A German once visited a temple under construction where he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he noticed a similar idol lying nearby. Surprised, he asked the sculptor, "Do you need two statues of the same idol?" "No," said the sculptor without looking up, "We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage." The gentleman examined the idol and found no apparent damage. "Where is the damage?" he asked. "There is a scratch on the nose of the idol." said the sculptor, still busy with his work. "Where are you going to install the idol?"
The sculptor replied that it would be installed on a pillar twenty feet high. "If the idol is that far, who is going to know that there is a scratch on the nose?" the gentleman asked. The sculptor stopped his work, looked up at the gentleman, smiled and said, "I will know it."
I don’t know what the German could learn from the sculptor, but it is doubtless that we generally miss this craze for perfection. This is seen in our daily schedules; we eat what we could easily procure, we work just for a salary or intended profit, we pray just for practice sake, we wish just own prosperity only, we learn just what we need for the time being…. Unless we decide to charge ourselves for excellence, how can we expect others to do that?
I have heard the story of a prematurely born handicapped girl. First she got infantile paralysis; she recovered but with twisted left leg and foot. By the time she was 12 she had recovered from scarlet fever, whooping cough, chickenpox and measles too. In the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, remember that she became the first American woman to win three Gold Medals in track and field, during a single Olympics. She is Wilma Glodean Rudolph. This powerful sprinter emerged as "The Tornado," the fastest woman on earth. Her success is not just the outcome of her strong intention only; she is said to have worked hard to reach perfection in each step of her practice. She worked for nothing less than excellence. The sculptor wanted the idol not just as perfect as he could create it but as perfect as it could be created. The more we prove our excellence in thought and deed the more we integrate with the Universe, which is power infinite.
