You Are the Beauty: Art as a Path to Self-Discovery

by Azita Tabib

Overview

Seeing beauty is the key to surviving hardships in life. Though hardships are inevitable, suffering through them is not necessary. Being able to sense the beauty that is readily available to you could open ways for you to find peace within, with the world around you, and eventually see the beauty of your presence in the world. Beauty is felt through many deeper senses than only the eyes and ears. Whether or not you are an artist, you can develop your sensitivity to beauty.

The book You Are the Beauty calls for the true mission of art, which is to create a bridge of meaning between beauty, the world of realities, and you.

You Are the Beauty suggests that the transformation which can happen within the artist during the creative process is far more beautiful than the artwork itself.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781504389938
Publisher:	Balboa Press
Publication date:	02/15/2018
Pages:	154
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.44(d)

About the Author

Azita Tabib is a self-taught artist with over forty years of experience in the visual arts. She left her career as a physical therapist in 1992 and devoted her life to following the call to delve further into art. Ever since, she has been exploring, learning, and expanding her work. Her efforts have resulted in the emergence of a holistic method of practicing and teaching art that she envisioned through years of practicing art and yoga.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Beauty

One of the great teachings that I learned as a young man was that looking at beauty in the world is the very first step in purifying the mind.

— Dr. Wayne Dyer Podcast on Aug. 27, 2015

Being open to seeing beauty and comprehending it, is by itself a work of art. We're all lovers of the truth by our nature in however way we perceive the truth. This common love between all of us is the most beautiful connection that bonds us regardless of age, from east to west and north to south, and through millennia.

Truth has in it a character of beauty, whether completely hidden or slightly uncovered. As lovers of truth, each one of us searches for beauty in our own way. Glimpses of beauty that manifest here and there at times will give us a heart-warming message; the hope that we're not far from the truth. The fact is, our beloved is always by our side, only we leave it to search for it in other places.

The word beauty reminds each one of us of different images. Beauty can be identified in a variety of forms and realms, as everyone has different impressions about and experiences with it. What does the word beauty remind you of? Does it remind you of the blue sky? Or does it remind you of a flower, a landscape, or the ocean? Does it remind you of jewels found in the ocean made by the seashells? Or does it remind you of the jewels on the land shined and formed by hand? Do you find beauty in a sigh of relief that turns into a smile? Beauty appears in different depths, layers, and realms.

The best way to cultivate our sensibility to beauty is to start simply. Our senses should first familiarize themselves with how beauty feels. Paying attention to the most immediate visual or sound of beauty is a great way to start. Looking at or listening to the beauty in nature is easiest because our inner senses don't have to find out if they could trust its appearance. It's a transparent deal. Nature is already proven to be true and honest.

It is hard to wait for the perfect time or travel to the perfect place to see beauty in nature. It needs to be seen now and where you are. Paying attention, letting your feelings rise to admiration as you see the beautiful sky, the greens by the roads, the flowers, or the people you see every day is the way. This place of admiration is important because it guides you to gratitude even before you notice your blessings.

The atmosphere has oxygen that happens to reflect blue rays from sunshine. The trees recycle the oxygen back into the atmosphere, and they bring shade to their environment and house birds. How do they compose such beautiful, dynamic scenery every day, every hour, as they work hand in hand? I wonder.

The sky stands up so high for you to be in touch with it wherever you are. So stay in touch. Nurture your mind and soul through seeing the beauty of the world till you see the beauty that resides in you. It is the beloved that awaits your love.

Qualities of Beauty

Beauty manifests in all dimensions and many layers, not only one. When only one part looks beautiful, it overshadows the presence of other counterparts, and it's just a beautiful component. It's not integrated with the other components. True beauty has a deeper presence. True beauty is multidimensional and holistic. It forms as balance and charisma integrated in every layer, every dimension — one piece in relation to another, and both pieces in relation to the next, and all pieces in relation to the background. Once beauty manifests, it reveals yet another layer to harmonize with on a deeper level. And the story goes on.

Beauty, wisdom, love, courage, and stability are all different aspects of one concept even though we perceive them as different concepts or entities. We assign them to separate forms, like beauty in paintings, stability in architecture, and courage in a creative mind. But stability, wisdom, and courage are needed in a beautiful painting. Beauty in the physical world can't survive without strength and wisdom, and wisdom can't last long without bravery and beauty. Finally, none of them are born into the world of form and function in the absence of love, meaning compassion in a holistic manner.

True beauty comes with functionality, honesty, and innocence and has power, wisdom, and bravery in its core. Beauty is holistic, dynamic, and integrated as a network woven with love, wisdom, innocence, and strength in all aspects of its presence.

* * *

True beauty is meaningful. It relates to a greater structure of beauty and meaningful functions all throughout the surface, as well as in-depth layers. There is wisdom in beauty.

Beauty forms a network. The beauty is in the relationship of one to the other counterparts. If the beauty that shows up isn't connected to the network of the beauty, then it's a loosely floating concept that doesn't lead to any deeper truth. It's not connected to the whole. It's the meaning and the connection to the network of beauty that speaks the language of hearts. The meaning in beauty is neither in its subject nor in its theme. It lies in its kind presence.

This is true beauty. There are traces of true beauty everywhere, every day, and in every moment. We can develop our sensitivity to it and perceive more of it. We'll enjoy the outcome of sensing more beauty that leads to more inner peace and hope, even though our location and our time are still the same and nothing has changed in the world around us.

Look for beauty every day; practice actively probing for beauty. It's there, hidden but slightly revealed, waiting for you to find it. As you master the skill, you'll be able to see much more beauty in depth. But as a start, probe for nature's wonders every night and day. Seeing and paying attention to even a corner of the sky from a corner of a little window could open your heart. As beauty is multidimensional, it can be seen, heard, or just be deeply sensed by the heart.

* * *

As you practice noticing the beauty of the sky surrounding you, you'll see that beauty isn't only in the blue sky of the morning, but also in the red of the sunset. It's not only in the colorfulness of the sky but also in the gray sky that pulls itself back gently from the eyes, giving rise to other counter players to show you another form of beauty. Beauty is dynamic.

The tree has a different green today at 9:30 from yesterday at 9:30 when it was quite sunny. Everything else also looks different. It's a whole new composition even though everything is in the same place as yesterday. There's nothing new but a new beauty. Beauty renews itself or it's not beauty.

At night, though, when all colors subside into the dark, the absence of light opens the way for those who have always shone on but were hardly seen in the beam of sunlight or maybe behind the curtain of the clouds during the day. What a wonder every moment! As the days come by, for no reason of the season, they change. They play a new song. They play a new day in a new way, yet they keep the core rhythms unchanged. Silence and awe are what they summon.

All these rhythms of change also manifest in sound or touch. If you close your eyes, you'll hear the rhythms, feel the dynamism through the sounds of nature as the beauty manifests in every dimension. You can sense the breeze, the change of temperature, and the pressure of the wind on your face if your eyes are closed. You feel the air as it flows through your nostrils to your lungs.

* * *

To our subconscious mind, beauty is a translation for truth, and truth is a translation for love. Beauty isn't bound to a subject, nor to an object. Beauty is boundless. It lies everywhere in the hidden geometry, the relationships between the counterparts, and of the parts to the whole, and the whole to the truth to love. Beauty isn't about symmetry.

In humans, beauty emanates from the source that lies in deep levels of existence. And any shells are around it. When they resonate with their inner truth, there will be no barrier for this beauty to become visible, or better said, sensible. And the beauty manifests. Beauty isn't bound to time and age.

Have you seen the glow of this beauty on the faces of some people, regardless of how they look from the outside? They may have done something compassionate without even mentioning it to themselves or to others. Instead of remaining on the surface, the joy of the beautiful action was absorbed deeply and filled the heart. The beauty emanates from there. Beauty isn't bound to forms, features, and numbers. Beauty is boundless.

Beauty Must First Be Perceived to Become Alive

Beauty is born in the eyes of the lover when the lover meets with the beloved. Then the heart will gallop to reach the beloved, and the breath of joy follows and a journey to discovery begins.

Masterpieces in museums can only give birth to their beauty when the eyes of their admirers see them.

The world of existence has always been harmonic, powerful, and balanced, but its beauty was never awed before the existence of humankind.

The eyes of a viewer with the presence of mind have an important role not only for nurturing the perceiver with beauty but also for the beauty itself to become alive. The elements of beauty exist everywhere in the world, but beauty doesn't become alive on its own. It must be seen, perceived, understood, and absorbed by the heart. Your heart is the place where beauty can become alive.

And the beauty will revive in perception.

Finding Beauty

But to look for the miraculous beauty of a rainbow, or the purple flowers covering a ranch, means you have to wait for the rain and sunshine to coincide, you have to wait for the springtime to travel to the perfect place to see the wonders of nature and get filled with joy and gratitude. On the other hand it means you hardly have a chance of seeing beauty at other times and around you, to feel the joy.

Of course, it's hard to find the extraordinary beauty of rainbows everyday because it isn't always available. But if it's not always there, instead there is miraculous beauty that is always around but is missed. It is the beauty that's always present but is left unnoticed on our everyday trip to work, to school, to shop or on our way back to where we rest. It is the beauty that appears every day from our window which we must see until we are ready to see the beauty inside.

Finding beauty around you will generate an intrinsic form of love that doesn't depend on any conditions, but one; your readiness to sense beauty once you see it!

When we are depressed, when disharmonies have frustrated us at a deep level, we disengage from what's around us as much as possible so as to not be affected again. (I hope you never disengage with yourself and never have to leave your own company.)

Often our other senses, receiving too many stimulants, can become insensitive, reduce engagements and become numb. This is also a natural physiologic reaction of nerve cells to pressure and prolonged stimulus. They accommodate. This is a way for our nervous system not to get shocked every time a traumatic event happens.

As our taste buds won't taste much flavor if they are given too much sugar, and as our ears would shut out sounds for a while after long exposure to high volumes, our emotions will also not be responsive after continuous exposure to harshness or unhappy situations, and we become depressed.

Our Senses Can Become Numb To Beauty

When senses partially quit engaging with the environment, it also impairs sensing the beauty and the natural intrinsic gratitude. Feeling that nothing is beautiful and worthy of praise is at first only a temporary and protective status of mind and emotions, but it may become a habit, a strict personal vision. It can become a door to depression if we believe that it has always been this way and it will always be.

Even if it had always been this way, it doesn't have to be so in the future. Life is like Beauty; it is dynamic and always ready to refresh and change, as beauty always renews itself.

The door to depression is the same door out of depression.

In this natural and common situation, a change of perspective can be the key to free yourself from chances of falling deeper into depression. When there are any disharmonies at your home, whether it's your physical home or the inner home that is the mind, acknowledge them but exclude them from your engagement with beauty. Don't let them in your mind at least for as long as you are practicing your sensibility for beauty. The disharmonies interfere and obstruct your senses to feel beauty.

Changing the spot where you eat, where you sleep every day, changing the sidewalk where you usually walk, sitting on the floor versus sitting at the table, can physically change your perspective to see from a different physical angle, so you can gain back your sensibility to beauty. Now you can see the physical world from a different angle and that's all you need for now. You are free. The beauty of the world is still pulsing. And everything is fine.

Start to probe for beauty, no matter how small or unimportant. You will gradually own back your sensitivity to the beauty around you, even though small but always precious. You will find your way through following this thread of beauty, to build a beautiful sacred place in your mind despite any disharmonies. Then as you move on noticing more beauty, you can survive the conditions, you can manage life better, and a wonderful change happens in you and around you.

A Practice To See Beauty:

It may be complicated to perceive all the beauty of the world at once. Let's practice on a flower in a pot. You admire the flower; for each petal, as you always did. Then probe for more. Look at the stem, how it has grown to hold the flower and to nourish it. Feel the stem down to the roots and the soil around it that secures it in place and feeds it. Look at the pot that holds the all of them ... Tune with the soul that's sitting still in front of you in peace.

* * *

Draw what you saw from memory. This way you will practice expanding the capacity of your visual memory in absorbing and holding love and beauty, not only to reproduce an image.

So ... do not count the petals, neither the leaves. Tune with them ... Let your heartbeat count them for you.

Change Your Perspective To See More Beauty

If you were to enter earth today and engage with the air and the earth, you wouldn't know the trees and the sky and the clouds. You would just see them, wondering why does life has to be so beautiful here? That's how you feel when you change your perspective! It's like the delight you feel when you free yourself from a nightmare by simply waking up.

You can do it by looking at the sky, the clouds, the birds, the sea and the earth with all the trees as if you've seen them for the first time. You can save yourself from sadness by opening your eyes to the available beauty by your side.

Perspective in visual arts is seeing things from the point in space where your eyes are. This point can change as you move through space. In the inner world perspective is seeing a subject from your place in the realm of thoughts.

When you practice visual art, like drawing or photography, what you see looks different as you change your location. Look at a refrigerator, a big box, or a street from one point of view. Then change your point of view by changing where you stand. Go to the other corner and see it, sit on the ground and look from a lower level, go higher on the steps, or further from your subject: you will see it differently each time. This is usually taught by some line formulas in visual arts that are often learned as templates. But this fact cannot be absorbed by the heart if you don't discover it yourself. This is a life-enhancing lesson that the discovery brings you. It practically shows you that things seem different when we change our viewpoints in life.

There is a Zen quote that Dr. Wayne Dyer often mentioned: when you change the way you see the world, the things you see will change.

But real proof for this change comes only after you try it and see it for yourself.

You will find yourself in the peacefulness that you have created by simply seeing the slightest beauty. You will actually emanate and create impressions of peacefulness on the world around you, which would reflect back on you like a mirror.

TO SEE

Seeing beauty happens inside you, not just in your physical eyes, but also in your inner eyes, and in the background of your mind. Seeing beauty brings you to a state of gratitude for what is, and can soothe your heart.

Seeing is also the key to making a perfect work of art.

The word seeing points at a deep and precise view of the realities in the inner or the outer world. But where does it happen? Does it need physically open eyes?

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "You Are the Beauty"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Azita Tabib.
Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Chapter I Beauty, 1,
Chapter II Art, 25,
Chapter III A Path to Self-Discovery, 49,
Chapter IV The Practice of Art A Way of Thinking, 61,
Chapter V Art & Children, 111,
Chapter VI Beauty in You, 131,
The Beauty in You, 133,
Endnote, 137,