ENERGY

ENHANCEMENT MEDITATION

MEDITATION HEAD

 HOME PAGE

 

GAIN ENERGY APPRENTICE LEVEL1

THE ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL PROCESS

LEVEL2

THE KARMA CLEARING PROCESS APPRENTICE LEVEL3

MASTERY OF  RELATIONSHIPS TANTRA APPRENTICE LEVEL4

 

STUDENTS EXPERIENCES  2005 AND 2006

 

MORE STUDENTS EXPERIENCES

 - FIFTY FULL TESTIMONIALS

2003 COURSE

Sufism

VOL. 1, SUFIS: THE PEOPLE OF THE PATH

Chapter-10

The Original Signature

Second Question

 

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Sufism          Sufis: The People Of The Path

 

The second question:

Question 2

IS THERE ANYBODY IN THE WORLD WHO IS PERFECT?

Perfection, the idea of perfection, is an ugly idea. A perfectionist is a neurotic. Perfectionism is a psychological disease.

So the first thing to be remembered is that I am not for any kind of perfection. I want you to be whole, but not perfect; 1 want you to be total, but not perfect. Avoid perfection because per-fection means death; perfection means that now there is no more growth. Perfection means an existential cul-de-sac -- you have come to the end of your tether. Now there is nowhere to go, you are stuck and stuck forever -- you are perfect.

Just think of the horrible situation -- that you are stuck, nowhere to go, nothing to do, no possibility to grow, no direction to flow. You are just there like a rock.

Life is a flow. Imperfection is beautiful. Be total, and never strive for perfection. What is the difference? When I say, 'Be total' I mean that whatsoever you do, do it totally, not perfectly -- these are two different dimensions. You have been taught to be perfect.

For example, if you are angry the perfectionist will say, 'This is not right. Drop anger.' Anger cannot be allowed in a perfect human being; a perfect human being cannot be angry. That's why in India the so-called religious people cannot respect Jesus very much because there are moments when he became angry. In the temple he became angry. He turned over the boards of the money-changers, all alone. He threw them all out of the temple. He was really angry. Now Hindus will say, 'This is not perfection. Jesus getting angry? This simply means he is an imperfect human being.'

Perfectionism will say 'no anger'. In fact, the perfectionist's idea is no love either -- because if you are loving that too shows some need. So Jainas don't say that Mahavira was loving, they simply say he was non-violent. Now this is a very ugly way to describe such a loving man -- to describe him through a negative, just to say that he was non-violent, that he would not hurt anybody. That's all. But he would not love. How could he love? He was perfect. He had no need for any human relationship, all his needs had disappeared.

Love is a need. You want to love and you want to be loved. This is how imperfection goes. Mahavira is perfect, he cannot love. So Jainas depict him as being almost cold. That coldness is the coldness of death.

Perfectionism goes on denying all that is human. Perfectionism is a kind of inhuman ideal. You cannot think of Buddha crying, you cannot visualise tears coming to Buddha's eyes.

It happened that a great Zen Master died, and his disciple -- the chief disciple -- started crying. Thousands of people had gathered and they had all believed that this disciple had attained to enlightenment. And now he was crying. So a few of them told him, 'This doesn't look good. It goes against your prestige. People think that you have become enlightened, and you are crying! What will they think about you?'

The disciple said, 'I can drop being enlightened, but I cannot be untrue.'

They said, 'But you have been telling us that the soul never dies. So if your Master is still there, why are you crying?'

The disciple said, 'I am not crying for the soul -- the soul is eternal -- but I am crying for his body. His body was so beautiful, and it will never be again. Can't I even cry for it? I will never see my Master's body again!'

Now the traditional Buddhist will not accept this -- that an enlightened person can cry. These are the perfectionist ideals. You have to take away all that is human -- then what is left behind is just a marble statue.

I teach totality. If you are crying, then be total in it, then let your whole heart cry. Then don't be so-so, don't be lukewarm, just go into it. In that moment let crying he your total being. Let tears come from every pore of your being. If you are angry then be totally angry -- as Jesus was angry in the temple. Whatsoever happens, be total in it!

And now I would like to say something very paradoxical: if you can be totally in anger, by and by it disappears. If you can be totally in anything, there comes a great transformation; the whole energy changes because you start understanding what anger is. It is not that you drop it by conscious effort, deliberately, but simply because of understanding it is no longer relevant. Or, if sometimes it is needed, there is no hindrance either. You can be angry. I love Jesus because he could be angry. He was so human. Buddha looks inhuman -- at least eh way he is depicted is inhuman. Mahavira is utterly inhuman -- at least the way he is described in the Jaina scriptures. That's how he looks... as if he has no heart.

But that is the goal of the perfectionist. Jesus is more human. Many times Jesus goes on saying in the Bible 'I am the Son of Man.' Sometimes he says 'I am the Son of God' and sometimes 'I am the Son of Man.' He says both things. He is saying, 'I am both -- as perfect as God and as imperfect as man. As high as God and as low as man -- I am a bridge between these two.'

I teach you totality. Be total -- whatsoever you are doing. If you love, love totally. If you are angry, then be totally in anger. Cold anger is a sin! Hot anger is perfectly human. Cold anger has to be avoided. But that's what happens when you have the ideal, the perfect ideal of not being angry -- that's what happens. Anger is there because you have never been able to understand it. How can you understand it if you have never been totally angry? Only in a total flame of anger does one understand, does one encounter it. So you go on repressing. On the surface you keep a mask that you are not angry, deep inside you go on boiling, ready to explode like a volcano. So what will you do? You will have to learn how to remain cold on the surface, ice-cold. And if you are ice-cold on the surface, you will go on doing things which are angry -- only you will not show your anger. And in a hot anger there is something beautiful -- it is a man in his energy, in his radiance. In a cold anger there is only death. If somebody gets angry and hits you, you can forgive him; but if somebody remains perfectly cold and hits you, you will be never able to forgive him.

That's why even in the courts a distinction is made. If a man became too angry, enraged, and murdered somebody, his crime is not that big. But if a man remained cold, calculating, arranged everything perfectly, and did the whole thing in a mathematical way, planned it in detail, beforehand, then he is the most dangerous man. It was not on the spur of the moment, it was a planned thing. For months he calculated when to commit the murder, how to commit the murder, how to commit it perfectly so he would not be caught. All over the world courts make a difference -- this man is really dangerous, this man is really a criminal.

In the spur of the moment sometimes you do something. You were not really trying to kill the other; it may have happened just accidentally -- yes, you became angry. Remember, I am not teaching anger, I am simply teaching totality. Through totality anger disappears, but you never become perfect, you always remain growing.

Remain growing.

You ask me: IS THERE ANYBODY IN THE WORLD WHO IS PERFECT? I am reminded of this small story.

At a revival meeting tee evangelist exclaimed, Who is the most perfect man? Is there such a being? If anybody has ever seen the perfect man, let him stand now.'

A small nervous man rose in the rear of the hall. The evangelist gazed at him in astonishment. 'Do you mean to say, sir, that you know who the perfect man is?'

'I certainly do!'

'Who may he be?'

'My wife's first husband!'

That is the only way to find a perfect man -- your wife's first husband.

The perfect man is brought in only to condemn somebody -- hence your wife's first husband. She wants to condemn you so she creates an image of her first husband as the perfect man. Then in comparison she can condemn you.

The priests have imagined Jesus, Buddha, Mahavira, as perfect men -- to condemn ordinary humanity, to condemn natural human beings, to condemn you. Buddha was growing to the very last moment of his life; on the very verge of death he was growing. Growth is life, aliveness. But the Buddha imagined by the Buddhist is not the real Buddha, it is an image painted perfect in order to condemn you. You can only be condemned if there is an image to be compared with, otherwise how can you be condemned? Once the perfect man is painted you are in trouble. You will start feeling guilty. How am I to become a Buddha? When? And you can never become a Buddha because even Buddha was not Like that! Nobody has ever been like that. That is just in the scriptures. It is a strategy of the priests.

That's why when Buddha is alive you are not so interested in him. The priest is not interested at all. People are not so interested when Buddha is alive, because he is alive with all his imperfections. Life needs imperfections! He is fallible! And you will go and you will have old ideas that Krishna was perfect and Rama was perfect and Moses was perfect, and you will compare Buddha with them -- and he is still alive so he is still imperfect. And those comparisons will tell you, 'No, he may be a good man, but he has not yet arrived.'

Once he is gone then the painters are at work, then the dreamers and the poets gather together, and the scholars, and they create a perfect Buddha. Unreal -- so unreal that it sometimes becomes ridiculous. Even the size.... They cannot depict Buddha as six feet tall. How can Buddha be six feet tall? He has to be bigger than all human beings.

In Ceylon there is a temple in Kandy where a tooth of Buddha is worshipped. It is preserved. And it is not the tooth of Buddha, it is not even the tooth of a human being. It must belong to some ape -- it is so big! If Buddha had that kind of tooth he would have been a very ugly man. But it is worshipped and you cannot point out to them what a ridiculous thing they are doing! This is not a human tooth. Now scientists have been working on it and they have proved that this is not human -- but who listens? They say Buddha was so big -- the size!

If you go into Jaina scriptures you will be surprised. Their ancient Masters, old ancient TEERTHANKARAS, are depicted as a thousand feet, two thousand feet, three thousand feet high. And they lived for thousands of years! Just false ideas. But why have these false ideas been created? To condemn you. The priest needs some way to make you feel guilty.

Mahavira does not perspire. He stands naked in the hot north Indian sun and he does not perspire. How can Mahavira perspire? No perspiration ever comes. He has never to relieve himself, he does not go to defecate or urinate, no. Everything simply disappears in him. This seems to be the most chronic case of constipation. He never goes! How can the priest afford, how can the priest allow Mahavira to do such ordinary things like sitting on a toilet? It will look so absurd. Just imagine... Mahavira sitting on a toilet? It doesn't look good, it doesn't look good at all. He looks perfectly good in a yoga posture sitting under a tree. Foolish ideas. And this is how all thinking has continued down the centuries .

Remember, life is growth. Growth is possible only when you are imperfect. There is nothing wrong in being imperfect. There is no need to try to become perfect. If you try to become perfect you will create anguish for yourself, anxiety; you will create great tension for yourself; you will start living in hell.

The very idea of perfection brings the future into the mind. You cannot be perfect right now. You can be total right now but you cannot be perfect right now. For perfection you will have to work hard -- many, many lives. One life will not be enough. Then after thousands of lives you may be perfect. So perfection is in the future, and you can only go on postponing. Today you have to live like an imperfect human being and tomorrow you can hope that you will become a perfect being. You remain the same. Your idea of perfection simply makes you guilty, it does not transform you.

The idea of totality transforms you immediately because it can be done right now. If you are listening to me, listen totally. If you don't want to listen to me, don't come at all. Nobody is forcing you to come. Then be somewhere else. Sit in a movie house or in a hotel, but be total there. Sitting in a movie house, don't think about me; sitting here, don't think about the movie house. Wherever you are, be totally in tune there, and then you start growing fast and your life starts becoming richer. Each moment of totality brings new treasures.

But I will tell you one thing again: you will never become perfect, you will always remain open to more growth. That is the meaning when we say that God is eternal. Let me say it to you -- even God is not perfect. A perfect God is a dead God. God is also growing. God is exploding every moment into new creativity, new songs, new joy. God is evolving.

Because of the Christian concept of perfection there was great conflict between the idea of evolution and the Christian Church -- because Christians thought that when God created the world, a perfect God was bound to create a perfect world, so how could there be evolution? That was the basic problem between the Church and the Darwinians -- 'How can God create an imperfect world -- and then it starts evolving? No. God has created it perfect, it is the same world. Now there is no need to grow, it cannot grow. How can it be better? It is the most perfect world as it is.'

Darwin brought in this concept of evolution. Christians were very angry with him. He was destroying the very roots of their perfect God and the perfect world. But by and by they had to accept defeat -- because the idea of evolution is a true idea. Darwin never dared to say that God is also evolving, but I would like to say to you that it is not only that the world is evolving, even God is evolving. It is not only that the creation is evolving, the Creator is also evolving. In fact, everything goes on evolving, and there is no end to it. The journey is eternal. There will never come a moment when things will stop and somebody will declare, 'Now everything has become perfect.' And it is good that perfection is not possible. Feel blessed that perfection is not possible.

 

Next: Chapter 10, The Original Signature, The third question

 

Energy Enhancement          Enlightened Texts          Sufism          Sufis: The People Of The Path

 

 

 
ENERGY ENHANCEMENT
TESTIMONIALS
EE LEVEL1   EE LEVEL2
EE LEVEL3   EE LEVEL4   EE FAQS
NEWSLETTER SIGN UP
NAME:
EMAIL:

Google

Search energyenhancement.org Search web