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Each group that comes here, you each insist on being special. Every group
here feels it has a monopoly of uniqueness and that it is better and it alone
is special.
You pretend to be humble by starting off that you are not special as an individual, but then that your system is special. That is the same thing you fools – you pretend not to be special and then you say your system is special, and then you extol that system and then therefore you become special.
And then you insist, compared to all other systems, that it is only your system that is special. In that manner, through praising your chosen way, you seek to make yourself individually even more special. Your arrogance grows and grows! You hypocrites!
Give up being special. For to insist on being special, on being unique
either shows insecurity or arrogance. Insecurity brings you to falsehood;
and arrogance blinds you from seeing It as It is.
¤
If you must, confuse yourself. Don’t confuse others. But you cannot
confuse the Tao. Nor can you confuse the wise. That is why you pick on the
foolish and the gullible. That is why you pick on the ones without their wits
about them and those that want to feel special and important and those that
want to be told what their mission in life is. You pick on them because you
cannot influence the strong. And thus the weak seeks the weak.
If you must, confuse yourself. Don’t confuse others. Strengthen yourself
first. Be wise first. The wise do not instruct. The wise know to speak is
to utter a lie. To write is to create an illusion. For never passes word or
thought from one being to another without corruption.
If you must, confuse yourself. Don’t confuse others. But no matter how hard you try, you cannot confuse the Tao. Nor can you confuse the One or the Many abiding in the Tao.
It is simple. It is clear. Don’t confuse yourself. Don’t
confuse others.
The confusion you create will come back to wreak chaos within you.
It is simple. It is clear.
- from Lao Tzu a modern but happy tale by Raj Arumugam
