What Is Beauty?

 

 

You are standing beside a flower. Is it necessary to say it is beautiful? Is it necessary to say it is ugly? And will your statement bring about a change in the flower? The flower is not at all affected by your remarks. When you say the flower is beautiful it is your own behaviour towards the flower that changes. If you call it ugly, it is again your own behaviour towards it that changes. Your remark brings about a change not in the flower but in you.

 

What is the criterion of beauty? What scales do we employ to measure the beauty of the flower? It is a difficult question to answer. At the very depth of your statement lies the reason for calling the flower beautiful and that is -- because you think so. But is your preference a rule of beauty? What is the basis behind calling a thing ugly? It is, that you think so. But is your dislike a rule set by nature, that a thing is ugly because you dislike it? What does your like and dislike show? It indicates all about you and not4ing about the flower; for standing near the same flower, I can make my own likes and dislikes known. The flower remains the same, whether someone calls it beautiful or ugly; or whether no comment is made, the flower remains the flower. Let a thousand people make a thousand comments, the flower remains the same.

 

Then what do these remarks tell us about -- the flower or the one who makes these remarks?

 

If we understand well, we shall know that all statements tell us about the speaker. Now take for instance this statement "This flower is beautiful". What I really mean to convey is that I am such a person who finds this flower beautiful. Now it is not imperative that this flower will still look beautiful to me in the evening. It may seem ugly to me by evening. Then I will have to say, "Now I have become such a person who finds this flower ugly." Are these feeling of beauty or ugliness, objective or subjective? Are they our own intrinsic feelings or the actual form of the objects? What are they? They are our mental feelings and reflections.

 

It is not fair to impose your mental images on the flower. Who are you to do so? What right have you? None whatsoever. But everyone of us, impose ourselves. Stand beside a flower one day. Stand still and quiet. Mind your old habit of qualifying things. Halt your judgement -- the flower on one side, you on the other -- let there be no judgement on the flower's beauty or ugliness.

 

In a few days you will find that the day when there is no conditioning, no judgement between you and the flower, you will experience an entirely new beauty of the flower, which is beyond beauty and ugliness. There will be a completely new unfoldment of the flower before you. That day there will be no mental imagery or likes and dislikes between you and the flower. Only the flower will he -- blossomed in its perfection.

 

And when a flower blossoms thus in its absolute perfection and without the interference of your mental images, then it has a beauty all its own, which transcends both beauty and ugliness. Remember, I say, it has a beauty all its own that is beyond our conception.

 

Lao Tzu says: "That alone we call beauty where ugliness has no existence." But then there is no sign of the beauty we know of. You are going along a road and the branch of a tree falls on you. You do not say the tree has done wrong, that the tree is bad, it has committed violence; that it meant to harm you and you will pay it back! No, you say no such thing. In fact you make no decisions for or against the tree. You pass no judgement against it. And this incident does not disturb your sleep at night, nor do you pass days and months thinking of ways to take revenge. And all this because you have made no decisions whether the tree acted well or otherwise. Nay, you have not even thought that the tree has done anything to you. It was a matter of coincidence that the branch fell as you passed under the tree. You do not blame the tree.

 

But if a man hits you with a stick or -- that is still excusable for the stick causes a hurt -- if a man abuses you, the mind at once makes a decision for or against the person. How can mere words wound a person? But he at once resolves to take revenge and the thought catches hold of the mind. Now there will be images formed around the vituperations and this may go on for months and years, nay even for a life-time! But where did it all start? Did it start with the man's abuse or did it start from your decisions -- that is to be understood.

 

If you had made no decision and said that it was a matter of coincidence that you were passing and the abuse happened to slip from the man's lips, just as you happened to pass and the branch of the tree fell? If in truth we make no decisions and take it to be just a coincidence, would the anxiety have formed within us? Then could this abuse have become a wound within us? Then would we have to waste our precious time inventing fresh abuses for retaliation? No, this matter would have ended there and then. We made no decision of the right or wrong. It was a fact, we knew it as such and moved on! Lao Tzu says this is according to him -- the good.

 

Now remember, there are very subtle differences. Now Jesus says, "If a person slaps you on the right cheek, offer him your left." Lao Tzu says, "Do not do that." For according to Lao Tzu, when you offer the left check, you will have made a decision and you have reacted! Agreed that you did not abuse but you did hit back by offering the other cheek! Jesus says, "Love your enemies." Lao Tzu says, "Don't." For when you manifest love towards your enemy, you accept him as an enemy.

 

Lao Tzu's exposition is very, very transcendental. Lao Tzu says, "To love the enemy, is to know him as enemy." Then whether you abused or showed hatred or professed love, these are secondary things. One thing becomes clear by this act that the enemy remains the enemy.

 

There is an incident in Nasruddin's life that one day he slapped his younger brother. His father rebuked him saying, "Nasruddin, it was only yesterday that you were reading 'One should love even one's enemy!'" Nasruddin replied, "That is true father, but he is no enemy, he is my brother."

 

"Accept the enemy" Lao Tzu says, "And the decision is made." Then he says, "You agree that this man has done wrong and therefore he is to be answered not by evil but by goodness."

 

Jesus says, "Return goodness for evil." But the fact remains that you have decided the quality of the act as bad. Then if we react to this with goodness, it will be a righteous act but not a religious one. Lao Tzu says, "No answer! for you make no decisions about the happening." The matter ends there. You refuse to think beyond this. You do not allow any thought of this incident to rise within you. A man slapped you, the matter finished there, the happening ended. You do not start anything within yourself with this incident. You do not think whether he did wrong or right, whether he was friend or foe. Who is he, what should you do, what you should not do -- you start no reflections within your mind. The incident finished, the door is closed, the chapter is over. You call it the end, you do not draw it further in your mind. "Then," Lao Tzu says, "You are religious." If you even say this much, "This should not have happened, now what shall I do?" Then you will have missed. To differentiate is to fall from Religion. Decision brings the fall in Religion.

 

Lao Tzu's whole endeavour is to awaken you to the deep-seated habit of the mind of breaking things into two. You should be wide awake before the mind breaks a thing into two; for once it succeeds in breaking a thing, it is difficult for you to step out of the circle. So wake up and do not let the mind catch you napping!

 

This is why Lao Tzu raises the question of Beauty and the Good. These two alone, are the fundamental differences. On the differences of Beauty stands all our sense of the Aesthetic. On the differences of the good and the evil stand our entire principles of ethics. Lao Tzu says, "Religion is within neither of these, Religion is beyond both of these -- lovable-unlovable, desirable-undesirable, beautiful-ugly, good-evil, auspicious-inauspicious -- beyond all these differences is Religion."

 

Lao Tzu will never say, "To forgive is divine." He will say, "You forgave, so you admitted the rising of anger." No, when anger or forgiveness arises within you, be alert and observe that now the contradictory part of the duality is rising within you. Therefore, we cannot call Lao Tzu forgiving. If we ask Lao Tzu "You forgive everybody?" He will reply "I have never been angry with anyone." If someone abuses Lao Tzu, he will say nothing and just go his way. We might think he has forgiven the man but we are mistaken. Lao Tzu is not angry with the man so the question of forgiveness does not arise. Forgiveness is possible only when anger comes and once anger comes, where is the forgiveness? That is a mere cover, a dressing to hide the wound. Lao Tzu says, "I did not get angry in the first instance, so I did not have to undergo the trouble of forgiving. That is the second step I would have had to take if I had been angry."

 

Lao Tzu's complete stress is on alertness towards the pairs of opposites. One should be alert and watchful before they arise so that one remains care-free and impartial. Do not enter into the turmoil of the dualities.

 

-Osho, “Tao: The Pathless Path Vol. 1, #5”