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Main Index
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and the heaven, the height and the depth both.
And the same is true for the being of man: you have, somehow, to meet the devil and the divine both in your innermost core of being. Don't be afraid of the devil, otherwise your God will be a poorer God. A Christian or a Jewish God is very poor; the Christian or Jewish or Mohammedan God has no salt in it... tasteless, because the salt has been thrown away... the salt has become the devil. They have to become one. An organic unity exists in existence between the opposites: being and non-being, difficult and easy, long and short, high and low.
TONES AND VOICE INTERDEPEND IN HARMONY;
FRONT AND BEHIND INTERDEPEND IN COMPANY.
THEREFORE THE SAGE:
MANAGES AFFAIRS WITHOUT ACTION...
This is what Lao Tzu calls Wu Wei: the sage manages affairs without action. Three are the possibilities -- one: be in action and forget inaction. You will be a wordly man. The second possibility: drop action, move to the Himalayas and remain inactive. You will be an otherworldly man. The third possibility: live in the market but don't allow the market to live in you. Act without being active, move but remain unmoving inside.
I am talking to you and there is silence inside me -- I am talking and not-talking together. Move and don't move. Act and don't act. If inaction and action can meet, then the harmony arises. Then you become a beautiful phenomenon -- not beautiful against ugliness, but beautiful which comprehends ugliness also.
Go to a rosebush. See the flower and the thorns. Those thorns are not against the flower, they protect it. They are guards around the flower: security, safety measures. In a really beautiful person, in a really harmonious person, nothing is rejected. Rejection is against existence. Everything should be absorbed. That's the art. If you reject, that shows you are no artist. Everything should be absorbed, used. If there is a rock in the way don't try to reject it, use it as a stepping-stone.
THEREFORE THE SAGE:
MANAGES AFFAIRS WITHOUT ACTION...
He does not escape to the Himalayas. He remains in the world. He manages affairs but without any action.
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