The most important question to ask is, is it about looking good or is it about living good? How wonderful you feel within yourself is more important than how wonderful you look
My life is such that I am constantly engaged with people. Wherever I may be, in many ways, I touch them; it is very difficult to articulate and understand this. Because of this, I have to shower at least three to four times a day; minimum twice is a must but depending upon the level of activity, three to four and sometimes up to five times a day—not to wash myself off people, but it becomes necessary. I may not touch people by hand, but the energy contact that I establish with a whole mass of people is the fundamental of my work. Various aspects of different people do stick on and shower becomes a necessity. After showering, do I have to look in the mirror? No. I look the same every day. Most men have the problem of different levels of facial hair where they have to trim or shave it and keep it in a certain way.
I look the same every day. I just have to arrange my beard, which doesn’t take a mirror, I know where it is and I am done. I can disturb the whole thing and arrange it without a mirror. A mirror doesn’t play such an important role in my life because how I look is fixed. I don’t look different on different days. If I close my eyes for a moment and I just feel through, I know how I look. Whether I radiate or not is decided by that. If it is not working properly, I just have to close my eyes for another few seconds, that’s all.
You see today that people can’t take their hands off their hair for a moment. This is simply because there is not enough substance. If you create enough substance within yourself, whether your hair is up like this or that does not matter; people will still love you for who you are. If you are planning to make an impact in the world either as an actor or whatever; that impact will happen because of your intensity and substance—not just because of the arrangement of your hair.
Beauty and being handsome is a combination of intelligence, intensity, integrity, character, demeanor, bearing, gracefulness, love, joy, health, equanimity, exuberance and of course the shape and size of certain body parts. All of these you can achieve by yourself, except the last one that needs genetic help or some plastic surgery.
May you not be a captive of certain idea of beauty but become captivating for all who behold you.
The most important question to ask is, is it about looking good or is it about living good? How wonderful you feel within yourself is more important than how wonderful you look. If you are really feeling wonderful, everybody will feel wonderful in your presence. If you are blissed out, everybody who comes in touch with you, one way or the other, will begin to experience that bliss. Have you noticed that a joyful face is always a beautiful face? A blissful face is a glorious face. If you look good maybe you are a piece of art, but nothing more will happen. Sculptures can look good, art can look good, anything can—I am not saying looking good is a bad thing.
All I am saying is how much time you invest on it in your life clearly tells you who you are because if you have something of substance within you, looking good will not be such a relevant thing
All I am saying is how much time you invest on it in your life clearly tells you who you are because if you have something of substance within you, looking good will not be such a relevant thing. It doesn’t mean that I don’t take little care to look good; obviously I do. The important thing is, how much time and attention is given to looking good versus being good. Maybe I am coming up with this philosophy as I have no hope of looking good, you just have to do with what you have. Well, there are doctors who can fix the look, but it is not that important to me. So, here I am the way I am.
(This article is originally published in http://isha. sadhguru.org)
By Sadhguru
