Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder is generally considered to mean that beauty is subjective and what one person may find attractive another may dislike. Perhaps the meaning is subtly different from this superficial assessment of beauty. Whatever we see in one another is generally a reflection of ourselves. If we listen to a poem or piece of music and find it beautiful, it is resonating with the beauty within us. If we find someone charming and appealing it is often because they are demonstrating aspects of our character that we like and want to promote. If we find someone annoying and irritating then they are more than likely displaying parts of our personality that we would rather hide. Our annoyance and dislike are more focussed on our true selves than on the other person.

Carl Jung said “A man who is unconscious of himself acts in a blind, instinctive way, and is, in addition, followed by all the illusions that arise when he sees everything that he is not conscious of in himself coming to meet him from outside as projections from his neighbour.”

This is a similar idea to beauty is in the eye of the beholder: those things that irritate us, we feel bombarded by when meeting other people. Anger is in the eye of the beholder. They are reminders that this is how we ourselves are acting or capable of acting. As soon as we recognise this truth we can start to work on these negative aspects of our personality.

If we believe in the continuity of the human soul, life after death, and reincarnation, we know that we have eternity in which to progress. We do not need to beat ourselves up thinking that we need to change now or be damned for eternity. We can work on those aspects of ourselves that we choose to work on or we can work on none of them. It is our personal responsibility, our choice: we have free will. Neale Donald Walsh in his Conversations with God asked God as to why we would bother to do anything, why would we wish to develop in anyway given we are eternal beings. God’s answer was “There is nothing else to do”! Our S O L E purpose is to work on our SOULS.

But there is no hurry no pressure. We have eternity.

Although there is no pressure, we must ask ourselves why not change. Whilst we remain as we are we will continue suffering. Those irritating people will continue to irritate us as we are indeed ourselves irritating.

We must learn to reconcile ourselves with our own personalities. We must learn to understand our capacity for anger, for hatred, for dislike, for even violence and then make a conscience decision as to how we will act. In each situation we have a choice as to how we behave. Will we be defensive? Will we put blame on others? Will we react in a hostile way? Or will we respond with understanding and love: recognition that the other person is our brother or sister; all part of the same Divine Entity; but possibly an unenlightened part or unenlightened of their own behaviour and personality. That person does not recognise why they are reacting and behaving in a negative way. They do not know they are our brothers and sisters, that they are part of the great Oneness. We however can choose to respond with love, understanding and compassion.

Eckhart Tolle relates a story of a Zen Master who when accused of being the father of a new baby said “is that so”. When the parents told everyone want he had done. He said “is that so”. When they brought round the baby to him as they said it was his to look after. He said “is that so”. He lost his reputation and his career but his response was “is that so”. Eventually the mother of the baby confessed that he was not the father of her child. The parents went to see him and begged for his forgiveness and he responded “is that so”. By his inaction, his love, compassion and understanding the wrong was righted. He did nothing but waited patiently.

In some circumstances it is necessary to take action, for example, if you are mis-sold a car you may need to take someone to court, but we can still act in an understanding and compassionate way. We can recognise another part of ourself in the other person. We can show them the way and bring them to love, understanding and compassion by our reactions rather than showing anger, which will only fuel their negative emotions and prolong everyone’s suffering.

We have a choice. We have personal responsibility. We can work towards responding to situations with love, with compassion, with understanding. It may not be an easy path to tread but it is much more fulfilling to be filled with love than anger. If we tread this path than we will find that beauty is ours as beauty is in the eye of the beholder.