As I scroll through my gorgeous Instagram feed, filled with divine bodies, angelic eyes, and luscious lips, only one thought comes to mind: “Wait, is this where all of Hollywood is gathered?” I started thinking about what it means to be perfectly beautiful but lacking in intelligence—or the opposite: to look ordinary but possess exceptionally sharp mental abilities.
I started thinking about myself, too, and asked myself: “If you could choose between this
being more beautiful or smarter, which would you choose?”
Actually, there's no clear-cut answer to this question, because I wouldn't choose either one.
A person's beauty is linked to their soul, as Master Peter Deunov said.
In the valleys of our country, there is a sense of excessive materialism, competition, and envy—a scourge on our modern society. It’s as if this generation of women—and men, for that matter—wasn’t raised from an early age to value inner beauty more. And not because the pursuit of beauty is merely a matter of inner insecurities, but because outer beauty, as my mother used to tell me when I was a teenager, is fleeting.
Physical beauty is a set of external characteristics that, in most cases, are natural gifts, while inner beauty is something we nurture much more carefully from the moment we are born. Whether through reading more books and developing our senses, through exploring and understanding our emotions, or through our desire to simply improve ourselves in some way. Maintaining the beauty of the soul requires much more intellect than simply taking care of our physical selves. The soul is the energy of attraction. The more beautiful it is, the more attractive we actually are.
Unfortunately, however, in most cases, the pursuit of physical beauty has been elevated to a cult of the self and is influenced by external factors. Wanting to look a certain way so that others will accept you more readily—whether that means looking more beautiful than your best friend or wanting men to like you more—is a sign of low self-esteem.
That is precisely why external beauty is a superficial and subjective thing. In most cases, it lacks an inner impulse stemming from spiritual and intellectual insights; external beauty is designed for people who have only a faint need to connect with their inner world. For if the soul were beautiful, we would not strive for such artificial standards of beauty.
People say that when you’re beautiful, life has added value for you and has more to offer; that’s exactly why beautiful people somehow naturally assume they’re entitled to more in life and that their mistakes can be forgiven more easily—they somehow become more arrogant than usual. It almost feels as though beautiful people get better jobs, higher pay, more invitations, better sexual partners, and a higher quality of life.
Physical beauty, in and of itself, stifles other talents and dulls the desire for spiritual experiences. This is because people see only a person’s outer appearance and nothing else. Outer beauty is a magnet for people with a superficial understanding of spiritual and intellectual matters.
Simply being beautiful today with perfect proportions isn’t enough, because beauty lies in youth, and youth cannot last forever. For once beauty has faded, nothing else beautiful remains in a person.
Personally, I believe that beauty is important, but it should be in moderation. Maintaining emotional and intellectual balance, combined with harmony between one’s inner and outer worlds, will always be the most attractive qualities.
So, if I had to choose between those two, I'd choose to be happy!
