Exterior beauty , inner beauty and the ultimate beauty

by Marilena Gilca

Beauty is the magic key that opens any door.
Beauty is that “Open Sesame!” It does not need words to be noticed, as it is perceivable before other qualities or skills that we have.

Many women raise exterior beauty at superior rank and are willing to pay any price in order to conserve it. In the entire world professionals from different fields create the best cosmetic products, the most appropriate accessories and clothing, the most complex gymnastics programs for keeping in shape.

But the traditional Indian medicine - Ayurveda reveals to us that beauty has three components that make it whole, thus it is not only exterior, but also inner and also ultimate.

Who has not stopped at least once, daily, in front of a mirror to study the shape of her own body, the expression of the face, the look? Most certainly you have also done that, noticing the beauty and the light that you were radiating on your “good” days, but also the lack of brightness in the tensed moments when you were letting yourself being tormented. 

From the perspective of the traditional Indian medicine – Ayurveda, these modifications of the physical appearance are simply expressions of your inner states: mental, emotional, spiritual.

“People must realize that a healthy skin and beauty come first of all from the inside and only in a smaller measure they come from the surface” – says dr. Rama Kant Mishra, an Ayurveda doctor from Bihar, India, who is specialized in dermatology. He belongs to an old family of doctors who have treated for thousands of years the skin illnesses of the emperors of India and of their relatives.

Dr. Mishra leads in the present a team of botanical researchers from Delphi, who in their laboratories, well equipped according to the latest world standards, analyze the old mixtures of herbs and prepare through cold extrusion various recipes that are endowed with the gift to maintain or create what we all desire: the beauty.

In his book “ The Maharishi Ayur-Ved of Beauty from Within”, published in 1996, dr. Mishra presents extensively the ayurveda theory of the three forms of beauty: roopam – exterior beauty, gunam – inner beauty and vayastayag karanam – ultimate beauty. The purpose of the treatments and practices presented in this book is to create subhanga karanam, Sanskrit term designating “the wellbeing of all parts of the body”, including not only the physical harmony but also the psycho-mental harmony expressed through: power of character, self-trust, happiness.

Roopam – exterior beauty
Roopam refers to exterior beauty expressed through the following features: bright skin and hair, rosy cheeks, physical cleanliness. This is the superficial level that the modern cosmetic treatments address. But the Indian medicine proposes a more profound aim.

According to Ayurveda, in nature there are three types of vitality principles (dosha-s): Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Your type of skin is determined by the predominant dosha in your being.

The skin of Vata type is dried and cold, having a darker shade and has the tendency to crack, thus needing an emollient and nutritive therapy.

The skin of Pitta type is greasy, seborrhean and warm and has the tendency to be very sensitive, especially when it is exposed in the sun, it irritates and easily reddens, being predisposed to acne, thus it needs cooling and drying. 

The constitutive predominance of Kapha is associated with an oily, cold, pale skin, having the tendency to dilatation and obstruction of the skin pores, thus benefits from treatments that dry and purify.

In order to balance the dosha-s and maintain a healthy skin, it is recommended to take orally medicinal plants and also use certain natural masks, vapour baths, massage with different oils depending on the constitution.

The lacto-vegetarian diet, based on raw food (that are sattva and have a large content of Prana) is extremely important for maintaining the health of the skin. One of the best ways of metabolizing correctly the food is to eat at the same hour every day. The lunch must be the most consistent meal of the day, taking into account that in this moment of the day the digestive fire; Agni, reaches its maximum of activity. The end product of the digestion is Ojas, a subtle vital fluid that spreads in the whole body, ensuring its vitality, freshness and beauty.

The food stuffs that produce Ojas are: white rice, almonds, ginger (eaten in moderate quantities before meals), warm milk with ghee, fresh fruits and fresh vegetables (especially asparagus), warm water drank with small sips.

A well balanced Agni insures a greater capacity to burn toxins, as toxins may affect the health of the skin. Choosing the spices you eat according to your constitutive type is a simple method to normalize your digestive fire.

Roopam refers also to that kind of beauty that helps a person to stand out easily, to distinguish herself from a crowd, thanks to the brightness of her aura. There are special medicinal herbs that favour this quality by amplifying the resonance with the state of perfect beauty: rosemary, catusnica, liquorice, neem, Indian sarsaparilla, red sandalwood.

Gunam – inner beauty
Gunam, the inner beauty is the result of the purity of the mind, of the trust in own forces, the effort of self-knowledge and becoming conscious of own values.

This kind of beauty is visible in the case of people who radiate love and by their simple presence they transform everything around them. Those who pity themselves and are ego-centred, no matter how polished they are on the outside, they cannot be beautiful. Centring yourself in your own being practised every morning and every evening (before dinner) is the easiest way to achieve gunam, using nervous tonic plants in parallel, that help improving memory and relax psychical tensions ( sweet calamus, balm mint, garden sage, coriander).

Vayastayag – ultimate beauty
Vayastayag, the ultimate beauty, is the result of becoming conscious of your own profound nature. It exceeds any chronological limitations, remaining unaffected by the advancement in age. The beings who maintain their psychical youth and their minds pure as a baby’s radiate the same beauty, no matter how many years pass by. They have discovered a great secret, that they are living with their whole being: true beauty appears when you let goodness radiate from you.

Ayurveda proves its unique value also in this context, reaching the point of culmination through the science of rejuvenation. The famous Rasayana remedies (regenerative tonics) revitalize even the essence of the being, helping us to live the so much wished for – youth without aging and life without death.

 

Recomanda acest articol