Avoiding the Perfection Swindle
Haven’t reached perfection yet? Hey, rejoice and be glad in it.
Do you remember Edgar Rice Burroughs, author of the Tarzan novels? Well, in addition to the famous Tarzan books, he also wrote several other series, one of which easily equalled the popularity of Tarzan at the time. That series, featuring John Carter of Mars, were rip-snorting action books that, even today, are a blast to read. Although the language is a trifle old fashioned, the adventures are still exciting.
But Burroughs was far from the usual hack spinning out books purely for money (though he was extremely well paid). He managed also to instill a touch of philosophy and wisdom through his characters.
In his 1922 book “The Chessmen of Mars” (Chapter 9), Prince Gahan hands us a bit of this wisdom when he says:
“In absolute and general perfection lies stifling monotony and death. Nature must have contrasts; she must have shadows as well as highlights; sorrow with happiness; both wrong and right; and sin as well as virtue.”
I mean, think about it – if nothing ever changed, how would you even know you’re alive. Try this experiment. Sit with your hands loosely in your lap, breathing slowly and comfortably. Close your eyes. Remain completely still for 15 or 20 minutes, and soon you cannot feel where your hands are until you move them. Where there is no movement or change, your consciousness strays away to other things that ARE moving.
If you’re meditating and you manage to utterly still your thoughts, your mind goes elsewhere, seeking something for it to fasten upon.
If your life situation is unchanging and static, your mind seeks something else to process, even if it’s nothing more than WISHING for change.
And in all your efforts at self improvement, don’t despair because you’re not yet perfect. Because a state of absolute perfection, once achieved, is a signal for your mind to go elsewhere. You were born to stir things up, make things happen, grow, or backslide, or get fat, then get slim, then get sick, then get well.
The interesting thing is, those things don’t have to happen to you blindly from out of “nowhere.” You get to choose many (maybe most) of your life’s experiences. But the majority of us abdicate our right of choice. We carom along choosing little or nothing ourselves. In effect we’re telling life, “Come on, surprise me,” then complaining bitterly when it does.
So growth toward a “better condition” is not really growth to perfection. It’s movement along a pathway that doesn’t have a discernible endpoint. In other words, we’re on an endless quest, and there is no point at which we no longer have an option to grow further.
Now, some people despair when they learn that real, final perfection is an unattainable dream. I hope you’re not one of them. In fact, I hope you’re wildly elated by the thought that your adventure never has to end, through this life and the next and the next.
If you believe in a Creator of our Universe, then you may sometimes wonder why S/He made both dark and light, obedience and disobedience, harm and safety, joy and sorrow, love and hate. But those terms are only the result of our limited little local viewpoint.
When we look at a coin, we call one face “heads” and the other “tails.” But there is only one coin.
And in life, where we see first good and then evil, those express nothing more than our limited perceptions. Opposite sides of the same coin. Think about it – to us, anything that’s convenient and comfortable for us and our group, we call that good. In contrast, we use the label of “evil” when we’re inconvenienced, harmed or made uncomfortable. But in fact, those terms only express our local preferences or prejudices.
Just as up and down are meaningful when we’re near a large body with gravity, and are totally meaningless when we are far from any planet or massive physical body, just so do good and evil become meaningless ideas when we move out into the greater universal context.
Look at the Creator of our Universe – by whatever name you call that Creator. S/He clashes entire galaxies together, destroying millions – billions – of solar systems, planets and any possible inhabitants. Is that good? Is it evil? I’m sure if it were happening to us on Earth it would be pure horror and evil in the extreme. But is it really? Or is it just something that’s happening?
And what about this idea of reaching perfection? Samadhi or whatnot? Is the state of enlightenment really perfection? Well, in a way yes, and in a way no.
The Buddhist proverb states:
“Before enlightenment comes chopping wood and carrying water, after enlightenment comes chopping wood and carrying water.”
The point here is not that enlightenment helps us find our way to some far-distant home, but that when we engage fully with what we are experiencing right now, without judging the “goodness” or “badness” of it, we ARE home. In that exact moment. Without any need for “perfection.” Our present experience is revealed to us as heaven, paradise, Eden.
Or maybe you think I’m full of crap… how do you see it?
Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles
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