Imperfection – the Root of Growth

 

Photo Credit: QuotesGram

Imperfection – the Root of Growth

Every artist feels that he/she can improve over their last creation. They always feel that perfection can be achieved, but they fall short, and start off on their next creation. A creative person keeps on creating, keeps on improving, a person who keeps giving finishing touches to the painting even when he/she is at his/her last breath – still, the painting remains incomplete. According to Osho, Van Gogh committed suicide because he had created his most beautiful work of art and now, he felt there was no purpose to his life.

There was a maharaja who loved showing people his palace – and he made it a point to take them to a room where the wall was left incomplete. On being asked the obvious question, the maharaja would say – this is a family tradition that nothing should be made perfect; the palace was built by the grandfather and left incomplete so that the future generation remembers that life does not allow perfection.

If one observes deeply, imperfection is not something bad. Imperfection is the root of all growth; perfection only means death, no more growth. Once something becomes perfect, it is dead.

The spiritual path is similar, we are all imperfect, we are all trying to create that perfect painting, after which there is no need to take rebirth – we become liberated. The fun is in the journey, we keep ironing out imperfections and finding new ones to improve upon – the journey continues as layer upon layer of imperfection is removed.

Make every effort to make it perfect, but don’t let it become perfect. Then there is tremendous beauty, and always flowing and growing, and there comes no full-stop. In life we are always in the middle.

We don’t know the beginning of life; we don’t know the end of life. We are always in the middle, and everybody has always been in the middle. It is a process, an ongoing process, a river that goes on flowing. That’s the beauty of it, that’s the glory of it. And not only with the painting — with everything, remember it. Accept that imperfection is the rule, that something becomes perfect only when its death has come.

Rabindranath was once asked about a poem that appeared incomplete, “You have been criticised but why are you silent?” He said, “Those people don’t understand life. Life is always in the middle, and my poetry represents life. Out of nowhere it begins, and suddenly it disappears and evaporates without giving you the feeling of completion.”

Imperfection is not something to be condemned; it is something to be rejoiced in, something to be appreciated — because it is the principle of life itself.