The Inner Beauty
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”
John Keats
Everybody knows the meaning of the word ‘beauty’. In maximum cases it indicates the physical beauty. When we say something is beautiful, we mean to say that the thing is beautiful physically. Therefore, in a way it may be said that the word ‘beauty’ alludes to the material nature of things. So, is it the outer beauty that Keats is talking about? Is forever joy possible through outer beauty that is ephemeral? Or is it the inner beauty that Keats hints at?
You may have to read a bit more to get to the answer. Now let’s start with our today’s topic ‘inner-beauty’ and do an in-depth study of the same.
Inner-beauty, as the name suggests, is what’s present inside every single human being, differing only in its intensity. One cannot see the inner beauty of a person physically, but it can be perceived, felt.
If beauty is material, then the inner beauty is abstract, spiritual in nature. To understand the inner beauty, we first need to understand the parameters that defines inner beauty. Generally, behaviour of a person gives a window to her/his inner beauty. The behavioural parameters that are generally taken into account to judge the inner beauty in a person are kindness, honesty, empathy, behaviour towards other people, etc., etc.
We find various kinds of people around us. Some people are loving, kind, caring, helpful, friendly, generous, honest, and so on, while some are cunning, rude, selfish, arrogant, egoistic, lecherous, etc. So, there is a difference in the inner beauty of persons, even if their outer beauty suggests otherwise.
The phrase “beauty lies in the eye of the beholder” fits perfectly for inner beauty as well. Different people may have different criteria for judging the inner beauty of a person. But you may ask, some people may fake their inner beauty as they do for their physical beauty. Yes, they definitely can! But faking the inner beauty is really tougher than faking the outer beauty. One cannot fake it for long, she/he may get exposed, because the true nature of a person does get to the surface from time to time and a keen observer can easily notice it and figure out the real nature of a person.
It is generally said that physical beauty is transient, but the inner beauty is eternal. That seems quite plausible, and that may be the point that Keats wants to suggest through his statement. But you might ask, how can inner beauty be eternal for mortals like human beings? Well, to understand this we first have to understand the metaphysical nature of the inner beauty.
Inner beauty is the reflection of one’s inner self. The more one is connected to one’s inner self, the more intense one’s inner beauty is. In fact, one’s inner self illuminates the inner beauty in a person. Hence, it may be said that the closer you are to your inner self the more beautiful you become from the inside.
The inner voice, that you might have heard, guides you to the right path. Remember the parameters of inner beauty, I discussed earlier. Haven’t you noticed your inner voice guiding you in certain situations as per these parameters? However, in today’s world, where there is influx of a lot of different ideas, people’s inner voice either gets distorted or gets totally muted. The subconscious mind plays a big role in this regard. We sometimes unintentionally feed our subconscious mind with certain ideas, and preconceived notions, that in a way molds or distorts our inner voice thereby pushing us farther from our true inner self. Thus, making us lose the intensity of our inner beauty. Joseph Murphy has rightly remarked in his book ‘The Power of Your Subconscious Mind’,
“As you sow in your subconscious mind, so shall you reap in your body and environment.”
Apart from the behavioural patterns, there is some kind of invisible aura that surrounds every human being. This aura is closely connected to the condition of one’s inner self and gives a slight access to one’s inner beauty. In fact, it won’t be wrong to say that this aura is a part of the inner beauty of a person. This aura can be positive or negative or mixed. You may have noticed that just looking at a stranger gives you some idea about the nature of the person. Like when I see a person for the first time, my mind automatically makes some guesses about nature, character, behaviour etc. of the person, and in most cases, it’s very close to reality. What kind of data do we use to calculate such things? Well, there are various kinds of information we already have about human beings as a whole. Every person creates his own model of the world. So, the information we use comes from this model which includes experiential data, perception of different kinds of aura, facial expressions, body language etc.
Some people’s aura repels us while someone’s aura attracts us. When somebody has an intensely positive and attractive aura, we call such people charismatic personality. Swami Vivekananda had a very powerful aura that could encompass hundreds of people at a time. That is one of the reasons his speech during the The World’s Parliament of Religions impacted such a large number of people coming from different religions, regions and cultures. The energies around people like Swami Vivekananda oscillate at a very different frequency. This charisma is the thing that adds charm to one’s inner beauty. One can develop such an aura by controlling one’s senses, developing a healthy body and healthy mind, practicing meditation and yoga, following continence, and maintaining purity of thought and action. This is how one can increase the intensity of one’s inner beauty by leaps and bounds.
Somebody has rightly said, “Beauty attracts, but inner beauty captivates”. When one experiences the inner beauty, he raises himself from the level of physicality to the level of spirituality. Then physical attraction doesn’t matter for that person. So, the connection between human beings through inner beauty is metaphysical in nature. It’s like a connection between two inner selves. This inner self is eternal and so is its beauty. And that’s why Keats says, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever”.
