Daily Theosophy

And if even that does not help, they will have to learn the hard way: they get sick, or crazy or commit suicide, or start drinking or become addicted to drugs – and they go down into the ultimate experiences of misery – until the time they get bored of it. Then they will have to fight their way up. But there comes a time that their question of who they are will be answered, and then all illusions and sufferings disappear for ever. This also is a way one can choose.

(74)

(Beauty)

 Beauty

In the second part of her dream Praja paid close attention to a girl called Beauty. We met her earlier, in the story about Deedee or Dura Diana. I use the name ‘Beauty’ because that is what her name means in English, but of course she had that name in the language of the country in which she was born. She was indeed a beauty. Praja saw her when she was living in a slum of a very big city, in a small apartment in a suburb full of ugly concrete buildings. She was rather poor, like all people in that slum. Many were unemployed, had all kinds of problems, like drugs and drinking, and even children had diseases they had got from their parents even before they were born, such as addictions, AIDS, and other undermining ailments. Moreover the city was in a country where skies were often gloomy – as far as you could see any sky at all from where you lived. Why did such a beautiful girl of eighteen live in a place like that? She would probably not stay beautiful very long, because circumstances were bad, food was junk food, and pollution was terrible, and many boys were interested in her, that means in her body, for a short while. There were hardly any trees or parks, but loads of stray dogs who shitted everywhere and kept the people awake with their barking at night. She had come there because her parents came from far away, selling everything they had for an airplane ticket, and hoping to get rich and successful, but they failed. Father nor mother could find any decent occupation, and mother got ill after a year or so and never really recovered. They came from a rural place that was also poor, but at least there was sunshine and a clean air. If father got some job for a day of two or three it would usually be a dirty job, like cleaning factory workshops or heavy work in the harbor. They were good people, quite intelligent, but with no education, and because they could have done and been so much more under better circumstances they were suffering extra. Whatever the reason for landing in these circumstances, they were happy to have a beautiful daughter – but naturally they were continuously concerned also – especially when she would come home only a little later than normal from her work. She never got brothers or sisters. Anyway, it was good that she had work, as a secretary in an office somewhere on the 27^th floor of a concrete building. Mother would often cry tears: Why, why? Father always remained optimistic that better times would come. But ‘God’ asked a lot of his patience. Beauty, however was always cheerful, and her presence was the joy in their simple apartment. Maybe it was because she was too young to remember her infant years in the village, and didn’t know of any better world. Or maybe she was just born with a cheerful character – that was strong enough not to be put off by whatever circumstances. Whenever she could (financially that wasn’t very often possible) she would bring something for the family and the people in the neighborhood: sweets or cakes or cigarettes (almost everyone smoked there). Once a week, on Saturdays, she would buy flowers for her mother to cheer up the room – it was too dark for permanent plants. She would sometimes do the same with old lonely people, and spent some time talking with them – usually about all their miseries. The young people were more difficult to approach – often they were just too stoned – and if she smiled it was usually interpreted as a sexually inviting gesture – which it was not at all. She just wished that people would be happy. She didn’t know what to do for them – she could tell them to stop smoking or sniffing or shooting or drinking – but there were few alternatives – unless one had a tremendous willpower or good luck to get out of there. She herself did nothing of all these things, however often she was invited or offered things. It was never save anywhere. Some boys, especially drugs dealers, had weapons, and did not always care that much about who they would hit.

She was called Beauty because she was beautiful as a baby when she was born, and her parents had given her that name. Now she was still very handsome. But unintentionally the name referred to her character rather than to her body. That physical beauty would wither away sooner or later, but a character can always become more beautiful, however old the body.

In the weekends she started a club for ‘lonely hearts’ – young and old – and always managed to organize something that people would like: a band playing, or some free theater, or just coffee and cakes, or a comic who would uplift the moods of the people. Also she herself opened a desk where people could come to talk with her, privately of with a few, about their problems. Sometimes she could arrange something for them, something that brought at least some relieve in the most painful situations – a better job or another place to live, or introducing them to a right doctor – or just intermediating between wives and husbands, or giving consolation when a favorite pet had died. She never asked money for anything (it had just never come to her mind) – whatever had to be paid she paid from her small salary. Often she could do nothing practical. Be she had philosophy. She always managed to give ideas to the people that shone another light on their life – ideas they had never thought about. She talked about non-violence as a basic (and courageous) attitude in life one could choose to adopt, and saw how this changed people. People learned to see their circumstances in a more relative and less desperate way because she made them aware of a being a living soul and actively respected them in that soul rather than treating them as desperate psychological beings. This worked on them on a silent level: you noticed that after some time some would take initiatives. Some just went out of the suburb for a day to go and see the city, or go to some park or see the river. A few people started to help her organizing the events in the weekends. Her activities were also noticed by official social organizations who usually declined to be active under such ‘hopeless circumstances.’ It was her ideal to do some bigger things for the people also, bigger than she could pay for. So she went to authorities and social workers and inquired about possibilities. First of all she wished that the sanitary systems in every apartment would be made to modern standards – whether the people had money or not. She asked city authorities to break down some old uninhabitable houses and make green playing grounds for children. At first the authorities wouldn’t listen, but they became aware that Beauty was really serious and had the willpower and dedication to accomplish something (if the secret motivation of some officials was not rather to gaze at the beauty of Beauty when she came to their office). She even managed to convince the authorities that they should put some of the city’s money apart especially for improving circumstances in their suburb. It wasn’t easy. All the time new inhabitants would arrive, bringing new difficulties with them. Quite often things seems to get worse instead of better. But it was no part of her character to get discouraged – though there were moments when she had to fight against herself. Because of her patience and understanding people came to her even with the most awful stories, to talk about their inmost feelings of despair and guilt and angriness. She was the only person they could really trust, she would never tell private things given her in confidence to others. She had hopeless cases of drugs addicts – who most of the time did noting but laying on the street or in some corner. They new that nobody, even Beauty, could do something for them anymore in this stage. Some admitted honestly that they were happy on brown sugar and would just dream there dream until they would die – and did not care. But most had always wanted to be happy – but had failed. They had gone through setbacks and disappointments they had not been able to handle, and were aware that it had all started with the weakness of their own character. Or it was the fault of their parents, they said – who were also addicted, or had not given them anything like love in life, or due to the relentless society, or due to capitalism that kept these people in such deprived circumstances without hope of escape. All the stories where at least partly true. All these reasons could have been prevented if humanity in general had been more compassionate and wiser. Some had once been promising children, but they had been given stuff by ‘nice guys’ who promised them heaven – and often they had been to shy to refuse – or they thought they liked these guys, and had they become addicted in a very short time. Sometimes her heart was broken, as when a really beautiful and smart boy called Martin of about 17 came to her, and she immediately noticed that he was intelligent and was interested in things and had once dreamt of becoming a biologist or paleontologist. He talked positively about his parents who had until two years ago had done everything to give him an education. Then his 37 year old father had suddenly died in a work accident, and the family was without income. He became very depressive. At school a man of some 28 had visited and told him that he could help him to feel much better. He had become hooked, and now there was no more hope. Beauty was stunned. How could such a thing happen? Was there no justice in the universe? Was there no God – no justice, just evil or blind chance? At that time Beauty herself almost lost her confidence and hope. She had never been depressive, but this she could not understand. She loved the boy, though more as a mother than as a girlfriend. She went through a crisis. Martin came several times more, but he belonged to the cases for whom all help comes too late, and she saw him decline quickly, losing all shine on his face, and his body getting thinner and thinner.

(75)

(The saddest of all)

She could only accept that the world was like this. Why, she didn’t know.