The importance of beauty as a path of personal & spiritual progression has often been overlooked in today’s culture as there is an oversaturation of glamour in the world which is often confused with beauty. And yet ‘being glamourous’ can also be synonymous with beauty.
Glamour is focussed on the outward appearance of things only, or is used to mask the inner with the outer. Alice Bailey has written in tremendous depth about ‘Glamour: A World Problem’. Have a look at her writings for more information.
A lot of advertising is a focus on outward beauty above all else:
- showing you what products to use to make your body look its best
- giving you endless options to sculpt your body
- offering you multiple choices to purchase outer garments
- presenting an incessant focus on outer material possessions and attainments
Physical beauty is far from negative, but when your focus is on this above all else, then it can become an imbalance and a corruption of what beauty is really about.
You need to understand the trappings of glamour and not forsake it for the definition of true beauty.
So why is beauty so important?
Beauty is absolutely essential in living an exquisite life. When you live with a code of beauty you literally decorate your inner world and it becomes a beautiful place that extends to your outer life, and you experience ‘beautiful living’: “as within, so without”. (This quote is from one of the Hermetic Principles of Hermes. These are foundational teachings of the Seven Ancient Mystery Schools.)
Your inner world is where you live, it’s what you live with, it’s what you wake up with in the morning, it’s what you move around inside of every day, and it’s who you go to bed with at night. Truly what is inside of you becomes how you experience life outside of you.
When you are focused on glamour, or in other words, focused only on the outward beauty, it creates a disconnect between outer beauty and your inner world. This cuts yourself into two parts, separating your outer image from your inner life, creating pain, disconnectedness, aloneness and it leads people to experience a whole lot of hurt in life.
You need to honour the world that you live inside of, the world that you move with every day: your innermost thoughts, your innermost emotions, your innermost joys, your innermost inspirations, your innermost tragedies, and shift this world into an experience of beauty.
You may have wonderful people in your life & own all of what you want – BUT if that inner world is not well decorated you can be downright miserable. The outer won’t make up for the lack of time and love that needs to be spent on decorating your inner world.
Let’s look at how to bring beauty into your life in a way that might inspire you, bring hope and introduce a pattern of living that will decorate that inner & outer world into a place that you really want to live inside of.
What is another definition of beauty?
Let’s first establish that each of us has a divine spark inside of us. Should you begin to access this, it will illuminate your mind, your life and every part of your being, and this would be the very source of your true beauty.
Beauty is in fact the keyhole to that door that accesses who you are – your Holy Key – and you are ‘the physical key’ to unlock that door to discover that inner beauty. Saying that you are ‘the physical key’ means that you have to do something to turn that key and unlock the door.
‘Beauty is the Keyhole to access who you are, your Holy Key’ – let’s look deeper:
This means that when you live in a beautiful way and bring beauty more and more into your physical life, taking more and more actions to bring beauty into your life, that it is through beauty that we start accessing that Holy Key, who you really are.
If we draw from the teachings of the Tree of Life and the Kabbalah, we can see this critical importance of beauty and how it allows you to access your Holy Key. This teaching is not exclusive though to the Kabbalah: many of these thoughts I am referring to also come from the Ancient Egyptian Teachings of the Family of Ra.
If we look at the Tree of Life, we see that at the centre of the Tree of Life, there is a sphere or an aspect of God known as Tiphareth. This translates to Beauty. If we look at the placement of Tiphareth = Beauty, it is interesting to note that all parts of the Tree are connected to Tiphareth. In fact, it is the center of the Tree, and it is as if all other gifts from God, all other amazing experiences you can have in life are all connected, held together by beauty. Beauty is the unifying factor.
Beauty is the key that allows you to access all of these other parts of the Tree, and the Tree is the map for you to uncover and discover your Holy Key. The Tree holds all aspects of joy and possibilities. Beauty is at the centre of all the different aspects of God that allows you to access the core of you!
How do you bring more beauty into your life?
There are many different expressions of beauty and how you can bring it into your life. And beautiful living, as opposed to glamour, has many different faces. Here are but a few:
Adorning the physical temple that we exist in, is in fact a large part of this! It is about taking time to look after yourself. It is about considering what you are wearing, considering what colour best enhances your frequency, considering the quality of clothing you are wearing, considering what style best brings out your unique essence, and looking after your body as an act of self love and respect. It is not to cover up for not feeling good inside of yourself. It is not to forsake the outer for the inner i.e. to fall for the trappings of glamour. It’s about using the outer to draw forth the divine energy within into the outer physical temple.
If you are only living from a terrestrial perspective, if you are only living from the perspective of the material, where acquisition of the material – whether it’s a partner, whether it’s a physical body, whether it’s a car, whether it’s an object – then you are living without Spirit and Soul.
When you start to tap into Beauty you actually bring Divine Spirit into the Physical Materia. You are elevating Physical Materia.
You start shifting from living from only a terrestrial/purely physical perspective and instead live from a Soul Perspective. So you illuminate Physical Materia. You elevate Physical Materia because you ensoul it by using this energy of Beauty, your Beauty.
In the centre of the Tree at Tiphareth, above the world of Malkuth which is at the bottom of the Tree and is where you access the physical, here is where you access the Soul. When you ensoul things by accessing your Beauty and expressing it, you start seeing everything in your physical world from a higher perspective.
You can then extend beauty and apply it to your home
2. Beautifully styled homes and beauty in your home can be two different things. As someone who has photographed top interiors for a decade in Cape Town, which is a global investment destination for beautiful homes, I have witnessed many homes that were merely physically beautiful. There was no soul. But when you bring your essence into a home, the home becomes truly beautiful as it is imbued with the soul of the human living there. The home then becomes a cognisant being, a being that can communicate and connect with you.
When you start to do that with your home, you start to bring true beauty into your home. You can do this by bringing your care into your home:
- tidying a cupboard
- buying flowers
- getting rid of clutter
- purchasing something beautiful
- decorating your home so that it reflects your taste
Beautifying your home is a way for you to interface with our own divine essence as your beauty becomes reflected in the physicality of your home!
3. How you express yourself in your relationships is a key way to express your beauty in the world.
There is a way that you can bring more beauty into your close relationships with your parents, your partners and your children. This beauty includes saying no to certain patterns and behaviours. If you don’t say no, you can stop the flow of beauty because you can be condoning negative behaviours and patterns to continue within yourself and from others towards you. Beauty can be expressed when you become more conscious of how you communicate, being more mindful, more kind, more compassionate, more clear and direct and more graceful. You need to bring all of this also to your friendships. And then you need to consider how you treat strangers. To strangers, you have no obligation and yet how you treat these people is perhaps the best indicator of who you are above all else. And of course looking at how you treat your animals: these are wonderful beings that become more and more sentient the more you feed that relationship, the more you bring love. The more you treat your animals with beauty, the more they become ensouled, and they become a reflection of you and your divine essence, your love. In every area of your life – your work and your career, you can look at how you treat people. In all of these areas you can treat people with more beauty, and only good can come from it.
The results…
You can yield good fruits the more you bring beauty ~ as opposed to glamour ~ into your life … And by surrounding yourself with beauty, you start to touch on the core of you, who you are, your Holy Key. So try it today. Try and consider where can you bring more beauty into your life, and see how this starts to elevate your mind, your being. Be rigorous. Apply this to every part of your life and reap the benefits!
