"Things are they way they ought be, otherwise they would be different" was something Goswami Kriyananda said. It speaks to how we are all in search of some kind of perfection. I have an interesting concept for you. What if things are already perfect? All the world, it's problems, and our expectations are just projections we place on life. The body builder looks for perfection through diet and exercise. The engineer looks for perfection by trying to achieve one hundred percent efficiency. Western life, in general, is one linear path with goals placed as milestones along the way.

In Kriya Yoga, we work with the concept of duality. The world is very real, but it molds itself to how we perceive it. The duality disappears when the divider of our perceptions is removed, allowing our inner world to reflect the outer world. In Zen Buddhism, this concept is like asking if the map matches the landscape. The map is in our head, but is it easier to change the landscape to match our map, or the other way around?

I've been watching Parks and Recreation on Hulu now for about a month. Ron Swanson is my favorite character. Here we have man that we could call "perfect" at the beginning of the series because he already is in touch with who he is. As the series progresses he does not change that much until he faces some existential crisis. For instance, when he runs into his ex-wives, both named Tammy, his personality completely changes. So, Ron may appear perfect on the outside, but really it's external factors that dictate who he is.

We go through our lives thinking that there is some sort of perfection that we can reach. It gives us purpose, but is it obtainable? What would we do with ourselves if we reached perfection? Society does a good job of molding us to it's version of perfection through work, family and law. If this were the path to perfection, then why has it not been achieved? Well, it's already perfect.