REFLEXÕES PARA PERCEBER A BELEZA - Prof. Lúcia Helena Galvão - Semana da Arte de Nova Acrópole 2021.

Hello! Welcome to our very special chat today. It's Art Week. And our intention with this event is always bring a little aspect of beauty and harmony for people's lives, through this annual event. Today we are going to talk about a subject that it's not the first time I bring but I will try a more practical approach, more punctual, about things in life. Our theme today is: reflections to perceive beauty. We are going to, at first, talk a little about the word. As I'm used to doing I think it's good to talk about the origin of

the word,how it came into the world. And what were the intentions that gravitated around it in this cradle of the word beauty, what did it mean. I always think a need was dressed up by a word. Many times this word has lost its body. And emptying out along the way. If people go back to their birth, they recover this original need and understand what that word is trying to convey to us. Not always effectively after so many eras of emptying. Welcome to Reflections on Beauty. As I said on another occasion, when we return to the

Proto-Indo-European cradle of beauty we are going to have some very interesting suggestions. Acceptance Deu², it brings: this is a Proto-Indo-European dictionary nomenclature, for those who know. It brings the following origin to this Deu², the origin of the word beauty, which would be to do, manifest, favor, revere. Beauty would somehow be a form of offering. Of favor that is given to something or someone. And we will see how that works. Passing through a language that also comes from Proto-Indo-European, that is Sanskrit, the Sanskrit "duvas", it means present. And "gave" comes from the same root. The present

not in the sense of time. But present in the sense of a gift, an offering. Again a lot to do with this favoritism which in a way is received through beauty, right? The noun “dwe-no” gave rise to right. The adverb “dwe-enê” gave rise to good. And the diminutive “dwe-ne-lo” gave rise to the Latin beautiful. In other words, the beautiful as we know it. We already see there, at the beginning, the good and the beautiful closely related. With us, we saw it in the Greek tradition, right? The “kalos Kai agathos”, that is, the beautiful and the

good. In fact, only one thing. Some other curiosities that we can see in the Greek “koine”. Which is post-classical Greek, biblical Greek. Beauty was defined as “hóraios”, which means: in its time. The things that are coinciding with what the law of cycles reserves for them at that moment. So contrary to our original conception, there would be beauty of the child being a child, the beauty of the young being young, the beauty of the mature man, the old man. Being mature, being old. We would have to explore within what nature offers us the best you can

get, how can you decant the beauty from there. Our culture worships youth. Therefore, they precipitate the maturation of children, and try to pull older people always behind, for eternal youth. And then we lose these other possibilities of beauty that this word teaches, rehearses, insinuates. That at any age, at any time of the cycles there is a hidden beauty, a beauty that can be extracted from there, when we are coinciding with what the law of cycles offers us, with what nature opens up to us as possibilities. Continuing, let's see: That beauty always brings an idea of

​​balance and harmony. This in general has had a lot of repercussion throughout history. There were various concepts of beauty, we'll see a little of the beauty through history, which were based on this story of balance, as a proportion within a mathematical view. How much other views extrapolated this. The idea of ​​the beautiful and the sublime. But in general beauty is associated with balance and harmony. Even if it's a slightly off balance of perfect proportion. There is a conception that says that beauty is subjective, that story that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Particularly

I believe beauty is in the eyes of those who seek to see. Because it's built into everything. Each thing when existing keeps a little of its Being and in the Being of each thing, there is its share of beauty. Beauty isn't in the eye of the beholder. But from those who want to see, from those who seek to see. This subjectivity as if nothing were beautiful and it was a cultural invention. Today, there are many discussions and many positions to the contrary. when the researches themselves begin to notice that a very tender age child already

have certain notions about beauty. And this is universal. Pythagoras spoke of a Golden ratio that would be the Phi. That is, everything that is in its moment of fullness, of life, everything that is at its peak moment of development somehow it obeys a Golden ratio. When enters the entropy factor, which accompanies time, it begins to take that fullness of life out of things and they are losing this coincidence with the Golden Ratio. According to him, the Phi number would underlie most relationships in the universe. This has been talked about and dealt with a lot throughout

history. The perfect proportion, the Pythagorean golden number, that associated by it, there is a certain harmony. Not only on the physical plane, but also on the metaphysical. That is, there would also be a certain proportion of how we deal with our thoughts and emotions to come into balance, and that shows through the physical. Aristotle used to say that virtue leads to beauty. In other words, what beauty overflows. There are a number of thinkers who talk about this. A very great internal harmony, a series of elements very well practiced. The very sharp human condition overflows with

beauty. There may or may not be innate beauty in that body. But whether or not there is a virtuous psyche, a virtuous soul, when harmony overflows it will always soften the possible imperfections of that body. And if there was already beauty, it will make it much more luminous. That is, the development of virtues naturally leads to beauty. Regardless of the physical body and any other element it may contain. And it's curious how we have an altered perception of people's appearance, when we know how good they are, for example, the generosity that the person has. No

matter how ordinary you are, or maybe even a person already with marked signs of old age, we can't help but look and feel that feeling of tenderness and enchantment, that we normally have in the face of physical beauty. In India, for example: A young woman was considered attractive. A beautiful woman was a woman who possessed something of wisdom. Which is a detail that I find very curious, very interesting. The Middle Ages will say that beauty is only attainable through God, that is, a property of God. That only when the man puts himself at his service,

he receives some lighting that beautifies him. If we expand a little on this notion, not just for theological divinity but also for that which is divine, it exists within every human being, we fell into something very similar to what Aristotle was talking about. Which is beauty overflows with virtue. The Divine within us, when somehow occupies your space, it shows. That is, the essence enters into existence, and appears, and it gives man the possibility of real, deep Beauty, that really belongs to him. That physical beauty doens't belong to man. It belongs to a cycle of life,

and nothing will stop time from taking it from him. Now a metaphysical beauty is the property of the human being, it's entirely in your power. Nothing that is really yours can be taken away from you. And a beauty you can maintain and sustain for your whole life, or maybe even longer, this is really yours. And it would have a character of greater legitimacy than one that is a mere genetic conjunction associated with an age of life. In the Renaissance, I think many know the ideas of Giorgio Vasari, who makes that long book about Renaissance artists.

He's going to introduce very heavily, he's not the first, but he will introduce very strongly this idea of ​​Beauty as the harmony of proportions. It draws heavily on Leonardo's Vitruvian man. And he believes in a certain harmony similar to the idea of ​​the Phi of Pythagoras, that when we reach harmony, naturally the appearance of that being overflows with beauty. I remember very little time ago, two or three years ago, there was a search around the world, about who had the most proportionate face. They took a young Englishwoman who was the best fit, within those mathematical

standards. They matched the hemisphere of the face with another and see the proportion, with one perfectly reflected the other. And they showed as possibly the most beautiful face in the world. No doubt she was a beautiful young woman, but I think most of humanity would be able to appreciate faces, that without a doubt, were far more beautiful than hers. There is something beyond proportion for sure. These experiments have been done throughout history. It's not just about symmetry nor a proportion of certain values. There is something beyond. There is an Irish philosopher named Francis Hutcheson. And

he said in one work: "Inquiry into Beauty, Order, Harmony and Design". He said that beauty is unity in variety, and variety in unity. Beauty consists of a set of small things, exquisite details, that when they are harmoniously combined, they produce a sense of unity. If you imagine, for example, a painting. Is a painting beautiful for its details or for its overall composition? It is beautiful for both. If anyone imagined one of the compositions that I consider the most genius in the universe, that is Michelangelo's creation of Adam. The composition is very well thought out. But

someone who didn't have refinement in the details, in painting, in the musculature of Adam's body, of God's body, someone who didn't appreciate the richness of details, would have a composition, a good idea wasted in poor execution. And if it was also an exquisite execution, but the general scene was someone, I don't know, doing something gross, wouldn't make a pretty picture either. You have the idea of ​​unity or composition, and the refinement of the details, which are all the differentiated and that combine, harmonize, forming unity. Hutcheson's idea was that beauty was a harmony of differences. Unity

in variety and variety in unity. Which is pretty interesting. Beauty, for example, in a society would be: Each has its own identity. Each one being profoundly what he is and respecting himself for what he is. And compose with respect to the differences. Live and let live. The respect and harmony of differences would produce a work of art. Contrary to what we thought for centuries, social harmony does not come from massification, from everyone the same. It comes from identities that respect and harmonize very well. Harmony in variety, harmony in differences, as in a beautiful picture or

a beautiful melody. John Keats is an English poet that he has a poetry that I admire a lot, The Greek Vase, where he speaks in his conclusion: "Truth is beauty, beauty is truth. It's all there is to know and nothing more." This is very beautiful. What is truth? When things are authentically what they are, and at the same time when all your subunits are harmonized. And it logically transplants that harmony from the inside out, been capable of promoting the individuality of the other and not wanting to make him equal to yourself. Promoting individualities and harmonizing

perfectly with them. How amazing how beautiful it turns out. So the truth of things, that is, the best human being, the best society, the truth of a society, the truth of a human being it would be beauty, the intelligent combination of differences, that are not intimidated by being different. Red is totally different from blue and both are full in what they are. C is perfectly different from D, and both combine being what they are and are full in what they are. I find this very interesting. So one more comparison, beauty with truth. We also have

Edmund Burke and Emmanuel Kant, a very interesting comparison, the idea of ​​the Beautiful and the Sublime. You imagine the ordinary, a well-groomed house, Roger Scruton also talked a lot about it, a well-groomed house, a harmonious garden, this is an ordinary beauty, sorely needed, organizer of the psyche of the man who lives with it. It generally obeys symmetry, harmony, all these common patterns that we know about. But there is the extraordinary beauty that there you leave for the Sublime, and nature makes use of it too. Imagine the image of a raging ocean. There's no symmetry there.

And especially if there's a storm, lightning still comes down from the sky, and that ocean absolutely terror. There's no symmetry, but it's so splendid that it's hard for you to look at an image like this and say how beautiful it is. It's hard not to. So when you see the escarpment of the Alps, that gigantic ice full of challenging spikes. It doesn't have any kind of symmetry. But you realize that there is something daring, unusual in nature, in breaking rules, it generates rules according to patterns that we are not yet able to understand, which is

extraordinarily beautiful. So too when we see a storm that violently shakes a tree. You notice a movement, the dance of that extraordinarily beautiful tree although not predictable, not symmetrical. Nature produces what they called the sublime. In front of the beautiful we harmonize, in front of the sublime we are challenged. It's a beauty that stays within standards, a beauty that breaks standards in an extraordinary way. Showing that we still have a long way to go to reach full beauty. Kant, even in his essay on the beautiful and the Sublime, he does a kind of challenge that

I think is very beautiful. We feel intimidated by this escarpment of the Alps, or facing this wild ocean. But in the next moment we can regain our dignity, when we realize that these things can physically annihilate us but they cannot corrupt us. There is something within the human character, within the human soul, which is so grand and so challenging as for these two realities of nature. And that it is capable of going to its limits without letting anyone interfere with your course. You can physically kill a man without him wanting to, but you cannot corrupt

a man without him wanting to. He is absolutely autonomous, absolutely grandiose and absolutely sublime when he does. Nietzsche said that the will to power is the will to beauty. That Nietzsche perception of power is sensational. He places power as being able to be, as being able to do. How to be able to transform yourself, how to be able to perform. He says that this power give to man the grandiosity that makes him beautiful. Much like Kant's idea of ​​the Sublime. The beautiful is a man who has gone to the limit of his human possibilities, that

fulfilled his potential. Who has power over internal and external circumstances. Power over the animal self, power over corrupting circumstances, to impose himself on the circumstances, taking your identity along. That takes his latent powers to their fullest expression. The beautiful for Nietzsche was, in fact, the Sublime. The Sublime incarnated in a human being. Therefore the will to power is the will to beauty. Beauty to him was not something simply symmetrical and regular. Beauty was the maximum of possibilities of each being. Josef Pieper who is a very interesting German philosopher. Which I spoke of some time ago.

He also has an idea that I think it's curious, all that we can observe in our own experience. And it is important that you see, that you transfer these concepts. So that they are not mere theory. Pieper says that harmony is what overflows when there is correct internal placement, the inner fitting of everything in its place. That is, as if it were a sense of internal justice where everything takes its place. An angry man is not beautiful, he has no harmony. Because instinctive, brutal rage is that of an animal. It may even be that a

roaring lion is beautiful, a roaring man is not. It is not for man. It is beautiful in man when he dominates his animal. And it reaches the maximum of Justice, the maximum of generosity. The maximum of love, the maximum of fraternity. That's a man doing his best. Just like the lion goes to his fullest when he roars. The correct placement of internal things makes everything this man emits beautiful. I always go back to my times in which I was singing lyrical for many decades, when the teacher said that when I knew how to put it

well all the structures of my voice inside, may I be calm, than any sound I made it would be beautiful. This reminds me very strongly. That even today when I think: I'll have to bring beauty. I need it, I feed on it. Beauty for my life, beauty for the environment where I belong. I look inside and see, is everything in its place? Because otherwise the muses won't come. I don't have a clean enough container so that the muses deposit their sacred wine, their sacred nectar. Kant once again he said, he added a vision of his

that the beautiful would not be an objective characteristic of things. It is a mental characteristic, subjective. It's that old story of those who love the ugly, beautiful it seems. That is an idea that has been defended a lot throughout history. But that also contains its contradictions. It seems like, we already talked about, a very young child is able to recognize things more beautiful than others. There seems to be an intuitive dimension that perceives something beautiful in things because it belongs to it in itself. Independent of the observer. This idea that beauty is in the eye

of the beholder, is very debatable. Hegel, he said, and this is one of my favorite ideas. He said that the beautiful is the sensitive expression of an idea. In other words, imagine the idea of ​​Good, as Plato would say, the greatest of all ideas. If I take this idea very correctly very accurately, if I am with a pontiff that raises my conscience even this idea and I express it very cleanly, with no interference along the way... Or an idea when it expresses itself. with the least interference along the way, it produces beauty in the world

and this is very interesting. He adds yet another vision that I also think is fantastic, which he says that the greatest beauty is in philosophical thought. Directly capturing ideas. It is not for nothing that Socrates is credited with the phrase "philosophy is music made with the soul". That is, the thought that goes to the plane of ideas, he sees and is able to bring it as cleanly as possible into the world. It will necessarily bring beauty to the world. Because there is nothing more beautiful than a pure idea. Today is a historic moment where we

lost the ability to identify ideas. I often get texts from people, listeners send me saying: look with so-and-so is brilliant. And I read these texts sometimes long and I can't find a single idea. I find developments on top of other people's ideas, developments that are not always very creative. Sometimes nothing creative. But today we do not know how to recognize ideas and much less we know how to generate them. We have some difficulty with that. We should be educated or educate ourselves to recognize an idea and vibrate with it. Because an idea, a true and

profound idea is one of the most beautiful things in the world. When a Plato says that the Good is that which unites, this is an idea that if you dive into it it has layers and layers of depth. Layers and layers of scraps to give you. Sometimes you see certain ancient literatures in two or three pages, five or six ideas. We live in a historic moment when sometimes in the entire book there is none. So when we realize the beauty of ideas they light up our lives in a fantastic way, they give us a new

lens to see the world. Ideas reveal to us where they are present. They illuminate the essence of all things. And the man who is able to bring ideas to the world, in the most correct way possible, this is a creator, this is a beautifier. He works with the true notion of aesthetics, not as "stasis" as Alexander Baumgarten said, as a mere sensorial conjunction, but as something that gives essence to things. And everything that has essence shines, sparkles. Continuing, once again, within Platonic philosophy, there is the idea that a beautiful object, a beautiful being, does not

arouse desire when beauty is legitimate. Similar to that Indian notion of the beautiful and the attractive. He does not arouse desire. It used to be said that through Beauty you felt nostalgia, as if beauty were an episode that someone brought here from the plane of ideas. An episode, a scene from another dimension of another world, in which our consciousness once dwelt. And seeing through it reminds you of home. You feel nostalgia. Nostalgia for maybe something we haven't built yet, maybe it's in the future. Nostalgia for our true identity. Nostalgia for our inner name. Nostalgia for

our role as human beings in the world. Some truth hovers close to us when we look at beauty and we see through it. That which provokes desire is not beautiful. It's just attractive. And it is consumed and then that feeling is lost. It's as if you imagine an apple. I want the apple. After I eat it, I look at it, and it no longer attracts me. And it doesn't have to be that apple, it can be any apple. In other words, it is an objectification, a concretization, which has nothing to do with beauty, it has

to do with desire. Beauty is much more than that. Beauty is capable of becoming classic and extend over time. Lucretius who is a Roman poet, a little before Christ, a century before Christ, in his work “De rerum natura” he also said something interesting which is worth to add to our beauty recipe. He said that when you legitimately seek beauty through the other or within the other, our impetus bumps into the body and is frustrated. The wound of love that does not quench, as he says in his poem: "Of the things of nature". That is, when

you are ecstatic by someone's beauty, the body becomes like a grid that prevents you from meeting what is beautiful in that being. And if you only seek the union of the body, there's not much. Then came the concept of Platonic love, that union in the three planes. On the ethical plane, on the plane of essences, on the metaphysical plane, share values, share ideals. On the psychic plane also psychological affinities and even on the physical plane. Because even the body comes to participate in the banquet of the soul. You can unite man in the three worlds.

But the thirst for beauty is not satisfied with just the physical body. It bumps into the bars of this physical body trying to achieve something more. And if you don't get it, you're frustrated. It is not uncommon to know cases of people who unite only for physical beauty, by impact. Because beauty sometimes promises to have something more to offer. And people often gets frustrated and can't maintain that relationship. True beauty, it announces something that goes far beyond the physical body. And that's the only way we heal the secret wound of love that does not quench.

Plotinus and the path of Eros this is also very beautiful. Plotinus said that beauty has a specific function, which is to lead us on high towards the metaphysical foundation of the world. Toward the good. Eros is longing for the One. In other words, love and beauty that always go together. Aphrodite Eros. Eros is longing for the One. That beauty leads us on high. Very similar to Platonic concept that beauty is everything that elevates. So it's very interesting that when he talks of your path of Eros. He speaks of the man who is enraptured by a

body, for symmetry, for harmony. Whatever it is that gives him this impact of attraction. Suddenly, as he approaches, he realizes that that body he is not the only one who holds this conjunction of symmetry. That various bodies have it too. And that is also not able to retain that beauty. The beautiful and splendid rose dies tomorrow. So he gets a little frustrated when he sees this and one body he passes into several bodies. Finds the same beauty and can't find anything else. And sees that beauty go away very quickly. Then running a little more on

the Eros path, he would look for a field where beauty remains longer, the beauty of the soul. If you are a generous, fair, good, worthy person, any of these attributes emanate a very deep beauty. It is something that is up to you and you can retain it for a lifetime, and that attracts much more. On the path of Eros man leaves beautiful bodies and goes to the beautiful souls. But suddenly he realizes that all the beautiful souls, everywhere in the universe, are inspired by the archetype, an idea of ​​beauty, of goodness. And he goes after

that source. Then he arrives at the plan of ideas, as Plato would say. Or to the Divine plan, as several philosophers of various theological lines would say. In other words, man arrives at unity running after Beauty. When he is not content with that which simulates beauty, but it really isn't. When that simulates the truth but it really isn't. Running after Beauty, from the source of Beauty, from where it radiates, true and pure. He can get to unity, he can get to God. As I told you, there are current experiments that show children, at the beginning

of Child development, preferring pretty faces. And also similar attractiveness patterns in different sexes and cultures. These are not things invented by me. These are works that are developed where a lot of faces are shown for people of different cultures and civilizations around the world. It is noticed that the affinity with certain proportions, with certain characteristics, they exist all over the world. That is, there is something there that provokes an internal response. Now how much is this something enough to sustain this attractiveness is something else. So what we see in practice is that, in fact, there

is some symmetry, some proportion that causes attractive at first. Even for a person who hasn't suffered so much Cultural washing of a certain context. A very small child or a person who lives in a community far away. This something in the things themselves that causes a certain attractiveness. But the second, the third moment, the attractiveness has more to do with essence than appearance. A curious combination of those two things. It's not bad. In fact it is highly recommended seek to generate beauty on the aesthetic plane. It's a matter of respect for ourselves and others. As

far as our responsibilities are concerned, with no madness. But it's interesting to do. But it is even more recommendable that in addition we can have something of true beauty. That beauty that is true, that beauty that depends only on us. Because the impression of beauty and the reality of beauty can know coincide in a single being. Existence and Essence these two combined produce the true path of Eros. I know you must be thinking about the question of proportions. In the Renaissance women were fat, in modernity they are thin, sometimes even too thin. There are the

oddities of taste and fashion. But even behind these oddities, there are features of a face that are always attractive. There are certain characteristics of a body which tend to be taken as beautiful. Sometimes this is based on research. So sometimes in various civilizations, immersed in a very different cultural context. That is, there is some proportion. There's something mathematical right there that the human psyche captures. Because deep down our psyche seeks harmony all the time. When it finds harmony, it tends to identify itself because that's what the psyche wants. And our perception, beyond everyone else's thoughts,

our thoughts which are also extremely valid. Nobody owns any truth. Every philosopher in history has brought its contribution. What is yours? What is our contribution? Nothing prevents João da Silva from having an idea about beauty, better than anything said so far. You don't work with attachment to titles or big names. But to great ideas, the real philosopher is like that. It does not cling to signatures, but to ideas that come closest of what he perceives that coincides with your need for an answer for life. We noticed, for example, that when life is more present in

things they look more beautiful. It is as if beauty has to do with the fullness of life. And then yes, come the story of the youth in the fullness of youth, because there is a lot of life there, it has a lot of energy, it has a lot of vitality, has a lot of color on the face, has a lot of presence of fullness of life. And that gives an impression of beauty. Just like a flower, a rose in its fullness of the most dazzling things that I've ever seen in my life. It is a

sensational reality a rose. That's why I have the utmost respect for each copy they give me, that I see as the spectacle that nature made a flower like that. Flowers, in general, are a mystery. People tell us, we learn that flowers were made only to produce seeds in angiosperms. Or those colors and that aroma to facilitate pollination. I keep thinking... okay, but did I need such a beautiful thing to wrap the seeds of the angiosperms? Or to attract a bee? Was it possible that bees have a sense of aesthetics bigger than most of humanity? Why

nature puts so much energy in producing something so sensationally beautiful? Does nature itself not have this need to express beauty? Since life also flows in it? And life has this need to express beauty. How amazing and sensational what a flower is. One of these days walking through a place that was more bush, a grass weeded many times, and in the middle of that disordered bush there was a simple plant, a beautiful hidden flower. It was there, in the middle of the forest. Nature doesn't do it to hide, to show anyone. Does it out of its

need for expression. Oh yes, I know. It packs the seed of angiosperms. Look, human beings know how to pack things in a very ugly way. Ah, it attracts for pollination. Being human knows how to attract insects in a way that doesn't have to be aesthetic. That's right? Anyway, I question myself a lot about the role of Beauty as an archetype, with an idea within nature itself. Because it makes use of that beauty. And it's very difficult for you to justify with utilitarian explanations. For me at least they don't convince me, I don't think they are

enough. So life, the more present it is in things, it does give a strong impression of beauty. Now it remains to be seen if we are capable of make life more present in things. Of course! Life is more present in things that are young. Then I come to you with that oriental tradition, which I think is so beautiful which says that there is a vector of physical life and metaphysical life. So physical life is hopeless, entropy principle works great. Time goes by, it goes downhill. And what if there is a vector of contraposition of metaphysical

life? That while one decays it rises, because it grows with wisdom, t grows with dominion over the factors of life, grows with bringing out its latent powers. In such a way that, sometimes, you see a person with marks on his face, elderly, sometimes extremely elderly, is sensationally beautiful. It's amazing and there are many cases. Because it conveys something that is outside the standards of common humanity. Because she is able to overflow with kindness, of feeling of feeling of purity. She becomes a symbol, that is, there is a vector of contraposition which also channels life. It

channels in another way over which we have control. Remember? Internal beauty we have control, the external beauty we don't. Continuing. Beauty of what is pure. It's amazing because it seems that even nature, once again, the life throw hand of it to protect the young from predators. Which is difficult, unless a man is very mad, a puppy of a species, that he has this impetus for cruelty. A puppy such an unprotected and pure thing. Sometimes species that will become fierces as adults. But, in general, the puppies are so pure, they are so tender, that inspire tenderness

and a certain respect in beings, this I have to respect. The idea of ​​Purity has a lot of beauty within it. Nature makes use of it. The things that are pure, children for example. Small children, listen to their play, see what they say, see how they simulate things in their imagination, how they tell a story. In other words, purity is definitely a very captivating form of beauty, almost a veil that protects everything that is still fragile, and causes a tremendous tenderness and rapture to arise. So it's another attribute of life, purity. These are things that

we can observe that actually generate beauty. Beauty and what is pure in actions, not just in bodies. Is there anything more beautiful than knowing that a person was so honest, that although she went through much need found something of yours and returned it intact. Because she respects herself, she doesn't want anything that isn't hers. A person is so generous that even at great personal cost, stop what she's doing to meet someone's need. An animal, a human being, whatever. Is there anything more beautiful than you see a person being whole? And absolutely coherent. The beautiful consistency!

It radiates a halo of beauty. The acts also emanate beauty. Sometimes associated with purity of actions, of a pure creature such as, for example, a child. It's beautiful to see a child, and those lots of drawings, that we who were fathers and mothers keep. Mom you are beautiful, Mom I love you. It's a work of art for a father, a mother, right? Because it's a declaration of purity. The wagging of a dog's tail is beautiful, when it got euphoric to welcome you. That is, beauty of the actions of beings that are pure, or of beings

who have purified themselves through the will. Whether adult men, adult women, who are capable of having acts of great legitimacy. Purity in actions is also very beautiful to behold. Very beautiful to see. Even if the circumstances are ugly. The action of a person giving his best to help everyone involved. It's very beautiful. The beauty of what is purified in actions. That is, those who built this beauty. An honest, simple and good adult. An honest and devoted father and mother. A teacher who feels rewarded for growth of a child, of a teenager. Who loves to see

the result of their work, that puts all your heart there. An unknown person who helps you in a difficulty. I never forget the day I took a big fall in the street, and when I looked up there were four people, one came with my shoe, the other with my bag. A lady said "Are you hurt, my daughter? Do you want me to call someone?". Beauty of people who have absolutely nothing to gain from it. They are overflowing with generosity, they are overflowing with solidarity. They are adults who have already had contact with all the dark

elements of the world. And they chose beauty. It is a beauty by choice. A person who greets you looking you in the eye. This is so beautiful! When you look into her eyes and see that there is no formal convention. But that she's really broadcasting to you an intention that you have a good day, a good afternoon, a good night. Remember that I once read a text that I will never know if that is real or not, but even if it is a tale or a fable, I think it's very beautiful. That there were certain

tribes in a certain region of the world, where the greeting between them was: I see you! This story, even if it is a fiction, is very beautiful, very beautiful. I see you! You're too much to ignore, I recognize in you something precious, a particle of something extraordinary. I recognize you as a kind of flower that cannot be missed. I recognize you as a worthy being who deserves my gaze. I see you! Many times when we give alms in the street we throw alms on top of a beggar, I have a feeling he would prefer a

look like that, perhaps than that tiny coin. This is very beautiful. And sometimes a little act like this moves us and save our day. It's very beautiful. The beauty of adult beings who have gone through all kinds of pollution, but who have chosen purity, is the purity conquered. The genuine purity of children, animals and the acquired purity of adults. Constructed by an act of will, it is extremely beautiful. Beauty of goodness, goodness is extraordinarily beautiful. And it really rescues scenes, as I already said, scenes, sometimes, of a disaster or an accident, ugly scenes. And a

person doing his best there. And that he transforms by his human presence into a beautiful moment. Who constantly seeks acts without interests, to benefit others, benefit a group, humanity. That is, the goodness that is not for English to see. I do it for what I am, which I sometimes prefer that no one knows. For those who don't know Mary Elizabeth Haskell who helped Gibran all his life. It even helped him to write his great works, only allowed the letters between him and her to be published, after his death. She didn't want anyone to pass her

merit. She wanted the credits to go to Gibran. He did everything, maybe there wouldn't be Gibran, without Mary Haskell. And she wanted absolutely nothing, just wanted the pleasure of overflowing. Why? For what she is. Like the sun. It doesn't want you to give thanks. It illuminates because it is the sun, because of what it is, it overflows. No need to publicize its act. Great heroes do extraordinarily beautiful things, we know that, and they still exist. Maybe we don't see them because we don't look anymore, because it has no social value. Social value is one who

has attained fame and fortune, according to societal standards. These are envied. True heroes are anonymous were ostracized, they don't mean anything anymore. But the kindness of everyday heroes is also extraordinarily beautiful. Professionals, professionals who make a great effort. Every time I hear the noise of a garbage car, passing in front of my house, gives such a feeling of gratitude to these men. Professionals who sometimes do their work humbly, that meet the needs of society. And sometimes society doesn't know how to repay that with the act of respect of gratitude. So many times parents who go

far beyond the limits of their possibilities to be able to get rid of a disease and difficulties, or whatever. Kindness is extraordinary. Legitimate volunteers. Why do I speak legitimate volunteers? Not the ones who want some publicity reward or any exemption from Income Tax, but that they do because they have the need to take humanity as their family, their family ties of consanguinity overflow. Recognize the DNA of the human essence and it has this pressing need to be a factor of sum. This is very beautiful. All over the world when these volunteers act it's beautiful to

see. They are present where there is a need, soon groups of this type will be arriving there. What else? People of good will in general. Kindness is always extraordinary. And you look, before you see the person's face, see what they look like, already have that feeling, wow, what a beautiful person! Notice this phrase of the Greek, “kalos Kai agathos”, goodness and beauty are so closely related. Where else do we see beauty in goodness? In simple, everyday things. Person who looks into your eyes and sees you exhausted, and give you the seat on the bus, or

who sees you carrying a package and asks to load it, put it on her lap. What does this person have to gain? What publicity does she want? She just feels your need and take it as your own and match it. This is a very beautiful act. Who gives you way, not out of a formality, but out of respect for you, for your age, that is, whatever. Who helps you maneuver the car... sometimes I'm maneuvering on the street, a person is passing, "Oh stop! Come a little more!" People sometimes have things to do, their time is

busy, but if this one is in trouble, let me help! And go away! You don't even know who they are, don't want anything! I remember I once felt sick at the wheel of the car and I stopped, opened the car door, two minutes later there were two girls standing there. One of them gave me a bottle of mineral water, "Are you feeling bad? Want something?" I said that I was calm, that I was just going to wait a little and I was going to leave. And they left I don't know who they were. So young

so... Maybe going to work, maybe busy. Look, I have a bottle of mineral water. And they took... an impression of me of hope, of great beauty with them. I don't even know who they were. In the little things we reveal those points of humanity that are sometimes hidden among us. The everyday hero. Those moments where cracks in our alienation bring out our humanity in very simple things, right? The one who picks up something that falls to the ground to give it to you, quickly someone lowers and hands it to you. Why does this person do

it, what is the personal advantage it brings? This is an overflow of human nature. When human nature overflows legitimate, pure, without manipulations, it is of extraordinary beauty. Kindness is where we most easily find beauty. Want more? The friend who cares and advises you. Sometimes saying things you don't want to hear. You know that friend you get mad at him, It takes a while for you to realize that he just wanted to help you. And goes back to look for him, apologizes. That friend who doesn't want you to like him at any price, he wants you

to look good at any price, so he has the courage to be sincere at the moment you are in the frenzy. Those relatives, those people in your relationship, a biological family, a constructed family. That sometimes you make a lot of mistakes, you are intransigent, don't know how to live with, but when you have a deep difficulty, you are sure that if you go to them, they will welcome you. Because there is something that relates us far above that. There is a bond of love and loyalty far beyond that. People, sometimes, do not value many times

due to intransigence, for sectarian opinions. We threw away a bond as sacred as this, of those people who love us and are ready for our good. This is beautiful, beautiful! You know you have a lap, have those who share your bitterness with you, have to forward it with you. This is sacred. We should never desecrate it, for temporary and superficial things. And the great acts of kindness that we should be hunting them. Because there are people doing extraordinary things in the world right now. I usually hunt down these names and collect them. Because, as Plato

said, it's good to have a hero always in sight, to remember how great we can become. This is extraordinarily beautiful! A man who serves goodness is a beautiful man. A beautiful human being! Whatever physical condition he possesses. But when he overflows with kindness, he is of irresistible beauty, a transforming beauty, a beauty that makes him a pole of attraction of many other human beings, more than any perfect photographic model from the Paris catwalks. Certainly. In other words, you have to look for and know how to see beauty. If we want to find it in its

most legitimate face, truer, that beauty that is true. The beauty in the little things. This is one of the most adored practices, in my view, because it fills your whole life. When you see, you've had a whole day full of beauty, and that gives you a very great state of accomplishment. Fill your life. And nature offers you a feast of beautiful little things everytime. And when you compose all of that, you have a beautiful whole day. You have a beautiful life. I think this is amazing: when you notice the sun coming back the next day.

One of these days, a diagonal sunbeam were entering my room. This was a work of art. And I thought: well, despite yesterday, someone gave me a blank paper to start over. And the sun returned to distribute its light, its heat. Without asking anyone: hey, do you deserve my light? No! Generously all your light and your warmth. Everyone who has windows open to receive them. How beautiful is that! It gives me a thousand thoughts! Sometimes that critical moment, which I consider the philosopher's critical moment, that every day when he opens his eyes in bed, has to

remember very well what he is and where he wants to go with all this. You have to reinforce your spirit of improvement. Sometimes a little thing like that is a wonderful sign, that it's worth starting over. Because if the sun doesn't give up, why would I give up? It is Sun, I am human. Each radiates light in its own way. Why would I give up? Little things like that. In Tibet they value... One day I was teaching a class on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the Bardo Thodol. They value small signs as a symbol

that certain things are happening. Much like what Jung called synchronicity. Well, there are always sunbeams, but the way this one entered my room at that moment, is special, maybe for this moment. Maybe this lightning will never enter my room quite like this. Maybe my need for experience intersects with that natural fact and it has something to say to me. The sun will be around for a long time, an infinity of time ahead. It's still a star with a lot of life ahead of it. But the way it interacts with every living thing, in each moment

is unique and unrepeatable. Which is endowed with meaning. Once things intersect, as Jung says, out of a mutual need for experience. The scandal of the birds at dawn is an experience that I have always thought wonderful. I even wrote a poem about it: The morning song of birds. Because something extraordinary is happening there. All nature notices and we are sleeping. Sometimes waking up to receive the sun and realize the extraordinary fact that life is starting over. We go back to the beginning, the childhood of the day. The hours of the day have a direct relationship

with the ages of life. Then you are returning to the childhood purity of the day. That gray light, everything starting to dawn. The dawn is wonderful, the dawn. And that scandal of animals in a ceremony, a ceremony of gratitude because life has started again. Once I remember that in the middle of the waters of the Amazon River, I watched the sunrise in a little boat. I had never imagined such a thing: the noise is deafening. The monkeys go crazy. It's so much animal noise that you can't tell what it is. A madness of noise. Why

are animals doing their ceremony? Life has started again, there is a new childhood, a new opportunity. How beautiful is that! How beautiful it is to watch their euphoria! Once I had a kitten and it left the house, went to the garden, and it went crazy when the morning came. I got up just to look at it jumping euphoric. It looked like a little ball bouncing around in my garden. It was euphoric about something that I, out of alienation, chose not to notice. This is very beautiful: the dawns, as well as the sunset. When we compare

this to childhood, the fullness of midday with maturity, as the moment of awakening, and the sunset with old age, you realize that everything has its beauty. The night of mysteries perhaps with death, and the dawn showing a new opportunity. You realize that beauty is in every cycle of life. Whether in a day, or in a year, or in the season, both in life and in death. In everything the same beauty persists, the same symbolic message. You begin to dialogue ceremonially with life. This is beautiful, it brightens your day, the passing of the seasons, as I

think it curious to see the plants in my garden, although the seasons are quite difficult to notice in certain places. But we understand how the earth, the plants react, even insects react to the passing of the seasons. You perceive a very great intelligence taking care of the land and all its children. Preparing the land, collecting, preparing the land for what is to come. Receiving the seed, suddenly bursting back into life. You see that there's a maternal intelligence there taking care of the land and all your children. How beautiful! How it makes us feel in the

arms of the mother, in the arms of the Father. You perceive a millimeter intelligence in the things around you, renewing life, taking care of life. When we realized it we have acquired such a great trust in life, in nature, that we realize that this coherence must be in human nature as well. And we started to trust more in the human being, trust more in the things that happen to us. Knowing that up ahead we will see the purpose of all this, with increasing clarity. And if we really look for it, we can see it! We

unite the two points of life. And what seemed to us Chaos, at a given moment, it seems to us Cosmos. If we want to see. And it's also extremely beautiful, perceive the intelligence, the coherence of nature, the Cosmos. That is extremely beautiful! The variety of plants and animals with all their peculiarities. I lived in Belém do Pará and had contact, for example, with the forest, the Amazon rainforest is an incredible thing. Because when you look, a little piece of forest, the variety of life that exists there is crazy. And one interacting with the other perfectly,

one supporting the other. Biodiversity is something crazy! Because they're absolutely different beings that respect each other and collaborate with each other. There you have a lesson in living out of the ordinary. I once saw a person who dealt with biomimicry tell me, that we could learn more from the Amazon rainforest by observing it. And the man would gain so much more from doing so than cutting down the entire forest and selling its wood. The learning that nature gives us, and you don't have to go to the Amazon rainforest, you can just look at your garden.

Sometimes I see the resilience of a little plant, which is crazy. A drought comes, a predator comes and it throws again a little twig over there. Life fighting against adversity, the clever combination of shadow and light, with everything. Incredible! When we look at the details into a vegetable life, an animal life, you perceive a level of intelligence, and at the same time we realize that plants, the plant world has this huge variety. Animals have a huge variety. This variety of possibilities must exist within the human being, since in appearance we are not so varied. Must

have all this wealth of possibilities inside of me, perhaps the variety of the human being is much more inside than outside. That is, it brings great reflections and is also tremendously beautiful. The complexity of a spider's web, I have a particular affection for spider webs. It's always difficult to scare them away from my house. I am amazed to see the beauty of it. Especially... when they're in a place where the sunlight shines and shows all its details. Guys, what an amazing thing! How smart, how well built. What a fantastic piece of work. You see the

intelligence in these little things. I once accidentally passed by, didn't even know these things existed, there in Rio de Janeiro, downtown, by an exhibition that enlarged a stone ground, a stone floor. And the exhibition were photographs that took a millimeter piece of that stone and expanded the variety of colors and sizes inside, it was a show! It was a picture that worth having on the wall. They were greatly enlarged photographs of a stone floor. What an incredible thing, what an incredible thing that! I remember when I was little I used to look at the cracks

in the walls, and I thought it was so smart, the way a central stalk was going along. It's like twigs on a tree. A long time later someone came to tell me that often a crack obeys and also the "Phi", to the number of gold, the proportion in those things that open. I think everything is so beautiful, so many details that you stop and reflect: Guys, could it be that when I branch out and go in all directions I also know how to do it harmoniously in this way? Am I learning this secret of harmonious

expansion? Which expands in all directions without losing its axis? Or am I betraying myself in order to expand? So many things, so many details that have so much to teach us. It is not for nothing that Diogenes the Cynic Diogenes of Sinope used to say: that life is an open book to the attentive observer. The wise learns it directly from nature. The joy of simple workers doing their jobs, sometimes happily doing very simple things, happy with that, without much ambition, going through your things and doing it with all affection. A person who is enjoying what

he is doing, whatever your work is, it's a very beautiful thing to see. When you feel he's there, as if he were a child, with his toys, totally immersed in it, loving what he's doing for the thing itself and not because he will earn a lot later or because he will be famous. But enjoying his toys, performing there. It is also extremely beautiful to see the normal movement of life, sometimes, look... I've always liked to see this, Here in Brasília, I used to live in one of the blocks there in Asa Sul, I kept seeing

the euphoria of the children returning home at the end of classes. Wow, it looked like birds that had escaped from the cage. The joy of it, that rush, that noise, that racket. And mothers, sometimes pushing their carts, bringing your little ones home. Folks, life is full of beauty! I remember that I was once paralyzed because I would return with my daughter from the playground, and we passed under a tree, and the tree had those seeds that were... that had a propeller. I don't know if you guys know this, they are inside a little bundle with

a propeller. And a gust of wind hit and the air was full of those seeds flying. And my little daughter, about four years old, jumped in the air, trying to get those seeds. And behind it was a sunset. I looked at that and said: people, what a crazy thing! How perfect is beauty! It does not belong to time. How is time going to steal something like that from me? Impossible! It is totally out of time. It cannot be slaughtered, digested, it is not fleeting, a bit of eternity. Another occasion that I always remember, I arrived

after a class, I have been a teacher for many years as you know, and my little daughter, this one under 4 years old, lying on the sofa in the living room, cuddled with a matchbox. I went to get her out of there to take her to bed and she said: "Mom, I trapped a ray of sunshine inside this box for you, I took the most beautiful." The beauty of the moment is extraordinary! How can life take that away from us? Can't, can't! These things are moments of eternity in the middle of time. How beautiful, sometimes,

details, small things in life. If we were more observant, we would be rich. We would be tremendously rich. Beauty of Silence do you feel it? Sometimes I feel entering certain environments, sometimes even my own home offered me this. A moment that seems like all nature has gone silent. There's that heavy silence. I usually call it cathedral silence. It feels like it enters inside of us and gives a sense of eternity as if time had taken a break. You feel that weight of that ceremonial silence. The silence of great cathedrals. The silence is beautiful, it is

profound. It seems that it makes us see ourselves in front of something that is eternal, inside us and outside of us. Taste the silence, it is beautiful! And also the beauty of sounds. Of course, we're going to talk about certain wonderful melodies that many of us... It has melodies that automatically elevate our consciousness, but sometimes I like to listen to melodies even from a child's song. The beautiful juvenile rose! How beautiful is this succession of notes! How exquisite nature is! Gave us these sounds that are so beautiful! How beautiful is every sound that when combined

produces sometimes a melodic line so simple yet so sweet. So capable of knocking on the door of our conscience and bring our soul to the surface. How beautiful the sound, how beautiful the musical notes! How beautiful, sometimes, the frequency of a person's voice that tells you something beautiful. A person who gives you advice with good intentions. Have you ever noticed the alternation in the voice of someone who speaks a beautiful thing? How beautiful! How things are filled with such rich combinations. So harmonious! How beautiful it is to hear the sounds of nature, to see the

colors of nature. How beautiful, sometimes, we realize. Once, a painting, a person who paints very well, she's a friend of ours from New Acropolis and she was explaining to us how a painter produces white in a painting. We got close and saw that she had put on lilac, put a lot of stuff. She said "If I just use the white one, it gets artificial". The white that we see is full of colors. After she told me that I kept looking at the white things and trying to realize that it has reflexes. It has a lilac

reflection, it has a grayish reflection in white light, sometimes half-orange reflection. White is full of underlying colors. How incredible! A person who is more expert, works with it, reveals to us through art, through his artist's eye, things we weren't used to seeing. What seems flat to us is full of details. Interesting details that give us a much greater perspective of what things are. How complex things are. How much there is a deep harmony even in what seems to us the simplest. Beauty of order. This is something that I have mania, always have. I wash the

bathroom and stay at the door for a few minutes looking at my work of art. How beautiful a clean and orderly environment is. Makes you want to stop and look, wow, how beautiful! Everything in its place and that pleasant smell, all resplendent with cleanliness. Something too simple: a sink with everything washed, all clean, dry. I always, love to wash dishes, by the way, and I always take a second to look at my artwork. I think it's beautiful, beauty of order, harmony, simple things in their place. The beauty of things clean and orderly. Sometimes a well-arranged

drawer thrills me. Guys, how beautiful is that. What respect for things. The things that humbly serve us, they deserve respect. It's beautiful too. The beauty of words. Of course, when they come together and form sentences that say profound things are extraordinary. But sometimes just the words. I sometimes choose the most beautiful ones I've ever heard and pronounced. If you hear a word like softness. Softness is already a beautiful word. A word like harmony, harmony is a beautiful word! Just listening to it, sometimes, I keep seeing it written. How beautiful harmony. How beautiful generosity. To observe

the word, the sounds it generates. Inside it has generare, to generate, has life, there's a lot of stuff packed into a word. I look at it and I think it's beautiful. Words are beautiful! They seem to synthesize in themselves a lot of symbols. They are symbols, they radiate in all directions. I love words. There are some that one word is enough to provoke me a state of mind of wonder in the face of beauty. It's one thing that everyone can notice: how certain things are melodious and beautiful in a sentence, in an intonation, in a

thing that is in its rightful place. How beautiful is everywhere. Sometimes I had the impression that I was going to work, halfway, looking out the window, the muses were playing hide and seek with me along the way. I had to concentrate on the steering wheel and swerved a little, I saw something extraordinarily beautiful. I remember once I saw a father taking a little girl to school. He carried her on his shoulders and she was wearing a red coat and she had two branches in her hands, playing with the branches. And he carrying that girl in

the red coat, on a cold morning, heading to school, carrying her lunch box. It was a work of art, a work of art. I said: look muses, you have to let me concentrate on the steering wheel. That's not possible! And when arriving at work some perceptions of this type, it already put a different amount of spirit in me. Beauty in waking up just for waking up. Reiterate faith in oneself, reiterate hopes, reiterate our pact with life. What do I wake up to, what do I live for? What is my purpose? What do I want to

achieve? What part of that purpose am I willing to carry out today? To reiterate my commitments, today, once again, I reiterate my commitment to life, my commitment to serving it. To add value. I get up, as Marcus Aurelius would say: to do a man's duty. I get up to fulfill my pact with life. Awakening is ceremonial. In fact, there is the magic of beginnings, right? Because the state of mind you imprinted at that moment follows you throughout the day. As in Rome, in other civilizations, but Rome I know well, because of the old city which

is very interesting and narrates many things. The concern with every detail of the room, of what you see when you open your eyes, of the colors. This exists a lot in Feng Shui as well. Because you realize that there you have to create the stage for someone to enter life again. This is the most sacred moment. It's like birth, like a rebirth. Reinforce your identity and your pacts. Before putting your foot out of bed. Waking up is very beautiful, as is falling asleep. These are very beautiful moments. Fall asleep, before going to sleep you review

your day and say: wow, I was human today! What peace of mind! I sleep in peace with heaven and earth, as far as I can, I honored what I am and what nature expects of me. Close your eyes and say "I deserve the sleep of the righteous". And tomorrow I start again. It is a healthy pride to look at our footprints and say: "Look, it wasn't anything extraordinary, but that's what I should have done." I honored my human condition today. I surrender to the sleep of the righteous. If life ended today, I would regret the

stage was so small, but I would be happy because I fell asleep free with heavens and earth and with my own conscience. How beautiful, how beautiful! A great ceremonial. In general, when you do this little ceremonial, it throws you into dream consciousness, sometimes already in beautiful dreams. You enter dream consciousness on the right foot. It is very beautiful to sleep like this. Feeding oneself. Confucius talks about it a lot in his Analects, right? You look at that much food on your plate and say: every thing like that, nature has a huge job to generate and

it's giving it to me, it's investing in my life. I am its servant, I have to repay it. I have to give it the return of such consideration. I have to put myself at the service of what is the law of its need because look what it invests in me. Each such thing, a life that has been cultivated through seasons, seeds that were generated and irrigated. All the life that's on my plate. What gratitude for a nature that invests so much in me, and trust me so much that I am worthy. I want to honor

that trust. It's a moment of grace, a moment of deep gratitude, empathy with the purpose of life. Gratitude to the world, gratitude to all the things that we feel that they are parts of our body, our extended body. Gratitude to nature, gratitude to humanity, gratitude to the world as a whole, gratitude to this piece of land that saw me born. People today sometimes confuse patriotism with fanaticism. There is no such thing! Who loves the piece of land that brought him into the world, is able to understand, value and stimulate... Any other human being will also

have the same gratitude. It does not exclude anything or anyone. Simply a respect for what I corresponded to, that piece of land from which the food I consumed was taken. a piece of land where I walked in my childhood, this piece of land that generously shelters me like a mother. Gratitude for the earth as a whole, but for that piece of land too. An empathy with all the forces of nature who dialogue with me throughout my life. And that's not fanaticism, that's not madness, that's beautiful! And who knows how to do that, knows how to

respect the patriotism of all other beings on earth, and value and respect it. Respect the land where you were born, as the ancient poets say. Respect the land you were born it is a way of respecting our father and mother. It is a cult of our ancestors. This is very dignified, it is very beautiful! It is a way of making our lives more and more ceremonial. The sacred is the function of giving meaning, said Mircea Eliade. And what makes sense is also very beautiful. Gratitude to myself for the healthy effort of everyday for never giving

up. To thank myself that I am often frightened, many times, feeling hurt, I didn't give up. I kept walking. Often feeling with no reaction by circumstances, I didn't give up, I honored my commitment, I honored my word and kept walking. Deep gratitude to this Divine essence that exists within me that did not cease to exist and that did not abandon me for a single moment. Gratitude to ourselves is also very beautiful. It's touching, it's extremely important. Patience is also extremely beautiful. Patience to wear a thousand watches, don't give up on people because each one has

a different rhythm from the others. Patience, cast an encouraging look when someone has a hard time. Like a mother who, when her child takes a step, she toasts and bakes cake and calls the neighborhood. And when takes two steps, she makes another party. In other words, she toast every small conquest. Patience, cheering and valuing every little achievement of the people around us, and of ourselves. Toasting our little victories and know that this is a positive stimulus. We have to value the small steps we climb. It's a way to toast our effort for honoring the life

expectancy in us. It is ceremonial and it is extremely beautiful. Patience is very beautiful. The beauty of learning, of looking at things with first-time eyes. I still wonder that imagination is also extremely beautiful. Leonardo da Vinci, stuck in his studio, in the Vatican, while Michelangelo and Raphael who also walked around and they were wonderful too. They were doing their best to impress the Pope. Leonardo closed himself inside his studio and went to draw leaves. Amazed by the beauty of the leaves, and the curvature they take, and drawings and more drawings of leaves in his codices.

Like a children. The wonder of those first time eyes. As Emperor Marcus Aurelius said, face each day as if it were the first, with that purity, with that discovery, with that wonder. That apprentice spirit. Is there anything more beautiful than the spirit of an apprentice? More beautiful than knowing that we don't own any truth? We are open to life, open to undesrtand the mystery of each thing. Is there anything more beautiful than putting yourself in front of a human being and knowing he is different from you? A part of the Truth is with him. And

we can combine that and come out two bigger. We can do thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Your mystery interests me, I don't own the truth. I offer you my mystery in demand of yours. What a beautiful thing the spirit of an apprentice is. Beautiful thing to know that we don't know, and I never gave up on the spirit of improvement. Learning is extremely beautiful! You know how to see. I had a tomato plant at the back of my house, one of those cherry tomatoes. One fine day it was already all dry because it has a short life

span, and the last beautiful twig still offered, like a withered hand, offering two tomatoes. And that was one of the wonderful scenes, I photographed it, made a party... Imagine a being that is losing its vitality, gathers a little bit of vitality that it has to offer you two more fruits. It looked like a dry hand with two very red tomatoes. That was extremely touching, I could have missed it, if I didn't know how to look out my window. I could have missed the moment when I pulled water from my backyard and the cement is kind

of uneven, and the water kept running in the wrong place. To observe that and say: this water is like my conscience, if I don't have the effort to pull it to the right place, it runs to the lower regions. That water taught me how to watch my conscience and always pull it up. I might not have seen, I might not have seen a storm, and looked at the tree, and seen how after the storm, the ground looks beautiful covered with dry leaves. How nature knows how to be beautiful even when it destroys. Many times man

even when he builds does ugly things because he does not know how to reflect the Dharma, the law of the universe, in his work. It is nature and follows the Dharma even when it destroys. That is, being able to observe, knowing how to see. Go beyond appearances, see the symbolic message that each thing contains. Knowing how to listen, knowing how to listen much more to what people are saying, but what do they mean by that. Instead of you looking at people and already thinking what you're going to answer, waiting for her to shut up. Empty

the mind! And let them fall like raindrops on dry ground, the other person's words. Totally empty and receptive. And you felt her need, which is often far beyond what she is simply able to express. Feeling the person you can answer what she needs, which sometimes doesn't have much to do with what she's saying. This is extremely beautiful! Be open to each other's words enter an empty space, and receptive, luminous, for you to feel the real need those words cover, that sometimes they are not faithful to what the person wants to express. People don't always know

how to express themselves well, or have the courage to express themselves well. Knowing how to listen is beautiful! A person who hears is a wonderful thing to see. I remember those elders, like my grandmother and others, who were absolutely paralyzed. You could tell she wasn't expecting anything, she was totally focused on what the person was saying. Knowing how to listen is beautiful! And today increasingly rare. Knowing what people want to be and it's trapped inside them. Realizing that sometimes you live with the person and she has a great effort to be a person, shall we

say, more active. Suddenly, she is caught by some circumstance that becomes totally inert. Or an effort a person has to be a little more understanding, but suddenly a circumstance comes along that makes her angry. And you know how to look at that person talking and know how to differentiate, that's what she is, the person I know. And that's the lack of control she's been a victim of now. And instead of you answering the uncontrolled person, you respond to the harmonious person you know. And you help. That person feels split down the middle, and you start

to give strength to who she is, above how she is now. And she feels that you are allying yourself with this internal war of hers. So that she is, permanently, what she wants to be. Sometimes we look and say: so-and-so is incoherent, so-and-so is a liar, so-and-so is fake, he has two faces. No. He's trying. Ally with one of these guys and help him fight the other. Know how to see what the person really wants to be, dreams of being behind what he is getting to be. Do you know how beautiful this is? There's something

Divine about it, it's so beautiful! Empathy, when you stripped yourself of everything you think of your concepts and enters the world of the other, pure, clean. Intent on seeing the world through his inner circumstances. Through all the elements he has. You will see through one more face of the prism, you will see the world from an angle you didn't have. Deep desire to enter the mystery of the other and to be able to do. Get rid of everything that is personal, not enter with your conceptions, with your concepts. Like Ulysses who enters the sea and

emerges completely naked, and only then he finds the island of streams that will take him home. That is, undressing all the covers and quirks of my personality and enter into the other's point of view, into the other's mystery. With the pure spirit of an apprentice wanting to give some of your light and bring to yourself a little light from the other. Empathy is a beautiful thing, it's an art that few know how to do. An empathetic person is an artist. He knows the relative value of your personality and knows how to move from inside it,

to undress it, and penetrate the mystery of the other. Empathy is beautiful. The synchronicities, the repetitions of the facts in my life. It's so interesting, when you begin to observe that the facts that repeat themselves want to talk to you. I usually talk about the line that never walks, that at one point you said: Does life mean I'm impatient? Sometimes the fact that you make a mistake at the beginning of a process. When you arrive late for an appointment. I don't know if you realize that this initial lack of control is going to attract a

bunch of other disasters? Then you arrive late, the internet fails, the neighbor decides to train drums, the cat screams. That is, a succession of disasters when you start badly. Observe these coincidences in your life. See what they have to tell you. One of the most beautiful things in life is learning the language of life. and talk to it. The language of life is symbol. When you start noticing the reiterative facts in your life, suppose they are a message that life is sending you. Make an answer guess, a decoding proposal. And feel how the ball comes

back. Develop a dialogue with life through the language that life speaks, which is a symbol. This is also very beautiful. It makes you feel a deep curiosity, of one day seeing the face of this intelligence that from the backstage of life communicates with you, through its language which is a symbol. That symbol is always the queen of all languages. Dignity in pain is also beautiful. Beauty of wanting to understand the purpose of all things. Beauty of wanting to be coherent with everything you've learned and believe. In the most difficult moments, coherence is beautiful. Dignity is

beautiful! Beauty of understood a teaching and put it into practice at the right time. As the Buddha said: we will all go through old age, through illness, through death. Knowing how to find within ourselves something that is a safe territory, a safe ground that we know that nothing and no one can take away from us. That allows us to be dignified and consistent in controlling ourselves, in the face of the greatest adversity. We don't fall into madness, into insanity, that is always the worst alternative. Beauty, dignity, self-control in the face of adversity, pain, it is

extremely beautiful! I remember I was once told a story which I also can't say if it was true, but I thought it was quite possible, of an old man who had been married for 70 years and when his wife dies, people wonder why he was very calm and very serene at the funeral. They ask him why he was so calm, so well? And he said he was happy because if he went first she would suffer a lot. He didn't want this for her. If someone has to suffer, I'd rather it be me. That thing touched

me deeply, what a beautiful thing! The dignity of a person in the face of his own pain. Okay, it hurts, but I prefer it to be me. It's part of life, one had to go. I knew it from the first moment of life, that one day it would end. Well, it ended in a way that the person I love the most didn't suffer so much. Glad it was like that, thanks to nature. Prepare for the things that will necessarily come, with solid ground under our feet. Sri Ram who is a philosopher that I like a

lot, a wonderful thinker, he says: Build your boat. When you develop deeply human and beautiful acts, when you develop deeply human and effective values, as Justice, as fraternity, you are building a solid ground on your feet. When life comes and takes that boat away from you, you have another one that allows you to stand in the midst of the storm. Dignity in the face of pain, coherence at this moment is a beautiful thing to see! It is a rare and extremely beautiful spectacle. Knowing how to seek and value what we have not lost, what nothing

and no one can take away from us throughout our lives. Knowing how to value what is permanent, what is lasting, this is also extremely beautiful. Coherence, we've talked about it. An interesting thing, an observation that I made recently, that I have also brought to you is the idea of ​​clear primordial light. One of these days, reading the Tibetan Bardo Thodol, it says that when a man disincarnates, the first thing he sees is a great flash. This great flash is the flash of the absolute, of the unity of God. But as man is always accustomed to

go to the region of shadow and not to light, in most cases misses this opportunity. If he penetrated there, the cycles would end, the eternal return would end, he would arrive at Enlightenment. But we have more affinity with dark than with bright. But they went further, they say this clear primordial light, this pure light, It's absolutely crystalline. This is what illuminates every moment of our life, it doesn't just show up there. If our life has light, that light comes from it. And then I stopped to imagine exactly those most beautiful, purest moments of my life,

those scenes with my daughters, those things I said, it's not possible, time won't steal it from me! I realized that they were so beautiful, precisely because they were pure, of crystalline luminosity. What was there certainly was the clear primordial light. And I'm afraid of death taking these things away from me, that are the most precious things in my life. That is, I'm afraid of losing something that I'm walking towards it. Because if this is the Clear primordial Light, if this generates purity, luminosity, goodness in my life, I won't lose, I'm going for it. If we

learned to recognize this divine light, as that which beautified the most timeless moments of our lives, we would know how to value it, we would know how to develop an affinity with it, and we would know that it's in it what we do not want to lose from life. And that we can't really lose. What is, is part of eternity, We would learn to develop an affinity with that clear light. Sometimes a teaching from a book sheds so much light on your life, everything makes so much sense, fits so much. These insight moments where you

bring a teaching to life are beautiful. The beauty of emotion at the most beautiful acts of man, art, that is, the great things that are done through art that bring us to tears. Honesty, generosity, courage, an act of the deep heart. It is a very beautiful thing, knowing how to appreciate the greatness of acts, of our fellow human beings. If you allow, today we rival so much, compete so much, that, sometimes, what we did not do, we resist admiring, and to get moved by the beauty of things. It's like the beauty of a collector who

collects, and gathers the most beautiful things he has ever heard in his life. And make a spiritual first-aid kit. The beautiful work of this, this beautiful moment of nature, and gather and have it at hand. 'Cause you've got a good food store, for times of hunger, for times of drought. That is, you knew how to store. In such a way that when the adverse moments come, you have food, you have your first aid kit. Of the most nutritious and most beautiful foods that life has ever offered you. Beauty of compassion in the face of man's

lowest deeds. You realize that that human being who fell into the worst thing, most hideous thing that can happen, will fall into a deep hole, a deep suffering, and is also one of our brothers. Something of us goes down the abyss with the one who falls, and something of us ascends to heaven with the one who ascends A little of the pain of this man who is plunged into the deepest cruelty, madness that he himself generated. The pain of ignorance, stupidity, brutality. Compassion for this man who is plunged into this hole and not hate. Gorgeous!

And here I cannot fail to mention to you the case of Agnes, that you must have heard about. That wonderful lady who was able to forgive, including asking for legal permission, to hug the murderer who killed her daughter and grandson. She corresponds with him and his situation was so horrible, a horrible life. She is so filled with compassion that she feels the need to forgive him. And then you look and say: this is not human! That's an amazing thing for a human being to do. A frail little lady and she did something beyond human, amazing.

And how beautiful is someone who is able to have compassion for the men who are in the hole, for their actions, for their foolishness. How beautiful! How beautiful it is to understand that we humanity are a family and, we commit to it. Beauty in the face of the fullness of the simplest and most sublime things. The simple things in your life: talking to your parents or grandparents on the porch, have coffee with cake in a late afternoon. Talking about the simple things of your day, playing with a dog, Remember the good times shared with friends.

Jewelry! Feeling gifted by life that gives us so many moments like these. Beauty of a symbol, of a ceremony that raises awareness, that provide a vision of unity. A certainty built about God from observing the logic of life. About harmony, the purpose of life. Today I see and I'm sure, life has purpose, it has meaning, it has coherence, it has intelligence. Beauty of the certainties you built through thought and not through blind faith. The beauty of the ceremonials that demarcate, since the time of the Neanderthals, one stone on top of another, on my knees before

something that surpasses me, something that is bigger than me. The beauty of the Sacred and of the man who places himself before the Sacred, who recognizes it. Mircea Eliade used to say that man is more than Homo Sapiens, is Homo Religiosus. When we get on our knees and recognize something subtle, but that concatenates and harmonizes everything around him, allows his life and involves him. This man has reached a higher level of intelligence that a man can get. Pure intelligence, manasic, as the Hindus say. In other words, the beauty of the human being before the Sacred.

Respect that. I would not be able through this juncture to see anything, but this being can see. When it's lucid, when it's not crazy, it's not fanatical. But when it is a man who is faced with something greater than himself, and becomes all gratitude, that is very beautiful. The beauty of the desire to serve, the beauty of the desire to give thanks... these things surround us all the time. Ecstasy when various beauties meet and intertwine before us. These are special moments and you can even provoke them. They are those divine leisures of which Plato spoke.

When you pick up a beautiful song that elevates your consciousness, and hear it at sunset and on top of that you pronounce a poem, a prayer. Add two or three beauties, they boost your consciousness. Beauty has this property when it allies itself, it causes a synesthesia that raises your consciousness to its highest. The encounter with your soul, the divine platonic idleness. Otium is to dedicate yourself to the things of the Soul, negotium is to dedicate yourself to the things of the body. And both when done right are beautiful and necessary. The beauty of a painting,

of a song of any manifestation of art. I bring you this poem, small, simple, of a poet I admire so much, Kabir. Of the hundred poems of Kabir, translated by Tagore, a short poem. Kabir chant XIX. "O my heart! The Supreme Spirit, the Great Master is with you. Awake! Cast yourself at the feet of your beloved. For your Lord is at your head. You have slept for countless centuries, don't you want to wake up this morning?" I feel the echoes of a little poem like this, of a man who knew what he was being. And

if you know what to hear when a man who knows what to say speaks, the connection produced there is extremely beautiful. When you know how to listen and someone knows what to say. Anyway, concluding, beauty is the mode of operation of life. The beauty is. And to grow is to learn to perceive it, to generate it and to serve it. I hope that these little reflections, the situations of life, this tracking of beauty, be inspiring to you. When you feel alone, don't be alone. Look for the beauty, it is an excellent companion. A big hug

to everyone.