Sharanagati

What is beauty? You shouldn’t ask what is beauty. WHO is beauty!

The search for beauty is a long search. And the beauty of the world is based on convention, agreement. We agree that this is “nice”, we are told that this is “nice”. Just think! Usually we think that the human form is nice. But if you are a centipede, for example, you might think that “these human guys have only two legs! Very ugly!” Also humans between themselves: Eskimos’ think that the white people are ugly and the white think that Eskimos’ are ugly. But if both of them see a flower, both say: “this is beautiful.” Still, what is the beauty of a flower? Is this the special wave-length of the color, like red?! This is also a convention – that it is agreeable to our eyes. Or we can also expand the question: what is taste? We think that the apple is of good taste? This is limited by our biology. For a dog this is not a good taste.

So, beauty on the relative platform is a kind of convention. According to our bodies, according to our conditionings, of having these material facilities, “this” we take as something nice, or something of good taste. This is a kind of conditioning. If we would have different body, we would consider different things to be nice. That means that on the relative platform beauty is also relative. You put your music loud – that’s good for you; but the neighbor will say: “Stop that noise!!!” On material platform there’s always a clash between tastes, ideas, est.

We are searching for beauty, no doubt, but when we have enough of material, relative beauty, then we should be intelligent enough to search for the absolute beauty.

Plato was thinking in three categories: the good, the true and the beautiful. Goodness, truth and beauty. These were the basic principles of his philosophy; actually these are non-different from sat-chit-ananda. Because ananda is beauty; the existential principle sat – this is the good; and the moral principle is the truth. So existence is good, this is it’s basic, starting point – existence is good or good exists, you can put it in both ways. The moral quality of that existential goodness is the truth! This is an intellectual decision on existence. And the whole picture must be beautiful.

So we should search for the ultimate beauty, not the relative one. And ultimate beauty should be found on divine platform. Because we DO believe that absolute existence is good AND beautiful. Therefore our shastras give a BEAUTIFUL description of the spiritual sky. Not only some theoretical, not only some empty, not only some gorgeous, but something that is beautiful. And therefore Krishna is described as a cowherd boy, because this is more charming, more beautiful then some glorious aspect of God. The greatness and the dignity of God are inviting some kind of respectful approach from us. But Krishna invites a loving mood from the devotees.

But what happens in our life? Where is our beauty and where is our love? If this is still on the relative platform – don’t waste it!