The Picture of Dorian Gray

You may remember Oscar Wilde's Picture of Dorian Gray, the story of someone who schemes and lies himself through life but who magically keeps his innocent appearance. Only much later does he realize how ugly he looks beneath the facade - it is a monstrous vision indeed!

There is a lot of wisdom in this book. Unless you are a magician, after 40 years you are responsible for your face, as Eric Fromm once remarked. But I think this erosion of natural beauty is not so much about the ego which our spiritual community loves to attack; true "ugliness" originates from crimes committed against life. The stealing, cheating and scheming, or perhaps worst of all, the robbing of innocence. If you just run after your ego's passions you can look old at times, worn down perhaps, or sometimes just plain, but with a little wind in your back, with a little success, you get your old fire and your youthful look back. In contrast, the schemers, criminals and cheats can only hide their ugliness if they even manage to fool themselves. Still, the "ugliness" will come out one way or another, sometimes in form of an illness, or sometimes with bad breath. But there is good news, you can always let go of your psychological baggage if you embrace life instead.

We have no right to attack the ego, the ego is still an expression of life so let people fulfill their mission if they feel the passion to do so. We can only give advice to those who are sick or find that they no longer recognize the person in the mirror. The uplifting message we can tell them is that Oscar Wilde's scary story is just fiction. Everyone can turn this ship around; just stop going upstream and go downstream instead. Experience how easy and how much fun it is. Going with life is natural and easy, while going against life is evil. You know that "evil" is "live" spelt backwards, right?