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Main Index
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water becomes, for more slush rises to the surface, making the water more dirty. If Lao Tzu happens to pass by, he would tell him, "Friend, come out! That which you try to purify, becomes impure, for you yourself are impure. Please come out. Leave the water alone. Sit on the shore, the water will purify itself. You leave all efforts for they are dangerous -- one and all!"
The Path on which sick people walk, cannot be the enduring path.
Also remember, it is only the sick who walk. Those who reach, those who are purified, who have known, they stop. For then there is no question of walking. In truth, we roam only because some desire goads us on. All desires are unholy. Even the desire of attaining God is unholy. The desire to attain liberation also is not without its stink. Actually wherever there are desires, the mind becomes ugly. A mind full of desire, is a mind filled with tension. Where there is the urge to reach; where there is the eagerness, the expectancy, there is born the madness of wandering. And then all sicknesses gather together.
Lao Tzu says: "THE PATH THAT CAN BE TRODDEN IS NOT THE ENDURING NOR THE UNCHANGING PATH." Is there then, such a path which cannot be trodden? Is there a path on which one does not walk and on which one can only stand? Can there be a path for standing alone? This appears contradictory. Roads are meant for walking and not merely to stand! But Tao is the name of that Path which does not reach you by walking on it; rather it reaches you by halting on it. Because by halting on it people have reached their destination, it is called a Path. Man keeps roaming and running on the roads of the corporeal world and they reach him nowhere. Therefore, these roads, in fact, are roads only in name. They are not the Path.
The second part of the statement is: The name that can be memorised cannot be the enduring and the unchanging Tao. The name which can be named, that can be recollected, that can be expressed in words, cannot be the authentic name. It cannot be the enduring, everlasting name which cannot be conquered by Time. Understand this further:
We give a name to every thing. It is convenient for human transactions,
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