Spiritual thoughts from Taoism

By Sandhya Pathania

Human nature is developed by profound serenity and lightness, virtue is developed by harmonious joy and open selflessness. When externals do not confuse you inwardly, your nature finds the condition that suits it; when your nature does not disturb harmony; virtue rests in its place.

                           If you can get through life in the world by developing your nature and embrace virtue to the end of your years, it can be said that you are able to embody the Tao. When the mind neither sorrows nor delights, that is supreme attainment of virtue. To succeed without changing is supreme attainment of calm. To be unburdened by habitual desires is supreme attainment of equanimity. Not getting mixed up with things is supreme attainment of purity.

                           Those who can accomplish these five things reach spiritual illumination. Those who reach spiritual illumination are those who attain the inward. When attained this within, you can develop it outwardly. Your thoughts are calm; your muscles are strong, your eyes and ears are alert and clear. You have accurate perceptions and understanding, you are firm and strong without snapping. In a small domain you are not cramped, in a large domain you are not careless. Your soul is not excited; your spirit is not disturbed. Serene and aloof, you are the toughest in the world.

                           Human nature is generally such that it likes tranquility and dislikes anxiety; it likes leisure and dislikes toil. When the mind is always desireless, this can be called tranquility, when the body is always unoccupied, this can be called leisure. If you set your mind free in tranquility and relinquish your body in leisure, thereby to await the direction of nature, spontaneously happy within and free from hurry without, even the magnitude of the Universe cannot change you at all. Then you are as if noble even if lowly, and you are as if rich even if poor.

                           When the spirit controls the body, the body obeys; when the body overrules the spirit, the spirit is exhausted. Although intelligence is useful, it needs to be returned to the spirit. This is called the great harmony. The mind is the ruler of the body, while the spirit is the treasure of the mind. When the body is worked without rest, it collapses. When the spirit is used without cease, it becomes exhausted. Sages value and respect them, and do not dare to be excessive.

                           Rank, power, and wealth are things people crave, but when compared to the body they are insignificant. Therefore sages eat enough to fill emptiness and maintain energy, and dress sufficiently to cover their bodies and keep out the cold. They adjust to their real conditions and refuse the rest, not craving gain and not accumulating much.

                           Abandoning intellectualism, they return to utter simplicity, resting their vital spirit, they detach from knowledge. Therefore they have no likes or dislikes. This is called great attainment.

                           Those who know to nurture the harmony of life can not be hooked by profit. Those who know how to join inside and outside cannot be seduced by power. Sages use the inner to make the external enjoyable, therefore they have spontaneous enjoyment in themselves, and so have their own will, which is esteemed by the world. The reason it is so is that this is essential to the world in the world's own terms. It is not up to another, but up to oneself, it is not up to anyone but the individual. When the individual attains it, everything is included. So those who understand the logic of mental functions regard desires, cravings, likes and dislikes as externals. Therefore nothing delights them, nothing angers them, nothing pleases them, nothing is wrong, nothing is right.

                           When the vitality, spirit, will and energy are calm, they fill you day by day and make you strong. When they are hyperactive, they are depleted day by day, making you old. Therefore sages keep nurturing their spirit, make their energy gentle, make their bodies normal, and bob with the way. In this way they keep company with the evolution of all things and respond to the changes in all events.

                           So the physical body may pass away, but the spirit does not change. Use the unchanging to respond to changes, and there is never any limit. What changes return to formlessness, while what does not change lives together with the Universe. This is where real people roam, the path of quintessence.


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