Lost

Heaven and earth operate without thought or purpose, through processes which are tzu-jan, "so of themselves". Man follows the same course, through the process of growth and decay, without choosing either to be born or to die. Yet alone among the myriad things he tries to base his actions on thought and knowledge, to distinguish between benefit and harm, pose alternative courses of action, form moral and practical principles of conduct. If he wishes to return to the Way he must discard knowledge, cease to make distinctions, refuse to impose his will and his principles on nature, recover the spontaneity of the newborn child, allow his actions to be "so of themselves" like physical processes...

Man alone is uncertain of his true path.

~ from the Introduction of The Book of Lieh-Tzü: A Classic of Tao, translated by A.C. Graham ~ (Though I have bookmarked an online version of this work, I'm old-fashioned enough to like the feel of a book in my hands.)

As I came across these two passages in the Introduction -- I've listed them in reverse order as they appear in the book -- I was struck by the dramatic thesis expressed. While humankind likes to think of ourselves as the top of the food chain or the most important entity in this realm of reality, we're the ONLY creation that is lost. We're the only creation that doesn't seem intuitively to know what we're about or where we should be headed.

Every other creation -- whether it be animal, vegetable, mineral or something else -- is comfortable in its own skin and simply embraces being. Not us.

The very thing that makes us believe in our own superiority, consciousness, in reality, is our downfall. Our intellect is our chief obstacle and morality is the dam that separates us from the eternal Tao.

This is why all the great thinkers and sages of Taoism repeatedly urge us to cast a suspicious eye towards rational thinking. It's not that rationality is inherently bad; its more that the rational mind draws us away from the source. The clutter of consciousness impedes our ability to reach out into the void.

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Postscript to my previous entry, Lazy River
I wrote earlier this evening that I've learned in my life not to try to direct the river. While the aforementioned statement is true, I don't always heed the lessons learned. :)

As I sat before my computer today, I kept thinking over and over, What should I write about? The more I thought about it, the more I couldn't come up with anything. So, I mistakenly thought that, maybe, I just needed a bit of a respite. I have written quite a lot over the past month and I needed to take a break.

The problem was that I was, in fact, trying to direct the river and rivers don't like this. I was attempting to conjure up subject matter instead of allowing the subject matter to spring forth organically (as it has for most of the past month). The moment I quit trying artificially to create a spark, a spark flew. Hence, the above post.