What is beauty?

Oasis

Defining beauty is no less than fixing a jigsaw puzzle. It is a conundrum of colossal complexity. Intellectuals have delineated the various contours of beauty in their own subtle and sublime way. The laymen, though less profoundly, also dwell on the idea with their sense of understanding. A literary adage "the beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder" cuts ice with the scholarly and the rustic alike. With our own self created notion of this beguiling and bewildering beauty that gravitates us towards its overwhelming charms, all of us have tried to captivate the object of beauty and rule over seeking a monopoly.

However, the vast majority of people have a very erroneous idea of beauty. Wearing swanky attire with mind-boggling price tags can make one extremely pleasant to the outward eye. An artistically and aesthetically dressed individual will certainly be the cynosure of a party as his conspicuous presence will win him many plaudits and laudatory compliments but if he does not observe decency and modesty can exude inordinate and obdurate pride. He is just immediately reduced to a bête noir to the others because of his sheer callous and condescending ways.

The dictum "handsome is that handsome does" can never be relegated to the corner of obsolete cliches. It is our actions that make us either attractive or repulsive. If a person is clad in ordinary clothes but his mind is shorn of all the malice and malevolence, he can rightly be adjudged as the paragon of real beauty.

There is a large number of such people worldwide and with their handsome deeds and beatific behaviour that endears masses alike. This world can only be redeemed of its shoddiness and slovenliness if the mind is beautified, whereas a modern man with his distorted definition of beauty is squandering with his energies and resources in the futile and fruitless rounds to salons. The revered Buddha appareled in the cloak of a hermit is worth emulating. His charismatic charms are still capable of holding us spellbound. Once while delivering his sermons, when Buddha was in his meditative ecstasy, he was asked to wax eloquent on the subject of beauty by one of his followers. In his deliberative and precise manner, he responded that one must not be proud of one's physical beauty rather one must diligently cultivate the beauty of the soul. The body is bound to perish. Therefore the bodily attractions are only nine days wonder. One must strive to make one's soul hugely beautiful not with cosmetic but karmic changes.