The Invocation given by Pir-o-Mushid Hazrat Inayat Khan begins, "Toward the One, the perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty..."
Some find the word "perfection" troubling. Varying concerns with the idea, such as placing oneself against a standard, have been raised. Reasoned questions arise about the meaning, or indeed the possibility, of perfection.
As a young Catholic boy, my own doubts awakened around the idea of a "perfect God," creator of all: Obviously, a perfect, singular entity could not create anything that might exhibit the most minuscule sign of imperfection. A perfect being cannot act in such as way as to give rise to imperfect effects. Were any imperfection to arise directly from a perfect source, that would merely prove that the source itself could not have been perfect to begin with, how ever much we might have hoped it were.
The mundane world of apparent imperfection betrayed the idealized creator-God. By the time I reached adolescent years this early discovery had helped to solidify my suspicions that no such God exists at all. I felt I had been led astray and so rejected all notions of any sort of God or perfect source. Either everything is perfect, or nothing is.
Now, seasoned with decades of life experience, I can see that my philosophical conundrum just as readily suggests the contrary possibility: Everything is a ray or emanation of a perfect Unity. Instead of the untenability of an imperfect world offered up by a perfect God, a reality that allows for both God and this world is one in which everything is perfect, no matter how it may appear to the eye.
The Sanskrit mantra, "poornamadaha poornamidam poornaat poornamudachyate | poornasya poornamaadaaya poornamevaa vashishyate |" explains that from perfection (completeness) comes perfection, and when perfection is taken away from perfection, perfection remains.
The most beloved Sufi phrase, "La ilaha illa'llah," when taken to mean "Nothing exists save the One," may be equivalent to the Hindu mantra. We may just as well take this Arabic negation/affirmation to mean: Take away everything and all that is left is the Perfection, the One who is unsurpassable because there is no other, and perfect because there is no stain or blot; only the Perfect One exists.
These brief and great utterances denote that perfection is the very ground of being, that all things and conditions are perfect, including you and I.
One product of the western mind may be the struggle with the idea of perfection, of personal perfection, of perfecting our world so as to allow no unhappiness to encroach upon our card-house creation of a dream which, as Perfect-God-appointed custodians of the earth, we alone are charged to build and uphold. The burden is heavy, and we despair when we discover that no matter how diligently we try, we can hardly change ourselves - let alone fix all that we produce - for whatever we create, however pleasing, is subject to decay. The arts may come closest, but even music is gone as soon as it has been played. Science continues to peel back layer after layer, only to defy our hopes to find a single, unifying principle behind everything. We wisely shy away from any absolutist idealism, knowing that if we assert anything about the Ultimate, we are forced to do so from within the field of the relative. Our dedication to remain neutral with regard to the nature of reality means we can say or think nothing.
Dis-illusionment may reveal a doorway to a deeper, more complete understanding. Through that door, we may find the remedy to our hopeless, external quest for "perfection." We observe mystics who embody the joy and solace of an inherent and pervasively perfect reality. We practice until we know: Everything is perfect, including the Self. Moreover, that perfect reality is the only thing that exists. Why reach for perfection when you are perfection?
When one empties of self, the self which is a product of perfection, one identifies as that which remains: Perfection itself.
"Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." - Matthew 5:48
Shivadam Adam Burke is a certified Dance leader, mureed in the Sufi Ruhaniat International, and member of the Board of Directors of Dances of Universal Peace, North America. He also leads kirtan. He is co-founder of the Phoenix Kirtan Sangha and the Phoenix-based kirtan ensemble, Prema Rupa. He is an award-winning composer and recording artist.
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