Tuesday, August 5, 2008

The 29th Verse

Tell me this isn’t just what I needed to read today. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve been on quite the spiritual journey lately. I don’t know. Maybe a journey for inner peace is a better way to word it. So I decided to read the “Tao Te Ching” because I do gravitate a bit towards eastern philosophies. The Tao has 81 simple verses of ancient and divine wisdom. Some are random and then some strike you right between the eyes. That’s what verse 29 did to me.

29th Verse

Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.

Everything under heaven is a sacred vessel and cannot be controlled.
Trying to control leads to ruin.
Trying to grasp, we lose.

Allow your life to unfold naturally.
Know that it too is a vessel of perfection.
Just as you breathe in and breathe out,
there is a time for being ahead
and a time for being behind;
a time for being in motion
and time for being at rest;
a time for being vigorous
and a time for being exhausted;
a time for being safe
and a time for being in danger.

To the sage all of life is a movement toward perfection,
so what need has he
for the excessive, the extravagant, or the extreme?


Tell me that isn’t the heaviest shit you’ve read in a while!!! I take that back, think about ME and then tell me that isn’t dead on everything I’m about. I am ALWAYS trying to take over the universe. To wrestle everything into my little hands. I want to control everything and everyone that comes into my personal space. I’m always desperately grasping at everything. I take no time to rest, I deny my exhaustion, and leave NOTHING to circumstance (or to unfold naturally) I’m 20 miles a minute and 20 years ahead trying to manipulate and plan the entire world. I think many people would say I am MUCH (Excessive) and that I swing from one side to the other like a pendulum (Extreme)

MY GOD - how did Lao-Tzu know me all those ages ago?

It doesn’t really give me an answer to any of this, but I think our true power lies in “awareness”. If there is even ONE MOMENT where I am aware that I am acting like the above and I can stop myself and spare myself the ulcer I must be growing inside from fighting such a monumental and apparently losing battle - then that is powerful.

What do you think? Does anyone even read these?

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