According to Osho, realizing our imperfection is like feeling thirst—it awakens the quest for perfection. This insight turns life from stagnant bhoga (indulgence) into dynamic yoga (growth), like a river rushing toward the ocean. Dissatisfaction becomes a blessed first step, giving direction, energy, and alignment with our divine element, so we no longer gasp like fish out of water.
Seeing you're not perfect makes you want to grow, so you stop drifting and start moving toward wholeness, like a thirsty person seeking water.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Someone asked: even if the realisation of our imperfection dawns upon us, what good does it do?
When you feel thirsty, what do you do? Does not the thirst rouse you to search for water? Similarly, the realisation of one's imperfect state rouses one to seek for perfection. Then life's goal is sighted, and one begins move towards that goal. Whereas meaningful life is a yoga, aimless life is a 'bhoga' or all indulgence. The life of 'bhoga' is like a lake which has stagnant water, which flows nowhere, and which, in time, dries up. But the life of yoga is like a river, which, for ever is rushing towards the ocean. To you I suggest: Be like the river which moves towards the ocean, only then you will find life worthwhile. The lake exists in its narrow confines; it travels not. It has nowhere to go, and nothing to become. On the other hand, the river is not confined; it is expansive; it likes to move…
I have just recently been helped to discover that nobody is perfect and to let go of my fantasy of a perfect person. Now I am left with my feelings of loving and hating the same person and I find it difficult to live with such intense, seemingly polar opposites in myself. Anything to do?
It is said about Nero that he was so much obsessed with food that he had four doctors following him wherever he would go. And those four doctors' duty was to make him vomit. He would eat too much and the doctors would make him vomit, and then he would eat too much again -- immediately. To make it possible for him, so he could eat many times in a day, the only way was to help him vomit. Now this is madness. And how can you enjoy food when you are continuously vomiting? It is nauseating, the very idea is nauseating. And when you digest it you will throw your whole system into a chaos. It is the mind being destructive to the body. When you eat, enjoy it totally. But then there is a need for six to eight hours' fast -- only then does the hunger arise…
What is the desire for perfection?
ADHEERA, THE DESIRE FOR PERFECTION is the search for the lost womb. The paradise -- lost. The child is utterly happy in the mother's womb; that memory persists. It is not just a memory in the brain, it is in every cell of the body, every fiber of the body. It is all over you. That memory persists. Those nine months have been of such eternal joy, of such relaxation and let-go, it is not easy to forget it. Even though consciously you have forgotten about it -- because of the birth trauma you became disconnected consciously from it -- yet the unconscious still hankers for it. It tries in every way to reach to that lost paradise again. The whole of religion consists of that search, and the whole of science too consists of that search. The scientific endeavour is to create that womb outside -- with central heating,…
This is the situation. We are in the middle — incomplete, half-done. The half-done mind longs to be filled, to be whole. Desire for perfection arises out of incompleteness. Remember, in completeness no desire for completeness can arise; it would be meaningless. Desire is always the opposite of what we are. We are poor, so we desire to be rich. We are ill, so we desire health. We are incomplete, so we desire wholeness. Desire is completely logical; in an incomplete mind the idea of becoming complete will naturally arise. Desire is logical — but its fulfillment will never happen. For the incomplete can never become complete — by any effort, by any practice, by any discipline or sadhana. Because all sadhanas, all practices, all efforts will arise from the incomplete. The stamp of incompleteness will remain upon them.
Beloved Osho, I want to do a perfect job and I don't see this as a problem but when I condemn myself for doing an imperfect job, it doesn't feel right. Is there a way to accept our failures gracefully?
The perfectionist is sick, psychologically sick. He does not understand that in life, everything is imperfect because imperfection is absolutely needed for evolution. Without imperfection, there is no possibility of evolution. If everything is perfect, the whole world will be a graveyard, because after perfection, what will you do? Except enter your grave -- of course, perfectly. Imperfection is the law. Nothing ever becomes perfect and nothing should ever become perfect, because you are driving it towards death. Imperfection is beautiful. So your problem is first to understand that imperfection is perfectly beautiful. Do your best, hope for the best but always remember: nothing can be perfect. I was staying in a palace of a Maharajah. It is one of the most beautiful palaces in India. His son was taking me around and I saw that on one side, a wall was only half-built. I inquired, "What is the problem?…