On the Nature of Sensitivity and Beauty

Look at all the birds, the trees, and at the dirty streets. Look at people. Look at your parents and teachers; notice how they talk to you, what kind of words they use.

Do not criticize them, because nobody likes being criticized. Critical thinking should mainly be used on yourself, and, occasionally, when people are trying to impose their thought distortions on you. But even this should mainly be kept as an inner process.

Just watch them very objectively, without criticizing, without judging. If you can do this, they will know that you are watching and, as this watching has a big effect on people, they will begin to be a little more alert, a little less careless and untidy.

It will also have a big effect on you. If you can observe and listen all the time during the whole day, you will find that both your body and your mind become very sensitive and, therefore, naturally disciplined.

Discipline and sensitivity go together. Those who force themselves to do certain things and not to do others, say, for example, to get up early in the morning and do all the things they don’t like to do—they call that self-discipline—are very harsh people. Therefore the importance of idleness. In ancient times a philosopher was an idler, an outsider.

When you watch, when you observe, when you listen, you become highly sensitive, and with that sensitivity there comes an order, a coordination, a discipline which is spontaneous and unforced.

Just try this, and you will discover what beauty is.

Beauty is not merely a matter of form and colour; it goes far beyond all that. Beauty is the sense of beauty. There are many historical and natural reasons why most of the older people have lost this astonishing sense of beauty, but what matters is that you should see beauty, that you should feel it—the extraordinary beauty of the Earth, of the skies, of the rivers, and of the trees.

Everthing becomes poetry, also the body. It flows through you like a golden elixir. Mother Earth unfolds her Inner Side. You walk in beauty and think in beauty.

And you cannot be aware of all this beauty if you do not know how to observe, that is, how to see, and how to listen. This is what you learn in philosophy – philosophy in the ancient sense, where your heart is burning with love of wisdom, and where you will devote yourself entirely to this activity.