列子去齐国却半道折返！路上他遇到伯昏瞀mào人，问他为什么回来了。
列子说：“吓到了。”
“被什么吓到了？”老人家问。
“我去十家饭馆吃饭，有五家优先服务并馈赠于我。”
“当一个人的内在不够整合，有时有些东西就会自内而外泄漏变成一种光晕，向外压服人心，以使他人来荣耀自己，使自己的光环甚至超过年长者和贤德者，由此带来祸患。”
“小店老板唯一的动机就是卖掉他的米汤，提升收益。小本生意，能左右他的考量也是微乎其微的。如果只是得到这么一点好处都如此抬举我，那么作为日理万机、殚精竭虑的一国之主，万乘之君又当如何？他将指派我官职要我效力，因此而心生恐慌”。
“了不起的洞见！但就算你独善其身，别人也会将责任加之于汝。”老人说。
不久之后，伯昏瞀人来看望列子，看见列子的门廊上摆满了拜访者的鞋子。伯昏瞀人面北而立，脸靠在拐杖上，挤出一脸老褶zhě。站了一会，一言不发地走了。守门人告诉了列子。列子光着脚手里拎着鞋跑出来，在大门口追上他。他说：“先生既然来了，难道没有任何药石之言来启发教导我吗？”
“算了！我确定地跟你讲过，别人会把责任丢到你身上，果然如此。并不是你有能力让他们这么做，而是你没有能力阻止他们这么做。这对你有何意义可言？对他人的影响与你自身的内在安宁是格格不入的。如果你坚持去影响众人，你内在的本我就会被撼动，这一切毫无意义。”
存在就会错过道，错过整体。存在就是分裂，所以不存在就是大门。存在就步入了歧途，不存在就回到了家。当你不存在，神就存在。当你存在，神就不存在。这两者永远不会相逢，就其本质来说，他们无法一起存在。就像黑暗与光明不能共存一样：如果一个存在，另一个就不存在。
所以，道基本的，非常基本的教导就是在不存在中存在，佛弟子称之为ANATTA，一种无我的状态。空无，深深的空，没有人在里面......那么你就是真正的存在。而后你不存在，整体存在。当你开始以为自己是一个分裂的个体时，那就是部分在宣称它是整体，部分疯掉了。
小我是这个世界上唯一不正常的事，神经兮兮的，受小我之苦的人都患有神经症，因为他以为作为部分他就是整体。部分不是整体。如果树上的一片叶子开始以为“我存在”，那片叶子就疯了。
树存在，树叶只是以一个部分存在，一个有机的部分，树的一部分。哪怕认为叶子是分离的都是不可能的，树在它里面流动着，是树的能量变成了叶子。如果大海里一个波浪认为：“我是分离的，我存在”，那么浪花疯了。大海存在，所有的波浪只不过是大海的波浪。
所有的人类无非就是宇宙意识之波，我们是浪花。当你理解“我是一朵浪花”的那一刻，你就理解了你是不存在的——只有海洋存在。有时海面有波浪于是你存在，有时大海非常平静，于是你消失了。
道说：小我是唯一的障碍。所有其它的宗教说法是一样的，但道是最接近的，它的洞见最为深刻。所有的宗教都说小我必须被放下，但如果你听，如果你读，如果你看那些宗教人士所说的，你就会发现他们的洞见并不十分深刻，小我会一再一再以不同的形式出现。
关于小我，只有两个人触碰到了它的根基，那就是老子和乔达摩佛。宗教一直在说：“放下小我，无我。”但在不知不觉中，以一种微妙的方式，它们也在保护着小我。他们说：“如果放下小我，你就会变成灵性的。如果放下小我，你会在神的王国里排第一。如果放下小我，你就是天选之人。如果放下小我，另一个世界会给你巨大的回报——天堂，莫克夏。”他们一边说“放下小我”，一边在引诱你、贿赂你，扶植你的贪婪。
他们说：“你会成为特殊的人，你会成为非凡的人。”一边说着“放下小我”，一边以不同的名义强化同一个小我。“你会成为一个奇迹行者，拥有SIDDHIS——灵性力量，超自然力量。你能更深地掌控存在，你会拥有心灵感通力，能读懂别人的思想，有千里眼。”这个那个......所有瑜伽士的SIDDHIS——所有瑜伽的神奇力量......但你再次被加冕了，再次变得非常非常强大。
记住，你的存在有三个层次：身体、头脑和自我，超越这三个层次就是无我。所以小我有三种可能性来伸张它自己。要么是在身体层面——一个漂亮的身体，强壮的身体，“我有最帅的身体，最强壮的身体。”
有人是美丽的王后，世界小姐，有人是拳王阿里，最厉害的人，世界先生，小我可以在身体层面伸张它自己。如果小我在这个层面上扩张和膨胀，一个人会变得更具动物性。你们所有的摔跤手，最厉害的摔跤手，无非就是过度执著于他们的动物部分，所以当你看到世界先生的身体你可以感觉到，他看起来更像一个动物，不怎么像人。当然，他身体很强壮。他的小我以这种方式伸张它自己。他会非常有攻击性，非常野蛮，非常暴力。他会非常性，放纵，无意识，就像机器人一样，像一部机器一样，完全没有意识。它的整个人生就是：吃、喝、寻欢作乐，只活在生命的最表层，与文明和教养相背离。
他们说：“这是不好的，放下这个小我。”他们一直在教导每一个降生到这个世界上的孩子，“放下这个小我，没有攻击性，非暴力。不要做野蛮人，要友善，有同情心。”
那么小我就开始在第二个层面上伸张自己，头脑的层面。
在头脑层面它变得知识丰富，好学，爱搞钱。钱是比性更高的东西，所以他们又把全部注意力放到钱上忘记了性，他们不再对性感兴趣了。他们整个的性欲都变成金钱导向的......或者权力、政治、野心。那些成为政客的人，成为权力野心家的人，他们也能牺牲性，牺牲纵欲——所有的东西都可以牺牲掉。
第一个层面的东西都能牺牲掉，因为在第二个层面，他们需要所有可用的能量。所以他们压抑第一个层面，在第二个层面上伸张小我。所有的文明都仰赖于此。事实上，所有的文明都巧妙地利用了这一点：压抑孩子第一层面的自我，于是他就变成第二个层面上的自我主义者。他开始渴望获得大学里的金牌奖项，变得更有知识，名列前茅。他心理层面的攻击性要甚于身体层面。
你在大学里可以看到。体育生在智力发展方面是非常匮乏的，头脑非常聪明的学生身体素质不行。体育生活在第一个层次，学者在第二个层次。学者的身体是很纤弱的，从一开始就戴上了眼镜，年纪轻轻就老气横秋。在身体层面他的小我消失了。他无法战斗，但他可以辩论。现在，辩论就是他的战斗。他可以讨论，可以论证，可以找到一个更好的论点来征服和攻击。他不会成为一个摔跤手，他会成为一个法官。他透过辩论活着，透过知识活着——任何反对他的知识的言论，他都准备战斗。当然，他的战斗都是文字战，口水战。
如果你在身体层面上战斗，他会说野蛮、动物、原始；如果你在文字、语言、逻辑层面上战斗，他会说这是“文明的斗争”......但那是同一个小我在第二个层面上自我伸张。
宗教依赖于第二层面压抑的小我而存在。文明依赖于第一层面的压抑：压抑身体层面的小我，这样它就会在头脑层面伸张自己。宗教依赖于第二层面的压抑，这样小我就开始在第三个层面，自我的层面上伸张自己。所以，宗教说：知识不算什么，政治不算什么，金钱不算什么，成为一个伟大的艺术家、小说家、作家这都不算什么。那么真正的力量是什么？真正的力量是你能施展奇迹，当一个人生病，如果你触碰了他他就会康复，如果你触碰一个死去的人他就会复活，那你就有真本事。如果你能从空无中幻化出物质，真空生妙有，如果你成为一个奇迹行者，那你才是真的有东西。所以宗教压抑第二层面的小我，于是小我在第三层面上伸张自己。
道说：小我必须在所有的层面上都消失。人必须非常透彻地了解这一点，使它找不到其它的存在方式，无法在你的存在中找到另外的庇护所。当小我完全消失，它就没有办法再伸张自己，那么在一种意义上你不存在，在另一个意义上你首度存在。你不再以一个单独的个体存在，你是整体。
这就是道家真人的涵义：真人就是不存在的人。非常地似非而是。但是记住，道不教导你谦卑。如果你变得谦卑，那么小我还在继续——它会变成一个谦卑之人的小我，就隐藏在谦卑之后。所以，一个训练出来的谦卑，培养出来的谦卑是没有帮助的。那么要怎么做？
如果你问列子、庄子或老子，他们会说，什么都不做，因为无论你做什么都会创造出小我，小我因做而来。没有什么要做，人就只是去看小我的方式，看它微妙的方式、狡猾的方式，必须非常全然地看它......人必须跟随小我进入他的存在，从身体到头脑，从头脑到自我，必须去寻找并看到它所有的藏身之处。一旦你知道它所有自我伸张的可能，在那样的了解中，在那个觉知里，小我就消失了。
LIEH TZU WAS GOING TO CH'I BUT TURNED BACK HALF WAY! ON THE ROAD HE MET PO-HUN WU-JEN WHO ASKED HIM WHY HE HAD TURNED BACK.
LIEH TZU SAID 'I WAS ALARMED BY SOMETHING.'
'WHAT WAS IT?' ASKED THE OLD MAN.
'I ATE AT TEN INNS AND AT FIVE THEY SERVED ME FIRST.'
To be is to miss Tao. To be is to miss the whole. To be is to be separate, so not to be is the door. To be is going astray. Not to be is coming home. When you are not, God is. When you are, God is not. and both have never been seen together; they cannot be together by their very nature. Just as darkness and light cannot exist together: if one is, the other is not.
So the basic, the very basic teaching of Tao is to be in a state of non-being, what Buddhists call ANATTA, a state of no-self. Empty, a deep nothingness, nobody inside... then you really are. But then you are not: the whole is. The moment you start thinking about yourself as a separate individual the part is claiming to be the whole; the part has gone mad. The ego is the only insane thing in the world. The ego is neurosis, and anybody who suffers from the ego suffers from neurosis, becuase he thinks as if the part were the whole. The part is not the whole. If a leaf in the tree starts thinking 'I am', then the leaf has gone mad.
The tree is and the leaf exists only as a part, an organic part, of the tree. Even to conceive of the leaf as separate is impossible. The tree is flowing in it. It is the tree's energy that has become the leaf. If a wave in the ocean thinks 'I am separate: I am', then the wave has gone mad. The ocean is. All waves are nothing but the ocean waving.
All human beings are nothing but the universal consciousness waving. We are waves. The moment you understand 'I am a wave' that means you have understood you are not -- only the ocean is. Sometimes the ocean waves and you are, and sometimes the ocean remains silent and you disappear.
Tao says: The ego is the only barrier. All other religions say the same, but Tao goes deepest in its approach; its insight is the greatest. All religions say that the ego has to be dropped, but if you listen, if you read, if you look into those religious people, you will find that their insight is not very deep and the ego comes up in different forms again and again.
About the ego only two persons have touched the very substratum and these two persons are Lao Tzu and Gautam Buddha. Religions go on saying 'Drop the ego. Be egoless', but in a subtle way, somehow, they go on protecting it too. They say 'If you drop the ego, you will become spiritual. If you drop the ego you will be the first in the kingdom of God. If you drop the ego you will be the chosen one. If you drop the ego great is going to be the pay-off in the other world -- the heaven, the paradise, MOKSHA.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they persuade you, they bribe you, they buttress your greed. They say 'You will be special. You will be extraordinary.' On the one hand they say 'Drop the ego', on the other hand they go on strengthening the same ego under different names. 'You will become a miracle man. You will have SIDDHIS -- you will have spiritual powers, occult forces. You will be able to manipulate the existence more deeply. You will become telepathic. You will be able to read others' minds. You will be clairvoyant. This and that... all the SIDDHIS of the yogis -- all the miraculous powers of Yoga.... But again you are decorated, again you become very, very strong.
Remember, there are three layers of your being: the body, the mind, and the self. And beyond the three is your no-self. And so there are three possibilities for the ego to assert itself. Either it asserts itself on the layer of body -- a beautiful body, a strong body, 'I have the most handsome body, the most powerful body.'
Somebody is a beauty queen, a Miss Universe, and somebody is Mohammed Ali, the greatest man, Mr Universe. On the layer of the body the ego can assert itself. If the ego asserts itself on the layer of the body one becomes animalistic. All your wrestlers, great wrestlers, are nothing but too attached to their animal part, so that when you see the body of a Mr Universe you can feel it; he looks more like an animal than like a human being. Certainly he is very strong physically. His ego is asserting itself on that path. He will be very aggressive, brutal, violent. He will be very sexual, indulgent, unconscious. He will move like a robot, like a machine. He will not have any consciousness whatsoever. His whole life will be: Eat, drink and be merry. He will live on the very superficial layer of his life. Civilisations are against it, cultures are against it.
They say 'This is not good. Drop this ego.' They go on teaching to every child who is born on this earth 'Drop this ego. Become non-aggressive, become non-violent. Don't be brutal, have kindness, sympathy.'
Then ego starts asserting itself on another level, the level of the mind.
At the mind level it becomes knowledge, knowledgeability, money. Money is a higher thing than sexuality, so those people who become interested in money forget all about sex; they are no more interested in sex. Their whole sexuality becomes money- oriented... or power, politics, ambition. Those people who become politicians, become ambitious for power; they can also sacrifice sex, indulgence -- everything they can sacrifice.
On the first layer they can sacrifice, because on the second layer they need all the energy available. So they repress on the first layer and the ego asserts itself on the second layer. All cultures depend on this. In fact, all cultures use it as a technique: Repress the child's ego on the first layer and he will become egoistic on the second layer. Then he will start hankering for gold medals in the university, to become more knowledgeable, to come first in the university. He will start becoming more aggressive mentally than physically.
You can see it in the universities. All the students who are in sports are very poor as far as their mind development is concerned, and all the students whose minds are very clever and cunning are poor physically. The sportsman lives on the first layer and the scholar on the second layer. The scholar will have a delicate body, will wear glasses from the very beginning; he will be old even while he is young. On the physical level his ego has disappeared. He cannot fight, but he can argue. His fight now asserts itself as argument. He can discuss and debate; he has found a finer instrument to conquer and be aggressive with. He will not become a wrestler, he will become a lawyer. He will live through argument, through his knowledge -- say anything against his knowledge and he is ready to fight. Of course his fight will be of words, verbal.
If you fight with the body he will call it brutal, animalistic, primitive; if you fight on the level of words and language and logic he will say that this is 'civilised fight'... but the same ego is asserting itself on the second layer.
Religions depend on repressing this second layer of ego. Civilisation depends on the first repression: repress the ego on the body level so that it asserts itself on the mind level. Religions depend on repressing on the second level so that the ego starts asserting itself on the third level, the level of the self. So religions say: Knowledge is nothing, politics is nothing, money is nothing, to become a great artist is nothing, to become a great novelist, writer, is nothing. Then what is real power? Real power is SIDDHI. If you can do miracles, if you touch a man and he is healed when he was ill, and if you touch a dead body and the dead body is resurrected, then you have something. If you can produce things out of nothing, if you become a miracle man, then you have something. So religions repress the ego on the second layer, then the ego asserts itself on the third layer.
Tao says: The ego has to disappear from all the layers. One has to understand it so totally that it cannot find another way for its existence, so that it cannot find another shelter in your being. When ego disappears completely and there is no way for it to assert itself then YOU ARE NOT in one sense and YOU ARE, for the first time, in another sense. You are not as an individual any more, you are the whole.
This is the meaning of a holy man in Taoism: A holy man is one who is not. Very paradoxical. And remember, Tao does not teach you to become humble. If you become humble the ego will continue -- it will become the ego of the humble person, it will hide behind humbleness. So a practised humbleness, a cultivated humbleness, is not going to help. Then what is to be done?
If you ask Lieh Tzu, Chuang Tzu or Lao Tzu, they will say that nothing has to be done because whatsoever you do will create the ego; ego is created out of doing. Nothing is to be done. One has just to see the ways of the ego, the subtle ways of the ego, the cunning ways of the ego; one has to see them so totally.... One has to follow the ego into one's being from body to mind, from mind to self, one has to seek and see all the hideouts. Once you have known all the possibilities of ego-assertion, in that very understanding, in that very awareness, ego disappears.
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@所谓爱：也许1%是爱，但99%是嫉妒、控制的自我之旅，这种爱带你下地狱，而选择性只会使你成为健康动物
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