The Tao of Dark Sages - Chapter 21, Part 3

The Tao of Dark Sages
by Scott Bradley

Scott-tzu: So, the cure for my aversion? To let go of caring one way or the other about...the world?

Sue-tzu: You are the world, Scott-tzu. However it is that you relate to what you find in yourself, this is how you relate to what you find in the world. You find in yourself aversion to the methods of Grasshopper. How do you relate to this?

Being aware of it. Letting it be. Letting it go.

Do likewise with what you find in the world. Just as there is no value in fighting what you find in yourself there is no value in fighting with what you find in the world. Acceptance is the flow of the Tao.

Gabi: Tzu-tzu is the world?

Mark-tzu: Tzu-tzu? Cute. I like it! If all is One, what else could he be? And you, you are the world too, Gabi, by virtue of the non-dual nature of reality and by virtue of the fact that your world is only your perception of it. If there is famine in Africa, is this good or bad? Only your perception of it makes it so. Your concept of ‘famine’ makes it famine.

From another perspective, only one person starves at a time because only that person starves in his experience. Your discrimination of good and bad, on what basis does it stand? That humanity should not suffer? And yet, from the perspective of the elephants that have had their habitat and very existence destroyed, might famine not be the best thing possible? Are humans more valuable than elephants? I am not prepared to say so. I had an extreme environmentalist friend whose motto was: “Save Earth, pray for plague!”

From the point of view of Earth, might not the elimination of a few billion humans be a most positive blessing? So, Gabi, you are the world because all the world is One and because, on another level, the only world there is is the one you create in your own mind.

Gabi: You know, I’ve been doing the letting go, and it has been good — I feel the freedom from my self-identity sometimes, but it always comes back. I don’t know how to let go any more strongly.

Scott-tzu: To let be and let go are not to eliminate. The first are passive, the last active. Letting go is as much actionless action as anything else we do. The simple release of the grip, if it is truly letting go, has no end in mind, especially the elimination of the thing grasped. That’s what letting be is all about — acceptance of what is. If I let go of fear, having accepted that it is there, this does not mean that I will automatically be free of fear. What I have let go of is the attachment, expressed in aversion, to fear, not fear itself.

Sue-tzu: Identity and all its manifestations are really nothing more than habits. When acknowledged and left alone and without the support of emotional grasping and belief, they begin to fade with time. Their continued presence are not a burden if we have truly let them be and let them go. If you have experienced freedom than you are on the right track. These habits will fade. But that is only incidental — not purposed.

If you're interested in reading more from this series by Scott Bradley, go here.