The Half-Finished Painting

From the book "Contemporary Parables"
by Robert Elias Najemy

There is a spiritual truth which claims that everything which has occurred and which is occurring at this moment was and is perfect. The future we do not know. But once the future has become the present, then that too is perfect.

On the other hand, we see so much obvious imperfection, so many mistakes, so many things which seem to be wrong and need to be corrected both in ourselves and in the world around us. How can these apparently contradictory perceptions both be true?

The idea of a half-completed painting may help us. The painting is not finished and thus it is not yet in its perfected form. It is in the process of being perfected, of being completed. We know that it is not completed because consciously or subconsciously we know that it can be much more than it presently is. But we do not reject the painting because it is not yet what it will be. We do not say that it is wrong or unacceptable. We simply perceive it as incomplete and we get on with the process of completing it.

Let us then imagine ourselves, our personalities and the personalities of those around us to be half-finished paintings. Let us imagine the general state of the society and world around us to be a painting in process.

Yes there are many weaknesses, faults and aspects to be improved in those paintings. But they are perfect in their incomplete state. A painting must pass through a series of stages until it is finally completed. Each of these stages is a perfect part of that process of completion. No stage could be skipped or avoided.

Thus we and those around us are perfect at every stage of that process of becoming perfected. We and everything around us are perfect at this stage in the process of perfection. Even our imperfections are the perfect temporary part of our movement towards perfection. Thus when we imagine ourselves and others as unfinished paintings we will have patience and understanding for our weaknesses and faults seeing them as parts of our being which need to be worked on in the process of manifesting the perfect being which is waiting latent within us to become a reality.

Enjoy your work on the paintings which you presently call
your personality and your life.