What is a take without a mis-take?
“In wrong and right, the pendulum swings. From left to right in hidden flaws”
We have all been sold a lie, a lie of perfection? We strive day to day to live up to the impossible; a life without mistakes. Have you ever seen a river flow without flaws? Don’t the flaws add a certain beauty to the elegance of the river? Why then do we seek a life without mistakes? Are we missing out on the real mystery of life in avoiding mistakes? Can we name a mystic through the ages that has not gone through several flaws to become what we revere in him/her?
Mistakes are sacred
As long as we live, learning becomes life itself and accepting everything always is the only way to live a fulfilled life. Mistakes are not only part of the evolution but also a device to break self judgement. Once one survives a mistake, one becomes immune to any judgement that could have caused them paralysis before. In this, mistakes become sacred when used to evolve one’s understanding of self. A baby has to fall numerous times before they learn to walk. Mistakes are these falls to lead us to self realisation.
Mystics are self realised from mis-takes
In mis-takes we miss a take; we just have to keep trying. Like an archer who keeps missing the target, a mystic just keeps trying. Unlike regular people, one on the path of mysticism sees mistakes as an opportunity rather than a hindrance. For example Rumi’s poetry is full of despair yet it is in that despair that love flowered on the pages we now call poetry. In beautiful lines the dance is clear between the target that missed and the target shot. His mistakes made the poet and the mystic we love today.
In conclusion, we have all accepted to live up to impossible standards by aspiring to a life without mistakes, it doesn’t exist. Because mistakes are as natural as using a toilet, one has to suppress their being to appear perfect. These appearances not only thwart your evolution but also make you live a life of a slave. A slave to anything and anyone else except to yourself. Mystics are no more special than regular people; the difference is that they accept their mistakes and the rest of us suppress them. The path to the poetry of life is littered in mistakes but the flowering is never thwarted by them.
