Inside and Out
Without moving through the door to the outside,
you can know the whole universe.
Without looking through the window of the senses,
you can observe the Way of Heaven.
The more externally focused you are,
the less you know.
The sage, therefore,
comes to know without moving,
sees without looking,
works without doing.
-- Tao Te Ching 47
posted by Lynn Bauman at 6:41 AM
1 Comments:
Things that make you go "Hmmmmm..."
I first heard these words (in a somewhat different form) in the song "The Inner Light." It's a Beatles tune written by George Harrison, and I first heard it early in 2004. As usual, it was a total quirk/grace that I heard it when, and how, I did - apparently it is somewhat rare. It affected me deeply, though I can't say exactly why. It led, almost immediately, to my quitting a very good "Flatland" job (at least, in the eyes of Flatland it was a good job), leaving the big city of Houston, moving to North Carolina, and then attending my first Wisdom School.
I just did a web search and discovered that the song was originally released on my 10th birthday in 1968. Hmmmmm... indeed!
Even with a couple years of hindsight, I'm still not entirely sure why these lyrics affected me so deeply and compelled such huge changes in my life. But maybe when the time is right, I'll know.
Then again, maybe it doesn't really matter if I know why - any thoughts on that? That is, is it necessary to know why something has affected and changed us? Seems to me that could just be an egoic exercise, a hamster wheel of analysis paralysis, rather than something truly of value.
One thing for sure - I'm looking forward to further discussing the Tao during Wisdom Academy 2006!
Here are the lyrics for "The Inner Light":
Without going out of my door
I can know all things of earth
Without looking out of my window
I could know the ways of heaven
The farther one travels
The less one knows
The less one really knows
Arrive without travelling
See all without looking
Do all without doing
This is my first major contribution to this blogsite - complete with rusty old HTML tags! I click "Login and Publish" with some trepidation, knowing the first time is probably the worst, and that once I come on in, the water will be quite fine...
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