--- In summa-scientia@..., "java_fusion" <java_fusion@...> wrote:
>
> There is one part of Chapter 19 of the Tao Te Ching we would like to
> consider:
>
> Renounce these things and never be content with outward appearances.
>
Loveday: One translation I have of the Tao says "Do away with learning, and
grief will not be known." Another translation says: "Exterminate the
sage,discard the wise, and the people will benefit a hundredfold" Both
translations are interesting.Perhaps the second is more accurate because more
political.Jesus says in the Gospel of Philip, "Ignorance is a slave. Knowledge
is freedom." What may we make of this? Carry these seemingly opposing statements
in your own hearts and think it all out in your own words. Discard the words of
others.Be a light unto yourselves. Pass on through the subtle phantasmagorias
woven by the greatest magicians. Those who can hear let them hear.When, perhaps
after a long time you have no problem with these seeming opposites and you have
your own words, you won't be wondering about any of these things. Reading Rumi
might be sufficient while you dream foolishly by a running river (especially if
translated by Coleman Barks.)

> Instead, I will show you what you need to do. See yourself in your
> original simplicity and maintain your original purity. Have little
> egoism and few desires.

Loveday: There is no statement like this in the translations I have for Chapter
19. Moreover, the Tao does not carry a tone of authoritative announcement.One
translation says,"Exhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block. Have
little thought of self and as few desires as possible." the other says 'Appear
in plainness and hold to simplicity." The Chinese don't have the mythology of
the fall. What is implied by the use of words like "purity" and "original"?
Again, give it all your own long consideration. Find you own words.
>
> Renounce these things. What things? Let us remind ourselves. In your
> everyday approach to life, as far as your contacts with other people are
> concerned, put away your wisdom and knowledge. The wisdom and knowledge
> you have received are for your own, personal use, to help you in the
> process of developing from a mortal soul into a reborn soul. And one of
> the results of that process is soul-radiation. This soul-radiation
> emanates from you independently of your will, without you thinking about
> it, and it can never be wounding, antagonizing or disagreeable to
> anybody. Your own wisdom and knowledge, however useful to you
> personally, can only be useful to others on the path if they
> specifically ask for it; if, in their soul's need, they ask you for
> that sustenance. The rest of the time, just approach others with love
> and understanding, patience and compassion, remembering your common
> humanity. In this way you will be able to bring happiness to all the
> living beings you meet.

Loveday: The difficulty with putting forward a behavioural pattern and
formulating a step by step description of a process is that there is a tendency
in humans to conform to the behavioural pattern suggested and to act out any
description. The last statement is decidedly religious. As long as we are in
manifestation we will always express aspects of fragmentation and the reality of
that which produces life because it is no longer expressing symmetry.Jesus
didn't bring people happiness. The pharisees hated Him. He even said "I come not
to bring peace but a sword." Your task is non existent. You don't need to bring
anyone anything. Others will bring you the treasure of themselves.
>
> The second thing you must renounce has to do with philanthropy and
> justice. There is a seething turmoil of countless movements, great and
> small, religious, humanitarian, political, occult and economic, all
> imploring your attention, your cooperation, your vote, your devotion.
> But you do not allow yourself to be drawn into these things, because you
> see the fruitlessness of it all, and you know that by joining in, you
> would only succeed in perpetuating the conflict. But neither do you
> react to these things with animosity, or in an unintelligent or arrogant
> way. You remain silent, and bring the offering of your soul-light.

Loveday: Nevertheless there are those who work in all sorts of areas who have
immense soul power.Who is the knower and who is known? Summa Scientia Nihil
Scire.
>
> The third thing to renounce is your cunning and acquisitiveness, for
> these characteristics are weapons used to rob what you are not entitled
> to and to steal what is not rightfully yours. You would then draw around
> yourself an atmosphere of disharmony, robbery and destruction.

One translation says: "Exterminate ingenuity,discard profit, and there will be
no more thieves and bandits." The other says:"Do away with artifice and eject
gains, and there will be no robbers and thieves." This is good advice to any
community."Be ye therefore as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves"
>
> We have explained this threefold renunciation in the past. But if you
> decide to do it, remember that you must not do it in appearance only. If
> you know that something is not good and you give it up outwardly but not
> inwardly, then it will only be a sham. Then you will just be following a
> law that has been imposed on you, or that you are imposing on yourself.
> You will be living under the law, in the old testamental phase. You will
> be submitting to the law, but there will be no new reality in your
> blood. Then you will not have put away ordinary justice, and you will be
> contenting yourself with outward appearances. The new approach to life
> only has value if you practice it from within, motivated by an urge
> which arises from the heart and is seated in the blood. If it does not,
> then it is only a sham, a pretence. Then you will be judged, just as it
> is said in chapter 18: When acumen and shrewdness appeared, great
> hypocrisy developed.
>
> You need to realize that merely keeping up outer appearances will not
> take you one step further in the Spiritual School; it will not bring you
> any closer to success. That is an important thing to remember, because
> in the ordinary world outer appearances do carry weight. And that causes
> trouble, because pretence engenders self-preservation, and
> self-preservation engenders war. The habit of pretence, of doing things
> just for the sake of appearances, is so ingrained in the blood,
> generation after generation, that there is a tendency to continue with
> it in the Spiritual School, in the process of following the path. But
> then you don't call it pretence, or hypocrisy, for those are ugly
> words. You say, "I want to do it. I'm doing my best to do it,
> and I yearn for it so much," and things like that.

Loveday" The advantage of not being in a "Spiritual School" is that one is far
less likely to fool one's self.
>
> We are not saying this because we want to insult you or put you in an
> unfavorable light, but because it is our duty to ask you, "Is the
> Gnosis a simulated value for you at this moment? Is it a value that is
> as yet outside you, but which you would very much like to possess?"
> If so, you can study the characteristics and purposes of that value and
> you can try to approximate and imitate it with the dialectical means you
> have at your disposal. But then you will be simulating pupilship, and
> that is something that is indeed done, sometimes in a very subtle way.
> But if pupilship is simulated, there is no blood-property. You need to
> demonstrate renewal, in and through your own blood-field. That is why
> Lao Tzu says in chapter 19: Instead, I will show you what you need to
> do.
>
> De Genestet, a Dutch poet, once said:
>
> From pretence, O Lord, deliver me;
> Nature and truth return to me.
>
> See yourself in your original simplicity and maintain your original
> purity. What does this mean? Certainly not the original, divine
> simplicity and purity. You cannot see that simplicity and purity in
> yourself because you, as a mortal soul, have never known that state. But
> if you approach the Spiritual School and are determined to walk the
> path, then you will need to free yourself from all the veils that
> pretence, imitation and education have formed around you and stand on
> the foundation of your true nature and state of being.

Loveday: More instructions. Do you know something? I think there was as much
pretence, imitation and occult education in the Lectorium when I was a pupil as
one would come across anywhere else in the world.The fifth sermon to the dead
says "In community there is the depth" Think carefully about what this may mean.
>
> Every human being has a particular type, a particular character, a
> certain key-note. If you understand this with self-knowledge, neither
> overrating nor underrating yourself, you will be standing in your
> original simplicity. Then you will know your own type. It is with the
> purity of that knowledge that you need to approach the Gnosis, and then
> the process of insight, yearning for salvation, self-surrender and the
> new way of life will be able to unfold very quickly! That is what you
> need to do. If you do not, then you will always run the risk of
> approaching the Gnosis with pretence, with all its consequences. See
> yourself, from day to day, in your absolute simplicity and on that
> foundation, follow the process with purity. That is what Lao Tzu means.
>
> As long as you have to live in this world, you will have material
> interests and needs to take of, and you will need to look after
> yourself. So the thing to do is to reduce your personal needs and
> material obligations to the simplest and smallest proportions. So have
> little selfishness and few desires, and let what little you do need be
> only for the fulfillment of your biological needs. Put aside pretence
> and begin your path as a pupil in simplicity and purity. Then
> group-unity – the great community of the soul – will break
> through powerfully, and in a glorious way. Leave behind everything that
> serves no purpose or hinders you.

Loveday:I would say that circumstance in Gnosis cannot be suggested or dictated.
The religious life is no doubt full of suggestion and dictation; Unquestioned
poverty, chastity and obedience is the mark of those who would renounce the
world and temporal affairs.Some Gnostic sects in antiquity used not ascetic but
orgiastic means to break through cultural and religious conditioning but this is
another subject.
>
> Cast, then away
> your burdens grey,
> tainting your blood with their decay,
> and enter freedom without delay.

Loveday:There is no excuse whatever for bad poetry or bad taste in any area.
>
> So, having immersed you yet again in the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching, we
> hope that the fruits of all these reflections will be seen in your way
> of life.

Loveday: I think the best thing one can do is to compare and contrast writers. I
have been very fortunate to have discovered writers and texts which have helped
me immensely.I hope with all my heart that all seekers after Pistis Sophia
(faith, wisdom) will find the words which resonate most truly for them and which
do not create confusion and ongoing perplexity. There are great classic texts
and wonderful modern writers and translators. There are all manner of
extraordinary people from whom you can learn a great deal without a word being
spoken. The Gnosis is not a sect or an exclusive club or one set of words. It is
not an unattainable golden carrot dangled forever out of the reach of a wretched
obtuse sinner.It is our wisdom which arises in all cultures in all sorts of
ways.When we know it, it is there.
Those whom we never suspected tell it to us and we may listen with wonder.

Loveday
>