What is Beautiful and What Exactly is Beauty?

How do you define beauty? Is it merely something that looks good?  But that would mean that we exclude beautiful things like songs that we love out of the definition. That will not do. Let us first take a look at where exactly does beauty lie in an attempt to answer our original questions.

1. The beauty of symmetry and harmony:

Imagine yourself in a garden, shades of green surround you sometimes blotted with beautiful flowers of every colour. A soft fragrance of wild roses waves through the air. The soft rustling of the leaves and the muffled sounds of a flowing stream nearby brings a feeling of calmness over you. The sight of a green valley framed with icy mountains in the distance brings a feeling of awe to you. This is the beauty of Mother nature. This is the beauty of Diversity.

The universe itself is a great masterpiece painted on a cosmic canvas. Look at the planets and the stars-the way they follow designated paths and rules for billions of years without rest is a mystery to the greatest minds. Look at the atoms and see how even these tiny bricks of the physical universe adhere to a bunch of strict rules. A very few rules in physics and chemistry govern every single particle in the entire universe. This is the beauty of Harmony.

Take a glimpse now at the living world. The way the 3 billion genes are replicated and translated in the billions of cells in your body millions of times in a day without a single faults and the way these INORGANIC and NON-LIVING chemicals comprising DNA control the very blueprint of life and nudge the living world forward slowly but surely! Also think of the physical appearance of animals and plants– how most of them have a visible symmetry! 

Now remember your favourite song /favourite book and the feelings you had as  you went through them. Also recall the feeling of awe at the architectural marvels of our ancestors. This and the joy we get as a result of appreciation of other forms of human intellect and creativity also belong to a category of man-made beauty. As a matter of fact, the very foundations of the joy we get in these great human feats lies in the underlying hidden symmetry that lies in the lyrics of songs,the reflections in the words of a book and the undying thirst that every human being knowingly or unknowingly has for the truth.

2. The beauty in every heart:

Perhaps the most important form of beauty is tha human nature and relationships. Recall the surge of joy you felt when seeing a loved one’s smile and the smile of a person whom you helped in need. You have perhaps glimpsed this beauty in the soothing voice of your mother, the caring arms of your father, the mischievious eyes of your siblings, the pleasing and warm company of your friend and the devotion and selflessness of a lover.

This is the sole form of beauty that can uplift a person, hold him strong in the face of adversity and nourish him when necessary. No law of biology or other branch of science can explain this beauty. For example- although some biological laws may explain a mother’s love and sacrifice for her children as a by-product of evolution to ensure the continuity of her genes, no scientific laws exist to explain why a soldier sacrifices his life for the freedom and liberty of others!

All these and the presence of a moral code in every human being’s mind are mysteries to science but can be looked upon as something beautiful.

So,we have seen where beauty exists. But what connects these seemingly distinct manifestations of beauty?

The underlying connection in Keats’ words is “A thing of beauty is a joy forever “. Anything that provides one with everlasting happiness and inspires us to perform miracles is a thing of beauty. Another statement in this regard is “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”. So,go ahead believe in beauty and let it guide you towards lofty goals!