There's a good reason I named my daughter Bella: I thought it was accurate for her to be called "Beautiful." I feel that way about all of us ... that who we are in essence is "full of beauty."
So, you know, I just called it like I saw it.
I also thought that being called "beauty" throughout her life would be nice. And super fun. You know how they call everyone "Bella" in Italy? ... I have always loved that (well, not so much the objectifying of women that might have been behind a lot of that, but I choose not to see it that way).
I've noticed something over the 10 years I've been doing The Work of Byron Katie as a practice ... that I notice more beauty. Just in everyday life and people.
I've become attuned -- sensitised -- to it.
It's a really lovely thing.
The intensity of that beauty grows very heightened in the midst of a days-long retreat in The Work ...
I walk outside and all of the colours are sharpened. There's a glow about everything and I can sense its aliveness. Honestly, it's the most amazing experience.
It's as if my eyes have been scrubbed clean. I know it has to do with my looking mechanism that is creating the effect ... It's my mind that has been scrubbed clean.
Being in the questioning, don't-know, open mind will do that.
We are so used to seeing through the veil of beliefs, as I call it, which dulls and obscures our perception of things. As a veil would quite literally do. You wouldn't want to have a veil covering your face every moment of your life, but we accept it because we don't know it's there.
But spend a bit of time doing The Work as a spiritual practice, and you'll start to see life, others, and yourself in a very different way. As it really is.
There's a beautiful reality out there happening ALL THE TIME that we're usually blind to.
The opening to reality, as it is, is beauty.
~Byron Katie
This is my experience ... the world is truly a beautiful place.
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