Should we strive for perfection in our service?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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should we be perfectionists in bhakti? answer actually, the the obsession with perfection often becomes the tomb of success just because we want to do something perfectly and because we can’t do it perfectly then we often don’t do it at all so if I want to write if I want to sing, if I want to do anything, we all go through the process of learning, making mistakes and then gradually improving so, the expectation of perfection sets the bar so high that we often stop trying to jump also so, this is in terms of practice, in principle also we are finite beings and as finite beings, it is natural for us to sometimes have incomplete or inadequate understandings and to act in imperfect or incorrect ways so, certainly we need to endeavor to try to get as correct understanding as possible and to act as properly as possible in whatever we are doing whatever service we are doing, we try to do it as well as we can but if say, Prabhupada had waited for perfection, for the perfect for the perfect situation to come to start his outreach or for the perfect kind of disciples to come he would never have been able to do his outreach only Prabhupada gave that other example of how a person walking on a street, sees a stick sees some fruit shell sees some see some marbles or something like that person strings them all together and makes a musical instrument and plays music so, it’s imperfect but it produces music so, Prabhupada said, that’s how I started the Krishna Consciousness movement I did not have people who were very talented or very dedicated or very pure or very spiritually committed but he was able to he started with whatever he had and things moved forward so, usually humility means usually we think of humility as bowing down and saying I am good for nothing or whatever we have different notions of humility but humility also means that we accept what we are and we serve Krishna with what we are, with what we have knowing that it is inadequate, knowing that it is imperfect but we know that Krishna still accepts whatever service we are doing and if we are doing some services in some specific forums then we should try to come to a requisite level of quality but we shouldn’t stop the service itself just because we are not perfect and the there is the quest for improvement and there is the quest for perfection and Prabhupada says that practicing bhakti will make us will help us attain spiritual perfection spiritual perfection means that our intention to serve Krishna will become perfectly fixed bhakti will become fixed as an irrevocable fact in our heart but that does not mean that even a pure devotee who is completely fixed in service of Krishna, they are going to be perfect in the material sense even a pure devotee may sometimes forget a verse and they may mispronounce or misspell something, all these things may happen so perfection is an intention perfection for us is achievable in intention, perfection is not achievable for us in execution improvement is always possible and we should always try to keep improving but in execution we finite living beings cannot be perfect but in intention we can strive for perfection and that perfection of intention also comes by steady purification so right now I may serve with an impure intention, I want to serve Krishna but I also want to be praised instantly in person or whatever so like that we but still we keep serving Krishna by that connection with Krishna we become purified and then we start saying that in praise there is not much, what do I get in that praise as compared to that in absorption in Krishna there is so much fulfillment therefore let me become absorbed in Krishna and that’s how we attain perfection in intention