abhyAsa: The imperfection is in the standard!
First a story :
There was a beautiful girl who had a much broken mirror and considered herself very ugly. She hid her face from public view behind a veil.
One day, she accidentally saw her reflection in a perfect mirror in still water and fell in love with the beautiful girl. However much she knew that it was her own reflection, she had trouble accepting it internally, though she knew it made sense! She had for so long been trained to think of herself as ugly!!
Finally, she accepted that it was the mirror that was broken, threw it out and lived happily ever after! 
Discussion :
So many of our views of ourselves are formed by people who we have no idea about themselves. The mirror that society holds up to us is much broken and distorted. Each person reflects and projects their nature on to you. (abhyAsa : People’s judgements of you – reflections, projections, clues.)
Those who have realised the truth, the RSis (Rishis, Rushis), tell us Om pUrNamadah pUrNam idam (http://ancientindians.wordpress.com/upanishads/isa-vasya-upanishad/)!
‘That” refers to brahman (Parabrahma). “This” refers to this manifest universe : what we can sense with our sensory organs. Both are complete. Completeness refers to
Perfection. This visible universe that manifests from the perfect brahman is also perfect. When the perfect, complete manifest universe is removed from the brahman, only the perfect complete brahman remains. The manifestation of a perfect God cannot be imperfect, it is also perfect. (Courtesy : My Veda Guru).
While the advertisers tell you that you are not beautiful or desirable with out their products, and bosses do SWOT analyses on you, some religious preachers and friends and family tell you that you are flawed as a human being itself.
Then people blame Krishna! Why am I ugly, imperfect, undesirable, a failure, incompetent, inadequate..? ad infinitum.
People who have not realised their own perfection, project their imperfections on you! The imperfections are in our standards not in reality.
As you reject their projections you begin to see the perfect you, that has emanated from the perfect puruSa! The bee is not evil when it stings you and not noble when you take it’s honey. It just is!
People who beat themselves up are just the same as people who beat others up!
Humility and self-abasement are exactly the same as pride and self-aggrandisation and exactly as weary to people we are with. They are just another piece of the much broken mirror.
You are complete, the completeness that has come from completeness.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. – Desiderata
When people try to tell you what’s wrong with them, with you or with the world in gerneral – think – “piece of broken mirror! Om pUrNamadah pUrNam idam“.
Maybe I am single, maybe I am lonely, maybe I am “differently healthy”. But this is as it should be/is at this moment. Tomorrow I may have a different amount of company and a different level of health, a different appearance, a different age, a different social status – w.r.t. humans and dEvAs. And that is as it should be/is then.
Practice :
When your sensitivity and lightness are increasing, every hardened mind that connects with yours causes physical pain and nausea and outbursts of tears.
When I tried to see the puruSa in myself (abhyAsa : seeing puruSa in others), I was shocked and pained to see a dark tar-like hardness that was all the self-denial and self-sacrifice and injustice-to-self that I have indulged in, in the course of my life. I wrote a public apology to myself (I’m sorry!) and then when I looked inwards I saw a light white mist and not that horrible black tar. When I look at others I see the light brightness of the puruSa!
I realised that half the negative things I say about myself are because a) I think that is how others see me, b) if they expect too much from me and I disappoint them later then they might say hurtful things, c) they say so many self-abasing things about themselves that they do not give me permission to say I am perfect! d) I’m afraid they will call me arrogant and hurt me.
Thus I do not admit to my perfection because I want to accommodate other people, their minds and ideas of themselves and of me and of what I ought to think of myself! Also a great reluctance to confront and have a conflict with other human minds. That is why I can’t teach. A teacher would not be afraid to correct the errors of students or to debate with others.
I feel perfect. It hurts me to say I am not perfect. So I need to keep my distance from judgemental/critcal people whether they are judging me or themselves.
Now that I have seen my true reflection, I need to throw out the broken mirror!
Children are divine because they have not yet learned to see themselves and the world as imperfect. To them the world, just is!
Satya
