Month: June 2016

“The Beauty Inside”, A Testimonial Movie About The Source Of True Love

Can you imagine waking up every single day looking like someone different? That’s the premise of a 2015 Korean movie named “The Beauty Inside”, which I watched on Netflix the other day.

The film centers around a person named Woo-Jin, who up until the age of 18, was a young man living a normal life. But on the morning of his 18th birthday, he wakes up in a different body and begins to experience this strange phenomenon every single day from there on. While he’s still the same person on the inside, on the outside it’s always different. Sometimes he’s a man, sometimes he’s a woman, sometimes he’s old, sometimes he’s young, and sometimes he’s even a foreigner. Life is hard for Woo-Jin living like this, but eventually he comes to acceptance of his bizarre condition, which only his mother and his best friend know the truth. But one day, many years later, he meets a girl that changes everything. Her name is Yi-soo and she is unlike anyone he’s ever met. Unfortunately, he also has no idea how to connect with her given that he’s someone else every time he wakes up.

I know the premise of this movie seems rather odd, but it really was a very amazing love story, especially for one specific reason. So often in our world these days, people focus their attraction to someone for what shows up on the outside, not on the inside. And once that person meet some specific attraction-based criteria, the rest of any type of courtship usually follows. But in this case, the movie is about a woman pursuing love beyond what sight can offer.

While normally, I’m not a big fan of subtitles because I think it takes away from being engrossed in a movie, it actually didn’t bother me with this film at all. Woo-Jin and Yi-Soo’s love for each other, their chemistry, and the delicate mix between the movie’s drama and comedy-based themes kept me so immersed that I found myself not even reading the subtitles at times.

I truly wish that love was like this in real life for all of us. Sadly, it hasn’t been for me for much of my life as I have succumbed far too often to looking only at the outside of people. But as I continue to spiritually evolve, surrendering my own will and desires, I’ve seen this begin to change. The good thing is that I know what’s most important is the soul that lies within each and every individual. It’s the soul that each of us are meant to love, rather than the outside of a person. And that’s precisely the struggle that Yi-Soo faces in this movie and one that I believe the vast majority of people on the planet do as well.

Nevertheless, I highly recommend this movie as a great mind-opener to a spiritual principle that I hope will one day permeate each and every one of us. True love is not something that comes from the way one looks, it comes from “The Beauty Inside.”

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson

What Is True Joy?

“What is true joy?” That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for the majority of my life. So far, what I know is that it doesn’t come from any person, place, or thing here on Earth. I say that because of all of what I’ve been able to experience up to this point.

I’ve had some pretty amazing partners and friends over the years who I’ve loved dearly. I’ve travelled to some of the most exotic places on Earth. I’ve had plenty of cool toys, gadgets, cars, homes, and the like. I’ve dined at some of the finest places around the planet. And I’ve seen some of the most beautiful and unique landmarks. But none of those things ever brought me true joy. Sure, there were many moments of happiness with each of them. Yet it was always fleeting and eventually I only found myself searching for some other person, place, or thing to replace the ones that were waning.

Joy is defined as a feeling of great pleasure and happiness and while many of those people, places, and things brought me this at times, it never lasted. Yet, a fragment of my memory still remains intact from a time in my life when I caught a mere glimpse of when I think I did experience true everlasting joy. It came after I had spent 10 days meditating in silence on a retreat, where I had put the rest of the world away and sat with myself. As then, when I emerged from that place of stillness, I discovered there was something different about me…something different within me.

I awoke each day after that retreat feeling an exuberance bubbling over from within me that no person, place, or thing was ever able to do. It was a feeling like everything was as it was meant to be. I felt so connected to life, to nature, to everyone around me and I was able to smile at even the slightest of things. Frankly, it was better than anything I had ever had in my entire life and it lasted for several months. Unfortunately, I fell back into the illusion shortly thereafter that people, places, and things were the source of that. And the longer I lived with that notion, the more I fell away from experiencing what I believe true joy really is.

The truth is, when one searches over and over and over again for joy outside of themselves, they may find it for a period of time, but it will dissipate at some point or another. That just seems to be the nature of life here on Earth. But thankfully, I’m finally beginning to accept the reality that it can only come from within. Getting there hasn’t been easy though. It’s meant having to part ways from all the illusions my mind told me over the years where it felt that true joy came from. I have watched so many of the people, places, and things I found any bit of joy in fall away over the last few years of my life. But I’m glad I’ve had to go through all this because with each that has fallen away, I continue to see more and more of the greater truth to where true joy comes from.

I honestly believe that God lives within each and every one of us. Call it the Holy Spirit, Energy, a Life Force, or whatever, I don’t think it matters. What does matter is removing all the things that are around it, that our egos have placed in front of it, thinking they were the source of true joy. Because they weren’t and never could be. That’s the illusion our minds allow ourselves to believe oh so often. But ultimately, below all those illusions is some sort of Light that has always been within us, that can never be depleted, and never taken away. And when IT is guiding our lives, I believe that’s when true joy is fully materialized.

And that’s the only joy I want.

So what is true joy then?

Go within, as only then do I think you’ll find the answer…

Peace, love, light, and joy,

Andrew Arthur Dawson