A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness
John Keats
In December of 2010 we were travelling to Victoria, Australia as I had been invited to give a talk to a Raw Food potluck group in Melbourne about the Three Principles, entitled ‘Understanding Living Consciousness’. Once we had arrived and settled into our accommodation we were invited for a beautiful day out to visit the host’s farm, which was a couple hours out of the city in the Yarra Valley. There we met our host’s eldest daughter Jess who was just 16 at the time, and she and I hit it off immediately.
We took the drive back to Melbourne and got the house ready for the evening talk. The talk went well and there was a real buzz in the room, no one seemed to want to go home. After a while I noticed that Jess was waiting to speak with me and so I sat down with her to find out what she wanted.
She told me of having had a difficult childhood and that she had really enjoyed the talk and felt amazing, yet what should she do when the ‘bad stuff’ comes back again. I looked at her, laughed and said: “You don’t do anything with the bad stuff”.
She really heard something in that moment and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry; she did both. Her mother came by and said that how lovely it was to see Jess happy. When Jess had recovered, she looked at me directly in the eyes and said: “But you are so amazing Dean!” I laughed out loud again and said: “What do you think you are looking at? You are looking at a reflection of yourself.” More tears and laughter ensued.
This was a magical moment for me, to really see how we are all connected, to feel that reciprocity of being, to luxuriate in it and see it beaming right back at me. To look into that mirror, and to understand that is all we are, a mirror to all the beauty in the world. We have all felt this, seen this, and experienced this. This is who we are at our best, in those magical moments of life when we feel the interconnectedness of all things.
Often times I have been asked, how can we tell when someone is beginning to catch the beautiful scent of the Principles? The answer is simple; their face lights up like bright sunshine pouring in through an open window on a spring morning. Luminescence abounds in their being, they become more alive, and it would seem, more authentic, more themselves. It is almost impossible to miss this transformation of consciousness, to witness the brightness, cheerfulness, simplicity and purity of being that appears to arise in a person once they begin to experience the truth of themselves.
It never ceases to astound me how swiftly faces change; people hear something about how we all create reality in the same way, and before one can blink almost, there it is, a new face that was waiting to come to the surface. Years of anguish and torment simply vanish, and the soul’s true beauty shines forth, people look younger. This beauty always seems to make us smile in the same way a rainbow or sunset might. It awakens something in our spirit and brings our beauty alive too.
When I was a teenager, I innocently believed that the faces I observed around me looked like they did simply because that was what happened to us when we grew older. Now I see that our face simply reflects the state of mind we most commonly carry around with us, and I cannot help but smile to myself and think of that old adage: ‘when the wind blows, your face will stay like that!’
So, the next time you look in to the mirror and you see something other than all the beauty of the world reflected back at you, you may have innocently and temporarily forgotten who you really are, we all do it sometimes. Be gentle and kind.
Now, go and have a wonderful day and shine brightly, for the world needs more beauty.
