Perfection and the absence of lack.
The sage Nisargadatta Maharaj: “What do you know about yourself? You can only be what you are in reality; you can only appear what you are not. You have never moved away from perfection.”
Despite this beautiful saying: Have you ever felt an anxious striving to be perfect? At work, at home, in the body? It can feel like a relentless race without hope of winning.
I have been there. And eventually I discovered that we tend to define perfection by extremely subjective and unverified standards. Reality - considered here as the totality of facts in the here and now - has no say.
We also tend to create evasive rules that change their parameters each time we get closer. The rules turn into prisons. And for what purpose? For me, for sure, I was confused about my perfection, what I am essentially. In striving for perfection of an object out there, I believed others might see me as less flawed than I felt.
Etymologically, the word perfection points to inherent completeness. Perfect is that which is full, finished, lacking in no way. Perfection is wholeness, the absence of lack.
But I definitely felt flawed, less than complete. And this seemed dangerous. For the perfectionist, perfect work is not about the work. It’s about her. She wants the work to mask her own imperfection.
And so we can check in with reality. For just this moment can I be open to what is, the totality of life? Experientially, it’s one indivisible whole. In this whole, infinite space of reality, can I note that objects temporarily appear before they disappear? Bodies, tasks, thoughts, a sense of a separate self, a sense of others, sensations, perceptions: it’s like a dance. It’s the dance of reality. And it is perfection. Because in this one movement, nothing is excluded, everything belongs. It is what is the case, all flowing, bumping, streaming together. Within reality, choreographies arise and vanish. The stage, the space, always remains the same. We are this reality, this wholeness. We are also the dance, all of it. Because we cannot extract ourselves. Because we are not separate. Because we are not separate, we cannot possibly be fragmented and flawed.
Our limited minds, like limited characters in the choreography, cannot get this. The limited mind sees only the limited. And that’s okay. But confusion can easily enter. The sense that something might be lacking comes from the limited mind that only sees the limited. It becomes a belief we take on. It translates as: I am a fragment. As long as I feel I am a fragment, limited, separate from the whole, I’ll be seeking wholeness.
But given that we are without inherent lack, could we learn to trust the space that anyways we already are, and in which body-minds happen to appear? Can I trust inherent being? Do I even have a choice? Being is.! Reality is at once its own expression and potential. It is a stillness within which a movement of localizing and delocalizing energies unfolds. Reality is not lacking. It is complete and whole unto itself, perfection.
Within such perfection, peace. You could say, reality is mad with its own perfection. We have never moved away from perfection.
And so, where does that leave the striving perfectionist? No, you cannot say: “Everything is perfect, I am perfect, so it doesn’t matter what I do.” Well, you could, but you would be pretending. You would be playing the game of separation again. Remember, you are the entire dance. You are the dancer, the dance, the danced. You cannot extricate yourself.
Instead, I can consider the whole, reality, the facts. Include this body-mind with its unique skills and capabilities. Include other body-minds. I can bear witness to relationships in this relative, relatable world just as they are appearing. It’s all so lovable, isn’t it? And then I do the best I can, why not? It may be imperfect. And it will be perfect. The actual outcome doesn’t even matter so much.
We can come from wholeness, another word for integrity. It feels good. It carries, what Francis Lucille calls “the invisible signature of perfection.”
