Two anomalies.

[the_crow]

Discovering taoism, via tao te ching, I was excited to realize I had always known these things, in this particular way.
But there were two things that stood out as incomprehensible:
The tao is older than God.
And:
Hmmm. I've temporarily forgotten what the second one was.

It took some time for the first statement to clarify itself to me.
Has anyone else stumbled over this one?

[the_crow]

Ah yes: the second anomaly was:
The master's mind is so empty, he is like a fool.

How could he be The Master, and yet be a fool?
That was difficult to get my head around, until I stopped using my head to get around it. Which was the whole point.

[psychoslice]

yes one who is Awakened does seem like a fool to those who ain't.

[the_crow]

Boy, I sure didn't feel awakened today, at 11:00 a.m.
Antihistamines can sure sent you right back into dopeyland.

I wonder if The Master ever suffered from allergies?

[wstein]

Originally Posted by the_crow

Ah yes: the second anomaly was:
The master's mind is so empty, he is like a fool.

Another way to look at this is the Master does not have preconceptions or conditioning (from the past). He assumes nothing, only acts on what is. The fool of course can't do other than act in the 'now'.

[the_crow]

I have found it to be very helpful to become a fool:
http://taoteachings.blogspot.ca/

"The thing about smart f***ers is they usually seem like crazy f***ers to dumb f***ers." Something my spouse is often quoting to me when I worry too much about sounding crazy. Not sure where she got it from.

Also there's the quintessential Socrates quote. "I know nothing." And because he could admit that he knew nothing, the Oracle considered him the wisest man in the world.

[the_crow]

Knowing nothing is an ironic state.
Of course, anyone knows a great many things.
But one may choose to view what one knows, as books left on a bookshelf, and live life first-hand, perceiving reality directly.
I first noticed this while watching a crow, by a pond.
It was inseparable from its environment.
People often say crows are intelligent, and they may be, but they have something far more effective than whatever it is that humans refer to when they use that term.

[Arcturus]

krishnamurti, considered by many to be a master, was often thought of as slow minded. he was beaten almost daily at school because he couldn't learn or remember anything and even leadbeater, his theosophical teacher, slapped his face because his mouth was always agape. during lessons he would walk to the window and stare at nature. strange it seems he was born this way, unable to think thoughts unless for purely practical purposes. many years later the teacher attended a talk given by K and was dumbstruck that it was the same person and even made some attempt at appologizing for beating him as a child.

a person who is awake, apparently, lives in constant state of amazement...which might look strange to others.

[the_crow]

I've always been handicapped by an overactive mind and a ridiculously stratospheric IQ. In retrospect, it was awful.
I was around 40 before I finally succeeded in stopping the machine, and finding peace.
Now my mind thinks only when required, as a problem-solving tool.
Instead of being an automatic, problem-creating robot.