Beauty is NOT skin deep.

Beauty is not skin deep; in fact it is not even on your skin. It is five inches AWAY from your skin.  Your beauty, your charisma, your attraction, your aura is not your physical looks; it is love in you, compassion in you. 

 It is not the size of your eyes; it is the water in your eyes.

I am not underestimating the value of physical beauty, a good body and a nice figure is good to have but it is not all, there is much more to the beauty.

When you see someone with a good physique, you actually see the physical manifestation of their good habits, their resolve, discipline, and their will power. The love in you for others, the compassion in you, the desire of selfless sacrifice for others, the innocence, and the kindness make you beautiful.  The discipline in you, the self-control comes out as the glow on your face.

Your perfect nose, big eyes, your skin color, your hair does not make you the most beautiful person. Look around, see why you like someone. You will find numerous cases where you will find someone more beautiful than the person who has all the right physical attributes.  To this unknown attraction, often we call chemistry; this chemistry is nothing but you feeling the warmth of his or her love and compassion.   This fact is very evident in today’s media, see people in TV and movies, often you may find the most likeable person is not really the most physically beautiful person. I heard Oprah talking with Trump in a show, that in a screen test they know the person is a hit or not within a fraction of second, the inner beauty heat can be felt through the camera and through the screen.  Beauty is much more than the looks you possess.

I have this childhood habit of occasionally rebelling and not doing what the world expects of me. In child hood (3rd grade to be precise), I used to skip school and wander around in the jungle of Assam in India, and steal fruits from trees of callous neighbors,  now I skip office and sit in coffee shops  and watch people walking by (yes, I miss cigarettes dearly). It is here it hit me hard, that people beauty is not their physical attribute, it is their inner peace and balance . I was watching this beautiful girl walking by, I can literally see her beauty, her aura, her good chi walking few inches ahead of her, she has this immense amount of peace on her face, tranquility was emanating from her, I was just mesmerized with her peace and harmony. I noticed her heavy body which may be categorized as obese just before she took the turn and gone away forever.  Your inner beauty wraps you like a cashmere shawl and you will look good no matter what your physical self looks like.

People don’t see you, but they see the image they made of you.  Seriously, you are not seen, but your image is seen. 

Have you noticed, the people whom you’ve known for long, you don’t notice their baldness, their weight or their wrinkles, and it is amusing to notice that they themselves may be worried about their baldness and weight etc. Khalil Gibran describes beauty in ‘the prophet’   –

It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

For external physical appearance you can do many things, but you have nothing for your inner self, other than your pure thoughts, love, compassion and kindness for others.  You cannot fake it, Unlike evolved animal like humans,  less evolved animals like dogs, cats and horses smell your intentions and inner self.  So be pure, and step outside of your selfish self, break the shackles of greed, feel the fresh breeze of selflessness.  Develop empathy for your fellow human beings.