“Express yourself completely. Then keep quiet. Be like the forces of nature; When it blows, there is only wind; When it rains, o there is only rain; When the clouds pass, the sun shines through. ”
-Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu was talking about natural way of life. 'Tao' literally means the natural way. He opened up such a creative and natural way of life that even his contemporary Confucius could not bear it. Confucius was a man of rules and regulations. Assuming that life is full of unexpected twists and turns, Cofucius believed that preconceptions, speculations and conclusions will not help anyone.They were talking about two ways of living. Life was like a flowing river for Lao Tzu. The flowing river finds its way naturally. But for Confucius life was like a railway track, arranged and orderly; a built-in rail. Go through it and reach the goal smoothly without any significant crises. These two represent two types of attitudes that are common to humankind. Nobody is expected to determine whether one is greater than the other. Find the way that suits your speed, the particular rhythm of your soul, your psyche and make your life beautiful.
Only a Lao Tzu can say that the so-called-useless too has its usefulness. In a certain village, except for a single tree, everything else was cut down and Lao Tzu inquired as to the cause of leaving it. The answer was, 'The carpenters abandoned it because it was useless.' And they explained further: "It doesn't even catch fire...it just keeps smouldering". 'Then there are some uses for being useless,' he said with a little smile. The disciples' hearts were enlightened at those words. Those words were filled with the echoes of living most simply, without comparisons and coercions, without cut throat competition or one-upmanship.
What Jesus was trying to say was the same; about a supernatural life. The words ‘I give you one commandment- love’ have hidden in them the seeds of a great storm, which, in a sense, can be described as ‘anarchy’, against the Canons and the orderly. Because love is the language of the heart, living that way, as the heart inspires, will end up uprooting the traditional religious systems and canons.
But the irony is sooner or later, time and tide will destroy that natural way, engulfing it with a variety of rituals and routines.
∎
