Forget perfection, just do the best you can || Acharya Prashant, on Vedanta (2021)

Questioner (Q) : The problem usually comes from the idea when one says that to attain a higher pleasure, you have to go through higher suffering. For a common mind, there is his suffering (common suffering), and then there is pleasure, which is a lower pleasure. Now, in Vedanta or the Upanishads, they say, “You have to go through higher suffering. A higher pleasure is there, but for that you have to go through higher suffering.”

Acharya Prashant (AP) : There is a way out. In your current level of existence, which you might call a lower level, you have a certain capacity, a certain appetite to take suffering. It is not beyond you; not a higher suffering, but a lower suffering – a suffering at your current level which you may call a lower level. The thing is, if you exercise even that level of suffering, it will bring you a disproportionately higher pleasure. Once you taste that pleasure, then you realize that a formula has opened up, and then your willingness to take more discipline upon yourself increases, because now you have tasted the results.

At your particular level, you did the little you could, but the little you could do, the little you did do, was the maximum you could do at your particular level. The good news is that at any level the maximum you do is sufficient. You are not demanded to do something beyond yourself. Just do the maximum that is within your capacity. The good news is – you don't have to exceed your capacity. The challenge is – you have to do the maximum that is possible within your capacity. Once you do the maximum within your capacity, you get results; and once you taste the results, your willingness to impose more discipline upon yourself increases.

Well, now you know that a formula has opened up: The more I exert myself, the better the results will be.