JUST A MOMENT
YOU ARE IMPERFECT?
PERFECT!!
[Broadcast November
14th, 2011]
****
This is Just a Moment: I'm
Barrie Barkla. This morning we're going to spend some time being with the
possibility that our supposed imperfections are actually perfect, just as they
are.......
[Help Me – Casey
Donovan (A) – 4:10]
Casey Donovan – Is there
any way to set my mind free? Well – yes. Fortunately, there are many
ways, and it’s well worth while exploring some of them because you may find
that the more areas of your mind you liberate, the more self-governing you
become.
Let’s look first at why I
bother to ask questions like this at 4.20am. Well, I’m awake at this moment
because I have a radio programme I’ve committed to do. If you’re up and about
because you have a job to do or someone dear to you urgently needs your
attention, then maybe the next 40 minutes or so won’t be of immediate relevance
to you. But if you’re awake right now when you’d rather be peacefully asleep,
then perhaps it’s perfect that you tuned in this morning…….
Whether we’re conscious of it
or not, you and I and everyone else, awake or asleep, are searching for
something. We are trying to find that One Thing that will give us the freedom
and peace that we crave. When it’s soul-based, the urge to be better is
evolutionary and uplifting. But once the mind gets hold of it, the censure of
deficiency is a burden. And our minds won’t let us rest.
The human mind is always after
something. It’s always trying to change something outside of itself into what mind thinks it should be, but it rejects any
challenge to radically change itself. Left to its own devices, your mind will
not change. Not much. Some people’s minds, like mine, set up expectations for
us, then beat us up if we’re less than successful in living up to its idea of
how we should be. Lurking in the back of my mind there’s a thought that rears
its head from time to time when I feel a bit low -- “I should be better than I am” Have you got one of those “be
perfect, or else” minds? OK, I’ve got
something for you tonight.
How do we get ourselves into
this bind of compulsory perfection? It’s not a simple question to answer, but if
you look back along your life line you’ll notice that you, like most others,
were groomed to “be someone” or “do something with your life”, yes? By our
parents, by the school system, and later by career pursuits, we were persuaded
that there were still more steps to climb before we could say “I’ve made it!” And
that someone or something we were supposed to live up to probably had less to
do with our innate temperament and talents, and was more tied to their family,
academic and cultural expectations. There were rewards for compliance and
meeting benchmarks, and penalties for failure to live up to their expectations.
But in trying to comply, we
moved gradually further away from our core self. As we grew into teens and young
adulthood, we gradually lost sight of a lot of what we are, and no-one else
could get to know us either, least of all those who pushed us into this
estranged state. We were too occupied trying to perfect expectations that may
not have been even ours.
How might we deal with a
Tyrannical Impost to Be Perfect?
Here's a way that works for
me. It involves, firstly, being willing to loosen up a bit on my fixed ideas of
“perfection”. My prejudices around “how I should be” proved to be mostly beyond
my reach, and impossible to live with – both for me and for others having to
put up with me.
I got started on the Great
Escape from the tyranny of faultlessness by being willing to get off an ideal
of “perfection” that polarises itself opposite “imperfection”. Years of
struggling to hide or completely get rid of all my “bad bits” proved to be
fruitless. One or more of them would pop up or ooze out at the worst
possible times. Just when I thought I had my dark side licked, there it would be back in my face.
So, I eventually tried
something different. I decided to embrace my imperfections as being OK for the
time being. I began training myself to look at Perfection rather as a context,
a state of being that allows imperfections to comfortably co-exist and
co-operate with classic ideals. Surprise! It’s demonstrably how the world
works!!
Look at nature around you –
isn’t it replete with “imperfections”. On my daily walks I pass eucalypts and
peppercorn trees whose images would never make it into any coffee-table books
on Landscaping or Gardening. But not only does the Creator of these trees not
seem to mind, I find some of them inspiring the most beautiful moments in my
day! And if an imperfect tree that’s had a hard life, expressing the joy of its
being, is OK to be part of the Big Picture, then maybe there’s a place in this
same picture for me!
Nature speaks to me about
fullness, a richness in life and living, and of how experiences shape and
colour us into an infinite number of variations on the theme of Being What We
Are. Maybe “perfect” was an idea dreamed up by a masochist. Behind it I hear
echoes of the doctrine of Original Sin – ie. there’s something basically wrong
with all of us, just because we’re human. What party-pooper dreamed that one
up!?? That’s not the creator I see out there in the wilderness. If God doesn't
bother to clean up “imperfections” after her, if she sees a place for them in
the Big Picture, what gives us licence to think we know better???
[La Raya]
When you're troubled or
stuck........
For just a moment.........
Try another way of looking at
it.........
[Fade....]
There's a widespread dis-ease
abroad, arising from an assumption that we
should be better than we are. I'm not saying that's wrong, but there’s
an arrogant Topdog-to-Underdog note of censure behind it that causes enough
needless emotional, physical and mental discomfort, unrest and suffering for me
to seriously question whether “I should be better than I am”
is right? Does it make for better people? I don't see much evidence of
that. Does it bend a lot of people out of shape trying to live up to some
impossible external ideal? I see plenty of evidence of that. The quickest way
to condemn someone to hell is to convince them that there's something wrong with
them, something vital missing from their makeup. Children whose well-meaning
parents used such in-vogue negative “motivations” to get them to be “better”,
by and large now comprise a generation of people who, when left to themselves,
have no idea of who or what they are -- broken, depressed, dysfunctional, anxious shells for later generations to deal
with.
****
[Something's Missing
In My Life – Marcia Hines (A)]
V/O: [12 secs]
If we were not subjected to that
treatment ourselves, most of you listening tonight probably know someone who
had that done to him/her in childhood by overbearing family members.
There are questions worth
asking when you, or someone else close to you adopts a mien of I’m not good enough…….
· Not good enough? For who? For what?
· Who says so now?
· OK. What has to happen before you’ll know that you’re
“good enough”.
The legacy lives on; we do it
to other people. Either directly by accusation, or indirectly by implication,
expectation or attitude, we leave people whose standards don’t measure up to
ours in no doubt that they are failing our pub test. The drop in temperature
can be felt in Alaska.
[@ -3:56 = Fade]
There are two separate
imperatives going on here – one natural and evolutionary, one artificial and
destructive. The first is a relatively healthy, innate urge to continue to grow
and evolve as a person and as a member of a social group and a species. The other imperative
is a mind-induced, somewhat hangdog search to be perfect that arises from a
false perception of Deficiency and Lack in what we are now. The
evolutionary urge to change and grow is in harmony with a universal force and
is self-administered. The drive to overcome a mistaken perception of deficiency
is guaranteed to keep you stuck in a rut going nowhere. Now there’s a surefire
handicap to start with! If you, like me, got the “there’s something wrong with
you” message stuffed into your emotional saddlebags, here are a couple of
questions to stand in.....
·
This idea that “I
Lack” – where did I ever get that from?
·
Who gave it to
me?
·
Who else fed it
along the way?
·
What if it isn't
true?
·
What if it never
was true?
Sure, we can all in some way
be better today than we were yesterday. Most of us want that. But unless we’re
getting some feedback that we’re making progress, the wanting becomes a chronic
condition of futility – and it's in that chronic resignation to feelings of
inadequacy that we get stuck. In this condition “wanting better” comes from a
presumption of dissatisfaction and lack, a recipe for failure. Trying to grow
seeds of Improvement in a soil of unhappiness and impoverishment isn't going to
work.
If you were brought up by
harshly critical parents, caregivers, authority figures and age-peers, then
it’s quite possible that your self-worth gradually imploded and that you’ve
seeped into adulthood with a thin veneer of bravado masking a deeply entrenched
belief in being not-up-to-it. You were conditioned to feel this way, and it
takes a lot more than a few “Well-dones” to overcome a downpour of put-downs.
Your first homework will be to
get to know who you really are, because accurate self-knowing is your first key
to freedom and accomplishment. Do not for one second longer allow anyone,
including yourself, to fill you up with either unrealistic expectations, or
snide reminders of failures-to-meet. At any time you catch yourself trying to
live up to an ideal that might not have been yours in the first place, please
remember this – While I’m trying to be
what someone else wants, I cannot be my self. How, then, can I ever know my
genuine place in the world, and be anything but feeling Lost?
We cannot become better than
we are until we first undertake and embrace a realistic appraisal of our
qualities and their potential right now. And no-one can give that to us; we each
have to find it for ourself. If that takes some time to undo years of negative
influence, do not despair. Be patient, and take the time to appreciate yourself
for your efforts and conjure gratitude for the chance to turn your life around in good time. Out of
acknowledgement and gratitude, the tide turns – naturally. Learn to ride it.
****
[All the Things You
Are – Martin Taylor & Steve Howe]
While ever we continue to put
a separation wall of shortcomings between what we think we are and what we'd rather
be, we're creating and widening a gap
of empty “Am-Not”-ness which gets filled with all manner of unhealthy crap. Separating-from creates an illusion of
isolation; it stops us from experiencing the absolute self-balancing perfection
of the universe – the universe of which we are each reflections. We
start to get a sense of Perfection when we stop ways of thinking, feeling and
doing that artificially separate us, and swap them for ways of thinking,
feeling and doing that honour and merge us with the manifold unity.
Consider this possibility –
just as a possibility – You do not yet know just how great you are. If you
did, you wouldn't be losing sleep over the Crap Gaps --- those chasms between
who you think you are (limited), and who someone once told you that you should
be (impossible), and who you really are (as yet unexamined). How the hell is
anyone supposed to find fulfillment and happiness twanging around between the
Limited, the Impossible, and something you haven’t yet realised?
<< >>
You are Light. You are
Thought. You are Feeling. You are Worthy, for you are God, getting to know,
through what we call “you”, what it's like to feel less-than-God.
****
X-fade.....
While you are dwelling in a
question like “There should be more to this; how do I get there?” you
are absent from the here/now and perpetuating the habit-thought of
Insufficiency and Lack. You can test this for yourself right now. Think about
something that you lack. Hmm-mm? Something you think you’re not…. Yes, that.
That’ll do. Think about it…... Now notice something in the room where you are…..
Now go back to whatever it is you think you don’t have….. Now notice the object
again….. Back to the lack feeling……. Back to the object ------ Did you notice
that, in the moments you were simply present with the object in the room, there
was no thought or feeling of loss or lack or insufficiency? You had to flick
yourself out of Now and go back to it, to the past, to a place that has no
power to effect change.
That kind of stinkin’ thinkin’
is just habit. Most times you don't consciously think “insufficient”; it
is thinking for you automatically. You just go along for the ride, and it's a
bumpy one, isn't it? Everywhere we go, we go looking for “Missing”, and we
always find it. We go looking for Disappointment, and we're never disappointed
not to find something to be disappointed about. We always find what we're
looking for. Who was it said “Seek and ye shall find”?
Right now, nothing is ever
missing.
[More – Ferrante &
Teicher – ]
And there is more – always.
More, lying waiting in an infinite field of here-and-now possibility. Ready to
serve. Waiting for you to notice it.
In the past, we’ve gone
looking for “more” in the field of Missing and Lack and Loss. Well, that hasn’t
worked, has it? We can only connect with “more” in the one place we have
not yet thoroughly explored – in the fields of Enoughness and Abundance. We’ve thought all along that if we
allowed our selves to be satisfied with having enough, there would be no space
for more to turn up. How mistaken we’ve been!
Now. I can't rationally
explain how deciding to be satisfied works; all I know is that it brings us
into Now (the only place of power) and that it DOES work. [Jeshua the Christ spoke about it in the
parable of the talents (Matthew 25: 14-30)]. Everything we need for this
moment, we already have – right now. Nothing to “get” that we don't already
have; nothing and no-one to be “worked on”. Nothing to “work out”. Not now.
And when we get that this
moment is already completely sufficient to itself, the next moment takes care
of itself, and then so does the next, and the next…. When you alight on this
here/now, nothing can be missing. If you are aware of “missing”, you have left
your present to drop into mourning for a past or worrying about an imagined
future. Here and now, everything is, and there is nothing that is not. In Now,
everything is always whole and complete.
If there were anything that
you are not, then you would not be who you are. And you are who you are, aren't
you? You just haven't got to know the full extent of yourself yet......There is
a lot more to you yet to get to know and embrace with empathy, delight and
gratitude. Right now, you are everything you need to be – perfect for this
moment. Don't worry about the next moment – live this one now.
Your old thoughts and concepts
and ideas and beliefs of perfection were just that – ideas. And most of them
weren't even your own ideas –
you adopted them without question from someone else. That's OK – they got you
this far, but no further.
Know this –
Perfection does not have a
mould, or even a template.
You will never, ever reach someone
else's idea of Perfection;
You're not supposed to.
Their perfection is their
business; yours is yours.
For now, you ARE perfection.
Even your imperfections are just perfect for now. Your world and everything in
it is perfect for now. And what other time is there ever, but now? Let that be
so, and your perfection will be eternal.
Be grateful for the God-given
freedom to be all that you ARE.
Perfection is the aligning of
all that you are, just as you are, aligning with all things just as they are.
In that suchness you will find the experience perfection you’ve been looking for.
Once you have surrendered to a
state of grateful perfection, it gathers you in, in gratitude. That’s when you
find perfection is not a static state but the ever evolving movement of the
Creator.
.
****
[ I Love You Just the
Way You Are – Billy Joel – 3:20]
[This has been Just a Moment;
I'm Barrie Barkla. Thank you for listening....]
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