Daily Meditation: Thursday, July 20, 2023

Beauty - more to do with kindness than intelligence

07/20/2023

When the trunk and branches of a tree are all twisted, it shows that this particular tree has grown in the midst of great difficulties and that it has struggled to overcome those difficulties in order to survive. Its twisted trunk and branches reflect its struggles. Similarly, we sometimes meet people whose features are crooked and deformed, but who are extremely gifted and talented. This shows that they too have had to overcome very difficult circumstances in order to develop. Unfortunately, they have often developed their intellectual faculties and willpower to the detriment of their moral qualities, and in doing so have deformed their faces. Beauty reflects a person’s moral rather than their intellectual qualities. Those who are very beautiful are not always very intelligent. In fact, they are often ideal victims for those who are not so good looking but who have learned to exploit others. Beauty – true beauty – has more in common with kindness than with intelligence.*