Volume I  Page 118  §  Perfection

DISCOURSES by Meher Baba

in universal activity without being bound by it.
        Perfection is the full development of all the aspects of personality, so perfection must be all-sided. Perfection must be all-sidedPerfection in one respect is no perfection. It is only a lopsided growth of a faculty or capacity, resulting in inflexibility or the incapacity to adjust oneself to the ever changing and multitudinous vicissitudes of life. Such a person cannot maintain a moving equilibrium of mind while keeping pace with the swift changes of life. If he is in an environment which, by its nature, gives scope for the faculty which he has developed, he is temporarily happy and enjoys a sense of being in harmony with the world. But if he finds himself in a hostile environment where his faculty is a misfit, he has a sense of failure and his poise is disturbed. Therefore perfection implies perfection in every respect.
        If you try to grasp the nature of perfection by means of a set standard (implying an opposite), you are bound to limit it and thus fail to understand its real significance. Perfection Perfection includes the opposites and transcends them includes the opposites and transcends them, therefore the perfect man is not bound by any rule or limited ideal. He is beyond good and bad, but his law for those who are good gives good reward, and for those who are bad it responds in their own coin. Krishna proved to Arjuna, who was his devotee, that his apparent bringing about of the physical and mental annihilation of the vicious Kauravas was for their spiritual salvation. Perfection might manifest itself through killing or saving according to the spiritual demands of the situation. The heart of the Perfect One is at once soft like butter and hard like steel. Perfection is not limited in its expression to any one of the opposites,