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Read Summary of '''[[Perfection Summary|Perfection]]'''
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= What is Perfection? =
'''Perfection in General'''
Perfection is all that we want to become in our highest aspiration. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/15/perfection#p10</ref>
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Where in the radically imperfect shall we find the principle and power of perfection? Mind rooted in division and limitation cannot provide it to us, nor can life and the body which are the energy and the frame of dividing and limiting mind. The principle and power of perfection are there in the subconscient but wrapped up in the tegument or veil of the lower Maya, a mute premonition emerging as an unrealised ideal; in the superconscient they await, open, eternally realised, but still separated from us by the veil of our self-ignorance. It is above, then, and not either in our present poise nor below it that we must seek for the reconciling power and knowledge.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-problem-of-life#p12</ref>
A divine perfection of the human being is our aim. We must know then first what are the essential elements that constitute man's total perfection; secondly, what we mean by a divine as distinguished from a human perfection of our being. That man as a being is capable of self-development and of some approach at least to an ideal standard of perfection which his mind is able to conceive, fix before it and pursue, is common ground to all thinking humanity, though it may be only the minority who concern themselves with this possibility as providing the one most important aim of life.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-integral-perfection#p1</ref>
<center>~</center> The mundane perfection characteristic law of Spirit is sometimes conceived of as something outward, social, a thing of action, a more rational dealing with our fellowself-men existent perfection and our environment, a better immutable infinity. It possesses always and more efficient citizenship and discharge of duties, a better, richer, kindlier and happier way of living, with a more just and more harmonious associated enjoyment of in its own right the opportunities of existence. By others again a more inner and subjective ideal immortality which is cherished, a clarifying and raising of the intelligence, will and reason, a heightening and ordering aim of power Life and capacity in the nature, a nobler ethical, a richer aesthetic, a finer emotional, a much healthier and better-governed vital and physical being. Sometimes one element perfection which is stressed, almost to the exclusion goal of Mind. The attainment of the rest; sometimes, in wider eternal and more well-balanced minds, the whole harmony is envisaged as a total perfection. A change realisation of education and social institutions that which is the outward means adopted or an inner self-training same in all things and beyond all things, equally blissful in universe and development is preferred as the true instrumentation. Or the two aims may be clearly unitedoutside it, untouched by the perfection imperfections and limitations of the inner individualforms and activities in which it dwells, are the perfection glory of the outer livingspiritual life. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2423/the-integralthreefold-perfectionlife#p2p7</ref>
Man, the mental being, has an imperfect life because mind is not the first and highest power of consciousness of the Being; even if mind were perfected, there would be still something yet to be realised, not yet manifested. For what is involved and emergent is not a Mind, but a Spirit, and mind is not the native dynamism of consciousness of the Spirit; supermind, the light of gnosis, is its native dynamism. If then life has to become a manifestation of the Spirit, it is the manifestation of a spiritual being in us and the divine life of a perfected consciousness in a supramental or gnostic power of spiritual being that must be the secret burden and intention of evolutionary Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/22/the-divine-life#p3</ref>
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Perfection of all kinds is indeed good, as it is the sign of the pressure of the consciousness in the material world towards full self-expression in this or that limit, on this or that level. In a certain sense it is an urge of the Divine itself hidden in forms that tends in the lesser degrees of consciousness towards its own increasing self-revelation. Perfection of an object or a scene in inanimate Nature, animate perfection of strength, speed, physical beauty, courage or animal fidelity, affection, intelligence, perfection of art, music, poetry, literature,—perfection of the intellect in any kind of mental activity, the perfect statesman, warrior, artist, craftsman,—perfection in vital force and capacity, perfection in ethical qualities, character, temperament,—all have their high value, their place as rungs in the ladder of evolution, the seried steps of the spirit's emergence. If one likes to call that spiritual because of this hidden urge behind it one can do so; it can at least be regarded as a preparation for the secret spirit's emergence. But thought and knowledge can only proceed by making the necessary distinctions. Much confusion is created by neglecting them. This mental idealism, ethical development, religious piety and fervour, occult powers and feats have all been taken as spirituality and the spiritual evolution kept tied to the moorings of the planes of lesser consciousness which do indeed prepare the soul by experience for the spiritual consciousness but are not themselves that. For perfection can only become truly spiritual when it is founded on the awakened spiritual consciousness and takes on its peculiar essence.<ref> http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/28/idealism-and-spirituality#p1</ref>
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==PrerequisitesPerfection in the Vital==Then again there is the psychic prana, pranic mind or desire soul; this too calls for its own perfection. Here too the first necessity is a fullness of the vital capacity in the mind, its power to do its full work, to take possession of all the impulsions and energies given to our inner psychic life for fulfilment in this existence, to hold them and to be a means for carrying them out with strength, freedom, perfection. Many of the things we need for our perfection, courage, will-power effective in life, all the elements of what we now call force of character and force of personality, depend very largely for their completest strength and spring of energetic action on the fullness of the psychic prana. But along with this fullness there must be an established gladness, clearness and purity in the psychic life-being. This dynamis must not be a troubled, perfervid, stormy, fitfully or crudely passionate strength; energy there must be, rapture of its action it must have, but a clear and glad and pure energy, a seated and firmly supported pure rapture. And as a third condition of its perfection it must be poised in a complete equality. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-power-of-the-instruments</ref>
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==Difficulties=Why Do We Need Perfection? =
== For Discovering the Truth of Living==
= Why =For Self-perfection, Progress and Fulfillment==
In the Dhammapada: a supreme disinterestedness and a supreme liberation is to follow the discipline of self-perfection, the march of progress, not with a precise end in view but because this march of progress is the profound law and the purpose of earthly life, the truth of universal existence and because you put yourself in harmony with it, spontaneously, whatever the result may be. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/the-brahmin#p43</ref>
Perfection is not a static state, it is an equilibrium. But a progressive, dynamic equilibrium. One may go from perfection to perfection. There can come a state from which it would not be necessary to descend to a lower rung in order to go farther; at the moment the march of Nature is like that, but in this new state, instead of being obliged to go back to be able to start again, one can walk always forward, without ever stopping. As things are, one comes to a certain point and, as human beings as they are at present cannot progress indefinitely, one must pass to a higher species or leave the present species and create another. The human being as he is at the moment cannot attain perfection unless he gets out of himself—man is a transitional being. In ordinary language it may be said: "Oh, this man is perfect", but that is a literary figure. The maximum a human being can attain just now is an equilibrium which is not progressive. He may attain perhaps a static equilibrium but all that is static can be broken for lack of progress. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/04/30-december-1950#p19</ref>
All life that has still this Inconscience for its basis is stamped with the mark of a radical imperfection; for even if it is satisfied with its own typesecret Yoga, it is a satisfaction with something incomplete an obscure growth of Nature towards the discovery and inharmonious, a patchwork fulfilment of discords: on the contrarydivine principle hidden in her which becomes progressively less obscure, even a purely mental or vital life might be perfect within its limits if it were based on a restricted but harmonious more self-power conscient and luminous, more self-knowledge. It is this bondage to a perpetual stamp possessed in the human being by the opening of imperfection and disharmony that is the mark all his instruments of the undivine; a divine lifeknowledge, will, on the contraryaction, even if progressing from the little life to the more, would be at each stage harmonious Spirit within him and in its principle and detail: it would be a secure ground upon which freedom and perfection could naturally flower or grow towards their highest stature, refine and expand into their most subtle opulencethe world. All imperfectionsMind, all perfections have to be taken into view in our consideration of the difference between an undivine and a divine existence: but ordinarilylife, when we make the distinctionbody, we do it as human beings struggling under all the pressure of life and the difficulties forms of our conduct amidst its immediate problems and perplexities; most of all we nature are thinking of the distinction we are obliged to make between good and evil or means of that along with its kindred problem of the dualitythis growth, the blend in us of happiness and suffering. When we seek intellectually for a divine presence in thingsbut they find their last perfection only by opening out to something beyond them, a divine origin of the world, a divine government of its workingsfirst, because they are not the presence whole of evilwhat man is, the insistence on sufferingsecondly, the largebecause that other something which he is, is the enormous part offered key of his completeness and brings a light which discovers to pain, grief and affliction in the economy of Nature are him the cruel phenomena which baffle our reason whole high and overcome the instinctive faith large reality of mankind in such an origin and government or in an all-seeing, all-determining and omnipresent Divine Immanencehis being. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2124/the-divineintegral-and-the-undivine#p2perfection?search=perfection</ref>
Our soul's dissatisfaction with imperfection as a law of life upon earth, its aspiration towards the elimination of all imperfections from our nature, not only in a heaven beyond where it would be automatically impossible to be imperfect, but here and now in a life where perfection has to be conquered by evolution and struggle, are as much a law of our being as that against which they revolt; they too are divine,—a divine dissatisfaction, a divine aspiration. In them is the inherent light of a power within which maintains them in us so that the Divine may not only be there as a hidden Reality in our spiritual secrecies but unfold itself in the evolution of Nature. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/the-divine-and-the-undivine#p8</ref>
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== To Grow in the Spiritual Oneness==
His physical being will be one with all material Nature, his vital being with the life of the universe, his mind with the cosmic mind, his spiritual knowledge and will with the divine knowledge and will both in itself and as it pours itself through these channels, his spirit with the one spirit in all beings. All the variety of cosmic existence will be changed to him in that unity and revealed in the secret of its spiritual significance. For in this spiritual bliss and being he will be one with That which is the origin and continent and inhabitant and spirit and constituting power of all existence. This will be the highest reach of self-perfection.
<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-elements-of-perfection</ref>
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So long as he remains in the world-existence, this perfection must radiate out from him,—for that is the necessity of his oneness with the universe and its beings,—in an influence and action which help all around who are capable of it to rise to or advance towards the same perfection, and for the rest in an influence and action which help, as only the self-ruler and master man can help, in leading the human race forward spiritually towards this consummation and towards some image of a greater divine truth in their personal and communal existence. He becomes a light and power of the Truth to which he has climbed and a means for others’ ascension.
<ref>ttp://incarnateword.in/cwsa/24/the-perfection-of-the-mental-being?search=perfection</ref>
= How to Achieve Perfection? =
The Master of our works respects our nature even when he is transforming it; he works always through the nature and not by any arbitrary caprice. This imperfect nature of ours contains the materials of our perfection, but inchoate, distorted, misplaced, thrown together in disorder or a poor imperfect order. All this material has to be patiently perfected, purified, reorganised, new-moulded and transformed, not hacked and hewn and slain or mutilated, not obliterated by simple coercion and denial. This world and we who live in it are his creation and manifestation, and he deals with it and us in a way our narrow and ignorant mind cannot understand unless it falls silent and opens to a divine knowledge. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/23/the-master-of-the-work#p6</ref>
==Prerequisites==
To work for your perfection, the first step is to become conscious of yourself, of the different parts of your being and their respective activities. You will must learn to distinguish these different parts one from another, so that you may become more clearly aware of the origin of the movements that occur in you, the many impulses, reactions and conflicting wills that drive you to action. It is an assiduous study which demands much perseverance and sincerity. For man's nature, especially his mental nature, has a spontaneous tendency to give a favourable explanation for everything he thinks, feels, says and more perfect does. It is only by observing these movements with great care, by bringing them, as it were, before the tribunal of our highest ideal, with a sincere will to submit to its judgment, that we can hope to form in your work as ourselves a discernment that never errs. For if we truly want to progress and acquire the capacity of knowing the consciousness growstruth of our being, that is to say, what we are truly created for, what we can call our mission upon earth, increasesthen we must, widens in a very regular and constant manner, reject from us or eliminate in us whatever contradicts the truth of our existence, whatever is enlightenedopposed to it. In this way, little by little, all the parts, all the elements of our being can be organised into a homogeneous whole around our psychic centre. This work of unification requires much time to be brought to some degree of perfection. Therefore, in order to accomplish it, we must arm ourselves with patience and endurance, with a determination to prolong our life as long as necessary for the success of our endeavour. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/1412/progressthe-andscience-perfectionof-in-workliving#p1p5</ref>
This power of the soul over its nature is of the utmost importance in the Yoga of self-perfection; if it did not exist, we could never get by conscious endeavour and aspiration out of the fixed groove of our present imperfect human being; if any greater perfection were intended, we should have to wait for Nature to effect it in her own slow or swift process of evolution. In worksthe lower forms of being the soul accepts this complete subjection to Nature, but as it rises higher in the scale, it awakes to a sense of something in itself which can command Nature; but it is only when it arrives at self-knowledge that this free will and control becomes a complete reality. The change effects itself through process of nature, not therefore by any capricious magic, but an ordered development and intelligible process. When complete mastery is gained, then the process by its self-effective rapidity may seem a miracle to the intelligence, aspiration towards Perfection but it still proceeds by law of the truth of Spirit,—when the Divine within us by close union of our will and being with him takes up the Yoga and acts as the omnipotent master of the nature. For the Divine is true spiritualityour highest Self and the self of all Nature, the eternal and universal Purusha. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwmcwsa/1424/progressthe-andpsychology-perfectionof-inself-workperfection#p45p8</ref>
There is a Reality, a truth one kind of all existence which is greater faith demanded as indispensable by the integral Yoga and more abiding than all its formations and manifestations; to find that truth may be described as faith in God and Reality and live in it, achieve the most perfect manifestation and formation possible of itShakti, must be faith in the secret of perfection whether of individual or communal being. This Reality is there within each thing presence and gives to each of its formations its power of being and value of being. The universe is a manifestation of the Reality, Divine in us and there is a truth of the universal existenceworld, a Power of cosmic being, an faith that all-self or in the world-spirit. Humanity is a formation or manifestation the working of one divine Shakti, that all the Reality in steps of the universeYoga, its strivings and sufferings and there is a truth failures as well as its successes and satisfactions and victories are utilities and self necessities of humanity, her workings and that by a human spirit, firm and strong dependence on and a destiny of human lifetotal self-surrender to the Divine and to his Shakti in us we can attain to oneness and freedom and victory and perfection. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/2224/thefaith-divineand-life#p36shakti?search=perfection</ref>
=== When Man Becomes Perfect… By Silencing the Mind===
There is a world of ideas without form and it is there that you must enter if you want to seize what is behind the words. So long as you have to draw your understanding from the forms of words, you are likely to fall into much confusion about the true sense; but if in a silence of your mind you can rise into the world from which ideas descend to take form, at once the real understanding comes. If you are to be sure of understanding one another, you must be able to understand in silence. There is a condition in which your minds are so well attuned and harmonised together that one perceives the thought of the other without any necessity of words. But if there is not this attunement, there will always be some deformation of your meaning, because to what you speak the other mind supplies its own significance. I use a word in a certain sense or shade of its sense; you are accustomed to put into it another sense or shade. Then, evidently, you will understand, not my exact meaning in it, but what the word means to you. This is true not of speech only, but of reading also. If you want to understand a book with a deep teaching in it, you must be able to read it in the mind's silence; you must wait and let the expression go deep inside you into the region where words are no more and from there come slowly back to your exterior consciousness and its surface understanding. But if you let the words jump at your external mind and try to adapt and adjust the two, you will have entirely missed their real sense and power. There can be no perfect understanding unless you are in union with the unexpressed mind that is behind the centre of expression. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwm/03/26-may-1929#p21</ref>
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Man, too, becomes perfect only when he has found within himself that absolute calm and passivity of the Brahman and supports by it with the same divine tolerance and the same divine bliss a free and inexhaustible activity. Those who have thus possessed the Calm within can perceive always welling out from its silence the perennial supply of the energies that work in the universe. It is not, therefore, the truth of the Silence to say that it is in its nature a rejection of the cosmic activity. The apparent incompatibility of the two states is an error of the limited Mind which, accustomed to trenchant oppositions of affirmation and denial and passing suddenly from one pole to the other, is unable to conceive of a comprehensive consciousness vast and strong enough to include both in a simultaneous embrace. The Silence does not reject the world; it sustains it. Or rather it supports with an equal impartiality the activity and the withdrawal from the activity and approves also the reconciliation by which the soul remains free and still even while it lends itself to all action. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/21/reality-omnipresent#p5</ref>
= More Difficulties on the Path to Perfection= No man is perfect; the vital is there and the ego is there to prevent it. It is only when there is the total transformation of the external and the internal being down to the very subconscient, that perfection is possible. Till then imperfection will remain as our common heritage.<ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/the-subconscient-and-the-integral-yoga#p2</ref> <center>~</center> The egoism of the instrument can be as dangerous or more dangerous to spiritual progress than the egoism of the doer. =The ego-sense is contrary to spiritual realisation, so how can any kind of ego be a thing to be encouraged? As for the magnified ego, it is one of the most perilous obstacles to release and perfection. There should be no big I, not even a small one. <ref>http://incarnateword.in/cwsa/31/ego-and-its-forms#p54</ref>
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==References==
= References =