Question: How can we bring enough perfection into our own lives and into the world to be truly satisfied?

Sri Chinmoy: If we want to accept only the limited insignificant perfection that we notice in the world, then we can never be satisfied. Hunger for perfection is like any other hunger. If you have an immense hunger, a very little portion of food will not satisfy you. We have the hunger now for infinite Peace, Light and Bliss. Our outer being will not be satisfied when it receives only an iota of Peace, Light and Bliss. It will be satisfied only when it has Peace, Light and Bliss in infinite measure.

The more we achieve inwardly, the clearer will be our conception of perfection. If we are satisfied with only a little inner attainment, like the mystics and mediums, we will say we have perfection according to our satisfaction. But the perfection that satisfies them need not and cannot satisfy the inner hunger of someone who cries for absolute perfection in his nature and the earth-consciousness. The higher we go, the more we receive and achieve and become aware of the possibility of integral perfection in our nature and elsewhere.

Complete and total perfection will come about only when we feel that our perfection is no perfection when the rest of humanity remains imperfect. If we call ourselves children of God, then others are also children of God. If we do not share with them what little we have, then what right have we to call them our brothers? They may be travelling a few miles behind us, or they may be fast asleep. But they must reach the Goal before perfect Perfection can dawn on earth.

Each individual has to make a decision. Each seeker has to discover within himself at what point he wants to stop his inner quest for Truth and Light. If he is ready to continue, to march on, to dive deeper within, and if he feels that there is no end to his achievement, only then will he be ready to offer the message of ever-fulfilling and ever-transcending Perfection. What you call perfection today, you may call imperfection itself tomorrow. A child’s perfection is the ability to scream and shout and strike others. But when he grows up, his idea of perfection may be just the opposite. And if he enters into the spiritual life then his sense of perfection will be something else. He will try to conquer his fear, his doubt, his jealousy and other negative forces. But when he goes deep within after he has achieved what he wanted for himself, he will feel that only his limited self has been satisfied. His larger self, which is humanity entire, is far, far from perfection. So he will try to remove fear, doubt, anxiety, worries and other undivine forces from humanity.

In our path we feel that perfection has to be total and integral. We know that we have imperfection in our nature, and at the same time we have limited perfection. If the imperfection right now looms large, we have to brave that imperfection and transform it into perfection. Through our conscious prayer, meditation, concentration and contemplation the imperfection of the past can be perfected, and the darkness can be transformed into Light.

The perfection of the body lies in its conscious awareness of the ever-progressive dynamic Truth. The perfection of the vital lies in its acceptance of the Truth in a dynamic form. The perfection of the mind lies in its acceptance of the vast, the infinite, as its very own. The perfection of the heart lies in its acceptance of earth’s cry and Heaven’s compassion as its very own.

This is how we can see, feel and manifest perfection in our everyday life. The seekers of the infinite Truth can manifest perfection in the body, in the vital, in the mind and in the heart only through conscious awareness and acceptance of the ever-increasing, ever-transcending Reality.