A Sense of Beauty - Geetha Jaikumar

What is understood by the word ‘Beauty’? Beauty means different things to different people. It is primarily a matter of individual perception. What one person considers the personification of beauty might be viewed as being ordinary or possibly even nondescript by another. Beauty as the adage goes lies in the eye of the beholder.

How many of us have opened our minds and senses of vision, smell, hearing and touch to the myriad forms of nature and beauty unfolding all around us every minute of every day? If one is able to put aside the cares of everyday living and be alive to what is happening around us, we would observe much more and be filled with a sense of beauty.

When a child looks at a flower, he does not waste time wondering how it came about but looks at its colour, and shape in sheer joy and wonderment. He bends down and puts his face to it, drinking in the glory of its perfume. He does not stop to wonder where the perfume comes from, or how it was created, but accepts it all as the most natural thing in the world – a gift that has been given to him to enjoy. Why not accept the wonder and simplicity of life and try to work out the complexity of it all with the mind?

A scientist recently expressed a creed when he wrote, ‘and it is deep in our own natures to seek enlightenment about the world and our place in it and to be exhilarated by its magnificent and challenging answers’. But this sentiment expresses mainly a western attitude towards nature. Diasetsu Suzuki in his book, Mysticism – Christian and Buddhist, gives an illuminating example of a different world view when he quotes Tennyson’s ‘Flower in the Crannied Wall’:

© "Wake Up India" (Jan.-March, 2002) published by The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Chennai 600 020. Website: www.ts-adyar.org. Reprinted with permission.

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