The Essence of Faiths
Whispers from everywhere
Beyond Intellectual Meddling
Who made you? Who made your brain? Who controls your heartbeat, breathing and digestion?
You yourself, and the natural world, ‘grew’. The eastern mind appreciates this and thus thinks that it is odd to ask how you or the world was ‘made’.
The western mind tends to think of the world as a machine made by a maker. The eastern mind tends to think of it as an organism which grows and develops based on ancient and time tested patterns of internal and spontaneous self organization and regulation.
In Taoism there is the idea of Wu-wei which might be translated as non-making, non-action or non-meddling.
The main cause of suffering in individuals and empires is when the rational intellect decides that the illusory self has private ends to serve. Suffering ends when individuals and empires have learned to graciously accept and follow the ancient and time tested patterns of self regulation. To the Christian, this would mean letting God’s Will be done.
There follows four different translations of chapter 48 of the Taoist Classic, the Tao te Ching.
| To win the world one must renounce all. If one still has private ends to serve, one will never be able to win the world. (J C H Wu) | The realm can only be attained if one remains free of busy-ness.The busy are not fit to attain the realm. (R Wilhelm) |
| It is always through not meddling that the empire is won. Should you meddle, then you are not equal to the task of winning the empire.(D C Lau) | The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering. (Feng and English) |