Does Beauty Lie in the Eye of the Beholder?

 

Imagine a forest in the light of a spring morning, full of sun flooded trees and flowers.

 

It's beautiful, right?

 

But what if you weren't there? What if no human were there? Then no feeling of this forest being beautiful would be there.

 

The forest doesn't see itself as beautiful. But as soon as a human wanders there, there is an experience of beauty.

 

It is us.

 

We are the joy of the universe. We are the beauty of the universe as we see beauty in the universe.

 

Humans are understanding and perception. We can connect with everything when we have an open mind. With everything in the world.

 

We understand the nature of stones and soil and their context in the rest of nature.

 

We understand animals and their experiences, we understand when they are in freedom or when they are in pain.

 

We deeply understand the feelings of other humans. The moment we see another's face and reaction, it seems like suddenly we live through their emotions ourselves.

 

We see things for what they are and by that we give meaning. And in that I see beauty.

 

In a starry night with a beloved at my side, I would rather watch them, as they look at the stars and are awed by what they see. I would watch them and put all of my mental effort in trying to catch an understanding of how they feel and what they see and the beauty of the universe they experience.

 

Our consciousness is just another phenomenon of the universe, like the starry sky itself. And just as the sky, it is marvellous in itself.

We are the universe's feedback on itself. Without us, there is nobody who can find nature beautiful, nobody who can say that the stars shine, nobody who can label the processes of the universe as "magical" and be awed by them. Nobody who can say "Isn't it amazing that all of this, the whole thing, exists? Isn't it amazing that I exist?"

Next time you feel that a landscape is gorgeous, or that a person is pretty or that this moment is joyful, be aware that it is your perception that makes it so. Those feelings are inside you, not outside. Take yourself away and that landscape was never experienced to be gorgeous. The beauty you see in the stars, or in nature, or in other people, just as much is you.