I've posted this on the forum several times before:
"She (the author) learnt from her Eders that everything in the universe is perfect. People and everything else only become less than perfect when compared to someone or something else, or when influenced by negative forces."
--Rangimarie Turiki Pere, Maori Writer
In Western culture we are taught to understand ourselves and our world by comparison, contrast, dualism, and similarity. It is difficult for us to even imagine that the way other people think and the thinking processes themselves differ from our own.
Imagine the shock of discovering that the majority of people in the world do not use the same thinking processes we do! In fact, in some circles, the use of comparison, contrast, dualism and similar forms of thinking are linked with schizophrenia and addictive thinking processes.
If everything in the universe is perfect, I don't need to compare myself or anything to anyone or anything else. I'm learning to accept people and things as they are. The way I have been taught to think affects me more than I realize.
Anne Wilson Schaef, Native Wisdom for White Minds, Ballantine: 1995