The “spring collection at Milan by Giorgio Armani” is the most quick and easy dimension that comes to mind with the word fashion. But body, mind and soul, all the three, have their own strong allusions to fashion.
Invariably people conceive fashion as our deportment and outlook. But a man’s outlook or his personality is not restricted to his body alone. The entire persona has to be in tune with the universal music. A discord in the wiring of body, mind or soul will cause friction and damage one or all of the wiring. Srila Praphupada- the founder and exponent of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) said that Krisna means “all-attractive” and since God is all attractive and attractive for all, the only name that rightly addresses him is “Krisna”. “Krisna” is attractive and magnetic in all his forms i.e. body, mind and soul. His appealing demeanor made him the apple of the village girls’ eyes (gopis), His enlightened mind made him give the knowledge of Karma (duty without expectation of reward) to Arjun in Bhagwad Gita (Holy book of Hindus) and His awakened soul made Him conscious and drown in the Oneness of Universe. Krisna or God is about the fashion of body, mind and soul.
BEAUTY OF BODY
The beauty of the body is in its intricate, complex yet smooth and uninterrupted functioning. The flow of the blood goes from head to toes, the fingers hold things without effort, we never forget to breathe, our eyes takes images of everything in its realm and hair falls down instead of standing upright. We mistake the beauty of the body with that of an exquisite garment with Sworoski embellishments and a stick of colour to add hue to our lips. Our “Existence” and our “Being” is the true precious gift while the Donatella creation with all its paraphernalia is only the wrapping paper used to cover the gift.
When we set out to buy a present for someone dear, what do we invest in? The object of gift or the wrapping paper. The answer to this question is too obvious to be stated. The gift of “Inner self” is for our own discovery of unprecedented joy and bliss. Nothing is dearer to us than our own personal gratification. Then why shouldn’t we invest in the value addition of our, “INNER SELF”.
MIND IS CHAMELEON
Our mind is the instrument in the hands of our body to reach the zone of ecstasy i.e. touch the soul. It is the link that unites our body with the soul, so that there is no separateness but only oneness with the cosmos. Our mind is neutral on its own; it’s like the chameleon that takes the colour of the thought. It delivers what it is fed. One negative thought as input, multiplies in scores before you can say Jack Robinson. The positive thoughts also work the same way though they take a little longer and more effort to multiply. But the choice is entirely ours as to how we wish to fashion our minds. Some wise man said, “Experience is what you get, when you don’t get what you wanted”. But a wiser man will be one who takes the cue from others experience rather than falling in the same trap himself.
Lives of famous and talented celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Persis Khambatta, Elvis Presley and others provide a glimpse of the heap of suffering that befell them because they probably fashioned their bodies right but failed to fashion their minds with the same dexterity. Marilyn Monroe, the earth’s goddess of beauty, charmed millions by her splendour, but her emaciated mind and soul emptied her of the nectar of life at the early age of 36. She committed suicide with an overdose of sedatives. Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock and Roll”, who made crowds go crazy with the beats of his drum and made women swoon over him in legions, who made records by selling his music albums in millions, left for his higher abode due to his heart’s collapse. Medical examination showed the cause of his heart attack to be his irredeemable lifestyle and documented extreme misuse of prescription drugs. Their fickle relationships, unstable and weak-mindedness created blizzards in their hollow lives, crushing their careers into splinters and sending their existence into abyss.
TEMPORAL IS TEMPORARY
The temporal world with its glitter and glamour cannot satisfy the hunger or quench the thirst of the soul. By the time the sheen of materialism erodes over from the senses, the soul has already received irreparable crevices. When we are aware of the pain we cause to ourselves by ignoring the realization of our Being, we can at least put our next step right. Our body gives us sensual pleasures, our mind gives us emotional joys and our intellect provides us with rational delights. The deeper we delve into our personality, subtler the joys we experience. Emotional joy is superior to bodily pleasures. Intellect joy is superior to emotional. But this is still not the final joy that we are seeking. This happiness is ephemeral and fleeting. What we are looking for is a fountainhead of bliss with never ending springs of joy. But when the direction of our search is wrong, success will be naturally evasive. Vedanta says external pursuits of happiness are futile. You are trying to catch hold of the head of your shadow. The more you try the more it recedes. You can never succeed this way. Instead catch hold of your head. The shadow is caught. The source of happiness is in you.
FREE FROM TIME AND MATERIAL
Although we are revealed the source of happiness, we fail to harness it. The reason being our laziness. Man has a tendency to succumb to instant joys and delights that come through body and mind. But an enlightened man will resist this momentary gratification in order to achieve incessant and perennial joy in his life. Constantly fashioning the soul towards this lofty aim can get us tranquility and tenderness of life . When we set ourselves free from the boundaries of time and material treasure, we take our Being in the open and endless space to breathe in the fresh and pure air. “I” has its existence in the present; all references to past and future are oblivion. Everything is NOW, in this moment. Further you are not to be entrapped in the transient happiness of the mundane world. Man does not need to renounce the material possessions and lead an ascetic life but the material pleasures should not be strong enough to possess us.
A man is perfectly fashioned in body, mind and soul when he revels in the bliss of his divine nature and is describable by the lines:
“For him in vain the envious seasons roll,
Who bears eternal summer in his soul.”
The role pushed up Smith’s asking price to US5 million dollars per film and caught the attention of Hollywood casting agents, who picked him out for the part of a heroic fighter pilot in the sure-fire blockbuster Independence Day. But as the actor’s stardom was growing, his three-year old marriage to fashion-design student Sheree Zampino was falling apart. The couple finally divorced in December 1995, and Smith relinquished primary custody of their son William “Trey” Smith iII. “I really can’t talk about that”, says Smith. “I made a lot of mistakes in those days. She hated the amusement-park glare of the klieg lights. It was a painful time in my life. What aggravated things was the sudden death of my infant half brother, Sterling, which happened during that time That tookmback to Philly. I intend to spend more time there now, with my family.
Smith is now romantically linked with Jada Pinkett (Nutty Professor) and the couple have written a script together titled Love for Hire, about a woman who hires a man to father her baby. In the mean time smith has been busy filming Spike Lee’s Clutch City and is now in the process of portraying Mohammad Ali on movie based on the great boxer’s life.
With Men in Black, Smith has entered the high-stakes world of shoot – em up, make em-laugh, big-bank movies and he admits that making these high-budget action flicks is as much fun as it gets. “I like the genre. That’s fun for me”, he says, “It’s physical. You get to do stunts and all that. It’s an enjoyable thing. My job is fun”. Having recorded a song for the sound track of Men in Black, Smith admits he still enjoys music and that he recently signed a new record deal with Columbia Records. But, says the attractive actor with the hyena laugh, he has moved away from rap to broader musical styles and has no intention of forsaking his acting career.
