Of Beauty and Perfection: Is It Possible to Live a Perfect Life?

Is Perfection a Myth?

Sadhguru: A little while ago, a celebrity in India asked me, “Sadhguru, are you a perfect Master?” I said, “Are you a perfect seeker?” She said, “I do not think so.” Then I asked, “Are you a lousy seeker?” She said, “No, Sadhguru. I am sincere about it. I really want this.” I said, “Okay. If you are a seeker, come – let’s see what we can do. When you become perfect, I will also do some perfect things for you.”

This idea of a “perfect master” has gotten into people’s minds after reading certain spiritual books. Anyone who seeks perfection in life does not know life. If life was perfect, would it evolve? If you were perfect, would you evolve? Perfection means to unknowingly become deathlike. Death is always perfect. Have you ever seen anyone dying imperfectly? But everyone is living imperfectly. Anyone who is open to life knows that perfection is not even a possibility. Whatever you do, there is still a better way to do it.

This happened once. Shankaran Pillai married a French model, and they decided to travel back to Europe. He saw that she had packed seven large suitcases, three-deck makeup cases, and so many other things. He stuffed everything into a large SUV and drove to the airport. There, he took all this out and went to the airline counter. Then he turned around and said, “I wish I had brought the piano.” She said, “You don’t have to be sarcastic.” He said, “No, I left the tickets on the piano.”

Why Perfection Comes Only With Death

If you are sensible and open, you always wish you had done one more thing. If you are too full of yourself, then you think you are perfect. Once you seek perfection, you will start valuing the dead more than the living. Dead people always have a much larger following than the living because they seem perfect.

When Adiyogi was alive, he had only seven disciples. When Krishna was alive, he had only one disciple. When Jesus was alive, he had only twelve disciples, and one of them betrayed him. But after they died, look at their following. Because once they are dead, they seemingly become perfect.

Appreciating people of the past is fantastic, but you cannot follow them, because if you want to follow them, you must go. Because you are not willing to go, you start talking about how they will come back again. It is called second coming. I see hoardings everywhere in the United States – "Jesus is coming!" In India, people say, "Krishna will reincarnate again." This is because you like the dead. However wonderful they were when they were alive, they could hardly impress a handful of people. But once they are dead, look at their capabilities. Sometimes, even I think it is time to go because it really seems to work better!

An Eye for Beauty

This attraction towards the dead is because there is an assurance that dead people can never make a mistake. The living can make mistakes. “Oh Sadhguru, are you going to make a mistake with me?” That is not the point. I know what to do and what not to do, but I am not perfect for sure, because whatever I do, I am always thinking we could have done this better. The whole spiritual process is about arriving at a place within you where sitting, breathing, eating, not eating, eyes open, eyes closed – everything turns beautiful. Everything turns beautiful not because anything has changed on the outside but simply because you have become “neither this nor that,” so you do not see “this and that” – you see life manifesting in its beautiful ways.

Everything is equally beautiful. “So what is the point of beauty? If nothing is ugly here, how will beauty exist?” That is one level of life, where life happens because of a context. If you are living with the limitations of the sense organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching, then everything needs context. If something has to taste good, something else has to taste bad; if something has to be joyful, something else has to be miserable; if something has to be beautiful, something else has to be ugly.

But when in your experience, you are no more this or that, suddenly everything becomes beautiful because everything is. Otherwise, you are arriving at a context as to what is beautiful and what is not, according to your prejudice. Even among human beings, different cultures see different sorts of people as beautiful.

How Tagore Found Beauty

This happened to Rabindranath Tagore, who was a Nobel Prize-winning poet. There are very few people in the world who can understand and enjoy poetry. Very few people can see the beauty of this illogical play of words, ideas, and expressions. A poet getting a Nobel Prize is rare, but Rabindranath Tagore got a Nobel Prize for his poetry. He also wrote the national anthem for India, which is among the most beautiful compositions you can imagine.

Being a poet, he wanted to capture beauty in his mind and his words. He studied beauty extensively. He went into various debates and discussions about the nature of beauty. One day, he got his hands on a treatise called Soundarya Lahari, which was written by Adi Shankara over a thousand years ago. Soundarya Lahari literally means “the waves of beauty.” He was staying in a small cabin on the riverside.

It was a full moon night, and he was reading the Soundarya Lahari with a little candle, trying to capture the idea of beauty. He was not getting anywhere, so he got frustrated with it and blew out the candle. The moment he blew out the candle, the moonlight entered through the windows and the open door, and beauty was right there. He rushed out the door and looked at it – the forest, the reflection in the river – everything was spectacularly beautiful. From that day, he stopped searching for beauty because suddenly his eyes opened up, and he started seeing life as it is.

All dualities arise from looking at things as beautiful and not beautiful, good and bad, high and low. If you look at everything as it is, everything is intricate and beautiful.