Skin Deep

I was surprised to watch a video on Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. Entitled Evolution, it shows how a fine woman evolved after a series of make-ups and hair styles. In the film, her pictures were taken and were digitally edited. The once plain-looking young woman became a foxy model of a huge billboard beauty ad. At the end of the 1-minute video clip, a thought-provoking line is shown: No wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. This powerful short film is a small, sharp needle that burst the inflated illusions of beauty of this consumerist's society.

Dove's study on self-esteem of women and girls reveal that 92% of the respondents believe that they have to change one aspect of how they look. Less than 10% says they feel beautiful and pretty. If we open our eyes, we can easily connect the dots. This distortion of how women and girls see beauty is an existent consciousness that allows many cosmetic companies and plastic surgeons to make money. This problematic beauty consciousness has also allowed many young teenage girls to idolize a celebrity, dreaming that one day she may look like one; it has allowed many young teenage boys to desire a beautiful woman of sort, created by boob-tube illusions; it has created a racist culture where beauty is dichotomized, seeing only fair-skinned women as beautiful, and those dark- or brown-skinned as the opposite; it has proliferated a belief that only the tall, the slim and the slender are the apples of the society's eyes, while disdaining the flabby, the wrinkled, and the freckled. Sadly, almost all those from all walks of life have seen that beauty is something that can be gain outside: manipulating the way we look so we can manipulate the way others look at us, which in turn, manipulates how we look ourselves. But of all ways beauty is defined by our social conventions, it is still a far cry from the true beauty within.

Long before I watched this film, I have been pondering this truth of beauty. In my June article Kenosis, I shared my personal insight on how men have misunderstood women, and even how women have misunderstood themselves, perpetuating the corrosive impact of pornography, along with concept of feminine beauty. As I have explored the meaning of Love, I have become very certain that true beauty comes from within. This is not just a cliched remark most soap opera use in their formulaic dialogues. At most, this line is easier said than realized. In fact, the media has muddled the meaning of true beauty by emphasizing more on physical appearance and attraction on one hand, and has loaded the so-called not-so-beautiful with euphemisms of golden heart on the other. This appears to be an indirect, yet dangerous way of misunderstanding beauty and its true essence.

Love, that which is something formless, is always transforming into forms. These forms coming from Love are always beautiful. And the mere fact that each soul alive in this Earth, all six billion people, are all living creatures of Love, therefore, every one is beautiful. This beauty goes beyond the physical forms. The beauty we have been believing is a kind that can only be seen by our naked eyes. The truth is, there is nothing wrong if one indulges putting cosmetics or dressing up. What gives us the problem is to believe that these external implements are the only source of beauty. Anything that has form always perishes. This is true to something our naked eyes can see. Our young faces and baby skin will soon collect grooves and wrinkles, and our hair will recede or become silvery. To search for something that will make us forever beautiful is in itself a futile dream. But to see oneself beautiful, no matter how "awful" one thinks might look like to others, is the only true insight of beauty.

One afternoon, some years ago at my former university, I was tasked to oversee a registration queue of students who would take up elective subjects. As they approached me one by one, I looked at them in the face, addressing their questions and concerns. I noticed vividly that each student's faces seemed to glow more than the usual. It bewildered me, and it turned out to be one of my greatest ecstatic experience. There's a subtle aura that emanated from each faces, heads radiating light like magical bulbs. It was strange yet very enlightening, for this experience allowed me to see each person beautiful. Some faces were dark, others were fair, and some possessed peculiarities like birthmarks and moles. Those differences in shapes of eyes, lips and noses make them uniquely beautiful. I hadn't seen any ugly, if one would like to talk about social standards of beauty. Each person I saw is beautiful, beyond their make-ups, earrings, hair gels, and clothes. I saw all of them as glowing beauty, an instant that had remained unexplainable until the moment I was awakened in Love.

Making new friends is one of my blissful adventures. I love meeting new people, learning about their lives, hearing strange secrets, listening to their stories and in all ways connecting to their souls. Looking at each of them and reminiscing on the nostalgia of first meetings bring me in deep gratitude. They all differ from each other in terms of age, looks, social class, occupation and all sorts of daily, personal details. Some are old, others are young, even younger; some are prim and conforming; others, eccentric and odd. They live normal lives, pay bills, complain here and there, laugh and cry on many of their life's changes. All these about them make them more beautiful, transcending the concept of beauty from what can be seen outside, to what can be soulfully discerned inside. Whenever I see them and talk to them, I can't help but be overwhelmed by the beauty of their presence, which I can never compare with anybody in my lifetime in this world.


This wisdom of beauty also reminds me of a friend, Ate Bel, whose name means "beautiful". Her personality is quite remarkable, because she often blurts out the phrase "Maganda 'yan!" (It's beautiful). She never fails to see beauty in all persons, all situations and all things that she and others have. Like a young kid, she delights on the simplest of things, and makes her appreciate them down to the last detail. She has an attitude of beauty that makes her a beautiful soul.

So, here it is: that the true meaning of beauty is about the beingness of a soul. When we wake up one morning and see ourselves in the mirror, a true beautiful person is now in front of us. When we begin to see that that person in the mirror is more than flesh and bones, but a light of Love radiating with immense and incomparable worth, we will begin to stop seeking beauty outside of us. Like the way we look at the moon, we will no more seek for the craters carved in our face; instead, we will only see the radiant light of beauty that shines amid the darkness of the world that surrounds us. From here, we can no more mistake beauty as something just on the shallow surface of the skin. For what is essential, as Antoine Saint Exupery puts it, is always invisible to the eye. To realize Love as the formless, the invisible, the inner beauty that lies deep within each of us opens our eyes to the true essence of beauty that makes our souls exceptionally beautiful.