In search of incomparable beauty

One day a young boy returned home from school. As he entered his house, he saw on the floor a beautiful necklace. Immediately he cried out to his mother, “Mother, Mother! Where did you get this from?”

His mother came hurrying into the room. As soon as she saw the necklace, she said, “O my God, I must have dropped it when I came home from work. Such an expensive thing, such a beautiful thing! You know that every day I go to work for a rich, elderly woman. Today she was so pleased with me that she gave me one of her necklaces. The problem is that when she wears this necklace, she looks so beautiful, but I am sure that if I wear it, I will not look as beautiful. Physically she is much more beautiful than I am, and when she wears these gems they add so much to her beauty. Just by wearing her necklace, I will never be able to equal her in beauty.”

The young boy felt sincerely sorry for his mother. The next day, when he went to school, the teacher happened to say to his pupils, “The sky is so beautiful, the sun is so beautiful, the moon is so beautiful, the stars are so beautiful. God’s creation is so beautiful, but God Himself is infinitely more beautiful. That is why He was able to create such beautiful things — sun, moon and stars. If you look around at Nature, you will see that everything is so beautiful. Why? Precisely because God Himself is much more beautiful than His own creation.”

The boy said to himself, “This reminds me of the necklace belonging to the rich woman. My mother says that when the rich woman wears it, she looks exceptionally beautiful, because she herself is most beautiful. In the same way, God must be much more beautiful than all the beautiful things He has created. Let me go to the Beautiful One. Let me go to the Source of all Beauty. I want to see with my own eyes God the all-Beautiful.”

The young boy did not return home that evening. Nobody could find him. Hours became days and days became months; still he was missing. Years passed by. His family all believed that he had met with some kind of accident and gone to the other world. They were totally heartbroken and grief-stricken.

Many years later, a letter arrived at the mother’s home. It read, “Mother, you told me about the beauty of the rich lady. The next day, when I heard about God’s Beauty from my teacher, I was deeply inspired to search for God. Now I have found God. Mother, I have realised God. Now I do not need any earthly beauty, because the source of all Beauty has come to me.”

At first the mother cried and cried for her lost son, but then she became extremely happy in the knowledge that he had found God, the only Beauty.