How Do I Overcome Self-criticism of My Appearance?

Thank you for your teachings. They have changed my life. I have a fear of aging, getting old, ugly, irrelevant. I'm not an obnoxiously vain person, but I'm critical and judgmental about how I look. Thank you. Of course, everybody here suffers from a fatal affliction. It's called time. And eventually it's going to kill you, but before it kills you, unless it does that very quickly and suddenly. And if it doesn't do it very quickly and suddenly, before it kills you, it does things to you. You notice those things that it does to you when you look in the mirror in the morning. And especially if you compare it to a photo taken 20, 30, 40 years ago. You notice the effect of time on you. And then it does something to the body too. But it does that to all forms, to all life forms. It does that to an apple, just grows more quickly. If you put an apple on a windowsill for a few weeks, then you know what's going to happen to you. I saw another related question about looking after our appearance. And the questioner here is afraid of getting old, ugly and irrelevant. You may not need to get ugly because the less you identified with your external self, and as you grow old, the opportunity is there for you to identify more and more with the presence. And the presence shines through the fading flow form. And when the presence shines through the fading form, it's actually very, very beautiful. It's different from the kind of beauty that's there when you're 20 years old. And it's like the apple that's just been just fallen from the tree and is still totally fresh. And you have that biological, might have maybe beauty in this. So that's nice too. But it doesn't last. There is a deeper beauty that can shine through, and it happens to those humans who are connected with the presence that they are. And then you don't turn ugly. In the absence of that, if you're only identified with your physical form, then I must admit, it could happen that you turn ugly. Irrelevant is another word the questioner uses. In our civilization, old age is not valued. So people who grow old have the feeling that they are irrelevant or they are regarded as irrelevant. Old age is not associated with wisdom in our civilization because our civilization doesn't even know what wisdom is. It's not highly valued. Cleverness, yes, high iq, yes, whatever else, but not wisdom. How do you measure it? What is that? But that is going to change. We already have. In traditional cultures, ancient older cultures, the elders are the most important people. And in the Western societies, the elders are the. Well, to be charitable, they are called the elderly. And they are somewhere in a home. And you visit them once or twice a month. And there they sit in their chairs watching tv, not realizing the opportunity of old age because nobody has told them so. You can appreciate your appearance if it happens to be good and you're still relatively young and your body looks good or your face looks good, you can appreciate that in the same way you appreciate other things, lovely things. There's nothing wrong with that. But it would be important when you look in the mirror to also feel your presence so that you don't get excessively attached to the external form. You can appreciate it, but there's no need to be attached to it. You can only not be attached to it if you can sense the underlying presence. So when you look in the mirror, maybe you even apply makeup. They apply makeup to my face because I come on because they. It looks too oily otherwise, apparently. And I noticed last night, it actually does, because last night I didn't have makeup. I saw myself on the little screen. I said, I'm very shiny. And it wasn't the inner emanation of presence that was coming through. It was a different kind of shininess. So before I go on camera, they apply makeup to the face. Does it mean I'm vain because I don't want to be shiny? Maybe. So you may apply makeup, especially if you are a woman. Men, I don't know. Some men might do it too. I don't know. And there's no reason to think, oh, should I really or shouldn't I? Or there's something wrong with me if I do it. That must be ego. If I apply makeup. Don't complicate life too much. If you want to apply makeup, apply makeup. But while you apply makeup, feel the underlying presence. And while you look in the mirror, sense the presence of yourself, the presence of presence, the stillness. And then it's not a problem when suddenly you look in the mirror again and you realize that 25 years have passed and you see, oh, the apple doesn't look the same anymore. It's wrinkly. There are bags under my eyes. And then you suddenly feel the presence more strong. And one day, perhaps you'll be ninety or a hundred, and you just emanate presence while the body is just getting shrinking. And somebody comes and asks you questions. And your answers may be simple, but there's wisdom there because you speak from presence. So you have not become. Or you might have become old externally, but you have not become ugly and irrelevant. Time is a strange thing. I described it just now as almost one way of looking at it as something that is ultimately going to destroy you. And it does that to everything. But you never catch time. You only catch the evidence it leaves. So it's a criminal. The criminal commits all kinds of terrible crimes, murderous sprees. And you can never find the criminal because all you can ever find is the evidence left behind by the criminal, which is dead bodies. But they all appear in the present moment. There's only ever the present moment. Nobody can experience time as such. So time exists and doesn't exist. It exists on the surface of things, but does not exist in the depths of yourself. SA.