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Main Index
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mother, it connected the child with the mother. But now the child is no longer in the womb -- the mother may have died, the child has become old now what is the purpose of the navel? It has a transcendental purpose; the purpose is not in itself. You will have to look everywhere, all around, to find the indication -- where it indicates. It indicates that the man was once a child, that the child was once in the womb of a mother, that the child was connected with the mother. This is just a mark that the past has left.
As the navel shows something about the past, a parable shows something about the future. It shows that there is a possibility of growing, of being connected with existence. Right now that is only a possibility, it is not actual. If you just dissect the parable it becomes an ordinary story. If you don't dissect it but just drink the meaning of it, the poetry of it, the music of it -- forget the story and just carry the significance of it -- soon you will see that it indicates towards a future, towards something which can be but is not yet. It is transcendental.
In the West, except for Jesus' parables, nothing like Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Buddha... nothing like these people's parables exist only Jesus. And even Jesus' parables seem to be such that he must have carried them from the East. There are Aesop's parables, but they are also reflections of the greatest book of parables of the East, PANCHATANTRA. The parable is an Eastern invention, and of tremendous import.
So the first thing to be understood about Lieh Tzu: he is not a theoretician, he will not give you any theory; he will simply give you parables.
A theory can be dissected -- its meaning is in it, it has no transcendence, the meaning is immanent. A parable cannot be dissected; dissect, and it will die. The meaning is transcendental it is not in it, it is somewhere else -- it HAS to be. You have to live a parable, then you will come to its meaning. It has to become your heart, your breathing; it has to become your inner rhythm. So these parables are tremendously artistic but not mere art: great religion is contained in them.
Lieh Tzu is not a theologian either;
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