Beauty

 

 

Beauty is something of the wild beauty is never civilized. The moment you civilize it, it becomes ugly. There is no way to civilize beauty. Beauty has to be intrinsically wild, because beauty is part of nature. It is not nurture; it is nature. That's why trees are beautiful, animals are beautiful, birds are beautiful. It is impossible to find a bird which is ugly or a deer which is ugly. Nature is spontaneously beautiful.

 

Only man becomes ugly. And the dilemma is that it is only man who tries to be beautiful. In that very effort to become beautiful, ugliness enters. The very idea to be beautiful shows that you have accepted that you are ugly; the idea is oriented in your self-condemnation. One thing is certain: the person who is trying to be beautiful has accepted his inferiority, his ugliness, his worthlessness. Now he is trying to hide it, to cover it, to improve upon it. Man is the only animal who tries to be beautiful and man is the only animal who is ugly.

 

So the first thing to remember in life is that the more close to nature you are -- to the wild aspect of it, the wild ocean or the wild mountains or the wild jungle -- the more beautiful you are. In beauty there is joy. And out of beauty arises love, out of beauty arises expression, creativity.

 

Only a beautiful person can be creative, because he accepts himself. He is so glad to be himself, he is so grateful to be himself, that out of this gladness and gratitude and acceptance, naturally creativity arises. He wants to do something for God because God has done so much for him. He would like to paint a picture or to create music or to make this world a little better or to help human beings to grow. But he would like to do something because God has done so much for him. Just out of thankfulness creativity is born -- that is the real source of creativity. But that is possible only when you accept yourself, when you are not trying to hide behind masks, when you are not trying to create a camouflage, when you are not creating a personality but are allowing your essence to have its say.

 

Animals don't have any personality. I am not talking about tamed animals; they start having a personality. A wild dog has no personality, just essence; but once the dog is tamed he starts becoming political, he starts becoming diplomatic. He starts being a person; he is no more an individual. He pretends: you hit him and still he goes on wagging his tail in your praise -- this is personality. He would like to tear you into pieces but he knows that you are the boss and he knows his limitations. He knows that soon it is going to be suppertime and he will be in difficulty; he will be beaten, punished. He knows his helplessness so he creates a persona, a mask. He becomes false, he starts pretending, he becomes civilized, he becomes educated... and loses beauty.

 

Beauty is of the wild and beauty is of the vast. The ocean is wild and vast. You cannot see the other shore. You can never see the other shore of beauty. You can feel it but you cannot grasp it. You cannot hold it in your hands. You can live it, you can enjoy it, you can dive deep into it, but you will never be able to fathom it; it is unfathomable, it is immeasurable. Beauty is oceanic, vast, tremendously vast. Beauty has depth, just like the ocean; and the deeper it is, the more divine. Depth means divine. Depth is the dimension of the divine.

 

The civilized person lives on the surface: he is a swimmer, not a diver. He knows perfectly well how to manage himself on the circumference. He is very well acquainted with the circumference -- its ways, manners, etiquette and all. Just below him there is immense depth but he remains oblivious of it.

 

Beauty is of the depth: the deeper you become, the more beautiful you are. And then the beauty is not of this world, because depth is the dimension of the divine. The deeper you go, the more something from your innermost core starts welling up. Beauty is not a make-up, it is a welling-up. Make-up is on the surface.

 

-Osho, ”God's Got a Thing About you, #6“