…Today we think that such people will look very strange, but in the future one may hear people commenting, “Oh, how handsome he looks with eyes as small as little peas and arms as thin as jute sticks. He can’t hear anything with his ears. In fact, he hasn’t got any ears at all! What an attractive man.” Although it seems slightly repulsive to us, this will become the standard of beauty in future. People will judge beauty according to the standards of the day, saying, “Oh, those stick-like arms of his make him look so handsome. The fellow can’t walk properly. How wonderful.” And if someone can walk, people will say, “How indecent that fellow looks hobbling around on two legs!” But if he crawls along the ground they will say, “How wonderful, how beautiful!” If we were to see this sort of scene today, however, we would say, “How unsightly. That fellow is uglier than an owl.”” (AV-8)
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Samaj is Based on Neo-Humanism, not Groupism
Parama Purusa BABA says, “If each samaj [socio-economic unit] is inspired by a comprehensive ideology and a universal outlook, human society will move ahead with accelerating speed towards a sublime ideal.” (PNS-13, p. 23)
Note: Nowadays some group leaders are singing the song of samaj as they try to forge ahead with their narrow-minded agendas. But margiis can smell this from a mile away and are keeping distance from such talk. Means other than a select few, no one is falling into the trap that the spectacle of such and such WT group is part of samaj theory.
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