"If all on earth recognize beauty as beautiful, "in this way, ugliness is already acknowledged. "If all on earth recognize good as good, "in this way, evil is already acknowledged. "Because being and non-being are mutually generated.
"The easy and the difficult complement each other. "The long and the short define each other. "The high and the low coexist with each other.
"The voice and the sound marry each other. The before and the after follow each other. " There is no pen for me to give the classic example.
I'll get anything else. Here, for example, this little book. The Yellow and the Red.
Do you remember this very well-known example? Why do I perceive the red? Because it ends and starts yellow.
If the whole universe were red, would I perceive the it? No. That is, consciousness occurs in contrast.
One thing ends and another begins. In anything you think, you automatically conceive your opposite. And many times you opt for one pole and deny the other.
This was the principle of what, in Kybalion? Polarity. Everything you think, automatically you'll think its opposite.
And you'll exclude one to understand the other. Then you exclude to understand. At the time of living, you exclude too.
And you don't know why. We always exclude. Our understanding is always excluding things.
Take out what's left, then I understand. We are always dividing. Every time we conceive something limited, we are conceiving your opposite and denying your opposite.
And opting for this pole. That's what he say. This is beautiful.
What are you trying to say? This person is beautiful. The rest of us is ugly.
If I were in this room, I would already feel offended. "What do you mean? " "Only her, or him?
What about me? " "I didn't say anything. " "If so, then it means you think I'm ugly" wouldn't I think that way?
It's more or less automatic. If this is big, then the rest is small. If there was something bigger, you'd say this , not that.
Automatically you are creating a duality by giving an adjective to something. But we are always adjectivating things. Sometimes it is necessary, but sometimes it's not.
Sometimes we overstep the need to adjective. You say the stairway's to the left You had to say, otherwise I wouldn't find it. But that person is tall, short, ugly, beautiful, good, bad.
Many times we overstep the need to label things. This is called criticism. And we limit things by self-indulgence.
Without any need. This limits our ability to understand things. "What happened to you?
" After 20 years, I found out someone was not quite what you thought of her. But why did you took so long? Because you labeled her.
You labeled and got comfortable. Labeling is a terrible thing. And you label even yourself.
"I am like this. " And that's it, you don't even try to imagine that it can be otherwise. "Why?
I already know what I am. " Do you remember that famous, universal, infinite and incomparable example of "Gabriela Cravo and Canela"? "I was born like this, I grew up like this, I am still like this, I will always be like this.
" Gabriela's syndrome. That is, I defined it and that's it. I don't question anymore.
He says this is automatically in the way we label things. We generate its opposite. And we make options.
So, I remind you, this is the principle of polarity, for sure. It has its uses, but it doesn't apply everywhere and all the time. The problem's we're addicted to it.
You open your eyes and criticize the color of the ceiling. For God's sake, it's something else. .
. We always have to label things. Automatically we think "working is not good".
There is nothing that is simply necessary in our conceptions. Everything is labeled. And then we throw our feelings back and forth, in general, not very elevated, wasting an incredible amount energy in things we didn't need to judge, sometimes generating a karma of cruelty, because we judge things badly for comfort, including ourselves.
So, this is the principle of polarity. The recognition of good is the beginning of evil. This is in Genesis in the Bible.
It is the tree of discernment of good and evil. When he hadn't bitten the apple, no one thought of anything. But we bit.
One thing is good, another is bad, and so on. . .
And that's it. We left the Garden of Eden. Which is a mythical idea of unity, of totality.
Where everything is perfect and nothing is excluded. Because of the discernment of good and evil, we began to exclude a lot of things, and our world was cut in half. So, this is a myth, which is a delicate thing for us to say that a current tradition is a myth.
Because today there's prejudice against myths. The myth is very present in our life, it is very real. The myth is not a lie.
It's the myth of how we bite the apple and leave it full and empty. And now things are not absolute, they are divided. "The good for Tao is what leads us to him, without stopping on the way.
" I think it's interesting because I learn a lot from you, from the questions you ask me here, the questions you ask me on YouTube. I keep thinking about them. One day a person wrote to me and said, if evil exists, evil is within God, God is evil.
This controversy that is duality drives people crazy. Duality is a strange business, drives people crazy. I kept thinking, why does our school give us tests?
Of course, first grade, second grade, high school some of us went to college, why did they give us tests? Because if there were no tests, we would not study. Seriously, did you study without tests?
Tell me. Nobody does. I wouldn't learn anything.
When the school gave tests, then you studied. Isn't that it? But did your school invent this pedagogy?
Or is it a law of the universe that was reproduced by human pedagogy? Were the tests good or bad? At the time I faced them, they were hell.
Now they're good, because everything I've learned was because of them. So, actually, for a vision like the Taoist, there's no good and bad, there is the necessary, and the necessary is that you grow. Did it make you grow?
Cool, then! And everything gives you an opportunity to grow. Whether you take it or not, you're free to choose.
But is there anything in your life that does not allow you to grow through it? No, there isn't. If I had learned, I would've grown.
Or I learned and grew. So there is no duality, it's an artifice. The law of necessity is one.
It's pulling you up. The good for Tao is what leads in his direction. So there's nothing evil.
Everything is a possibility of growth. Through the tests we can raise to another degree. What if we don't?
We exercise our free will. So we suffer the corresponding pain of not wanting to grow. But not because there is no opportunity.
There is always. So if there is always opportunity, there is unity. We create the duality.
Of what is pleasant or unpleasant. Where is the good and the evil? Do you doubt that your son's test was good for him?
No, there's no duality, it's just one thing. What allows us to grow is always good. And everything allows us to grow.
So if we stop to reflect on a next degree, which was what Kybalion called the principle of neutrality, we already realize that we create this duality. For what pleases and displeases us. Well, and continuing.
"So is the wise man. . .
" This is another disconcerting thing within Taoism. The idea of non-action. Who reads it superficially, has the firm image that the wise man is a complete idle man.
That he does nothing throughout 81 chapters. It's "non-action, non-action, non-action. .
. " It's really non-action. Now, what is non-action?
Certainly, those who act the most in history, are the wise men. For those who believe that they existed, we are here because of them. Because this is a book written by one of them.
Philosophy existed thanks to them. We grew up because many left us signs of indication. Few or no one did so much for the history of humanity as the wise men.
But they didn't act. They didn't act within the personal perspective. Of always wanting to gain something personal with things.
For that, they didn't do anything. There is this guy who has a very unfair fame. Really unfair.
I don't know why. It must've been someone a little bored when reading. It's a man named Immanuel Kant.
You read him. Is he boring? Not at all.
Don't say that, John, don't denyme. Immanuel Kant has two wonderful concepts. Categorical imperative and hypothetical imperative.
What is the categorical imperative? I do it because I must. Hypothetical imperative: if I do this, I will gain that.
Get it? So you don't do it for itself, you do it for dessert. I eat the salad for dessert.
I'm good because Santa Claus will bring gifts. Things are never for themselves. A wise man doesn't have a hypothetical imperative.
He doesn't do things to gain anything, nor for fear of losing, because he knows he has everything. He has an identity with one. So he's not afraid of losing, nor will he gain with it.
He does things for themselves. There is an interesting thing, which is to seek this inside of you. If we seek wisdom, it is because a little piece of it is already inside of us.
Otherwise, you wouldn't be interested in it. Who likes chocolate here? You don't have to say.
Keep it hidden. I know a person who likes it a lot. I'm not saying who is it.
We wouldn't like chocolate if we had never tasted it. Someone invented this thing. You know they say it was the pre-Columbians.
Then the Belgians took it, mixed milk, put sugar, and made this hell. And today it ends our life. One day we tasted it and it was over.
The party's over, after you tasted it, it's over. So it is within our consciousness. And you want more.
You already tasted it. There is a little bit of wisdom inside of us. That's why we like it and want more.
So it is important to find this little bit. Didn't you have a day when you did something for someone and didn't want to gain anything from it? And you felt human for doing that.
And you had that feeling of duty fulfilled. You didn't do it for others to see. You didn't do it out of fear of being punished.
That moment when you were fair and felt fulfilled for it. There was no show to put on. It wasn't for the exhibition.
It was for the action itself. You were in that state of fullness. Wow!
What a tasty thing! That was the taste of chocolate. See?
You already tasted the human nature. And you want more. That's why you love wisdom, and you're a philosopher.
Welcome! It is a very interesting destiny. We already tasted it.
We had a moment when we wanted the good of people because of them. Because we are human. We didn't want nothing from it, no one was punishing us.
No awards, no paradises, no rewards, no image. Nothing! Just because I'm human.
I'm here. Someone needs me, I'll do it. If someone saw it or not, it doesn't matter.
But this gives me a state of fullness. That's chocolate, did you taste it? Forget it, you will run your whole life after it.
Whatever the personal trainers say. You will always dream of chocolate. Isn't that so?
So we tasted the human nature. And that's the wise man. He is always acting.
But he doesn't act for himself. He doesn't have a hypothetical imperative. He is not acting like: "if this, then that".
If I do this, I get such a thing. If I don't, I will be punished, I will lose something. There's no hypothetical imperative in his actions.
It is a straight action. He does it because he is human. End of story.
It is up to the human being. And this, Lao Tzu called it non-action. If you're doing it because you're human, from the point of view of the personal movement, you stand still.
You did nothing. But, however, you did everything that can be done. It's the maximum of your possibilities.
One day they sent me a little story, which I never know if it is real. Since they're beautiful, I don't care much. They become real because of that.
They asked a rabbi, why did he fear death? He said, I fear death, not because after death, someone will come to me and say, "Oh, Súcia (That was the rabbi's name), why didn't you go like Moses? " "Because I'm not Moses.
" "Why didn't you go like Maimonides? " "I'm not Maimonides. " "I'm afraid they'll come to me and ask, why didn't you go like Súcia?
" That is, yourself. Why didn't you go, if you could? And I won't know what to answer.
Why haven't you been human, when you could? I could. I could have been, why not?
Because that's the tastiest thing, the most perfect, it's the biggest chocolate on earth. And if you try it, you'll want more. So that's the idea of not acting.
"Remains in action without acting. Teaches, without saying anything. .
. " All expressions of a sage, be it thought, word, action, emotion. They're all pedagogical.
He teaches through his own example. To all beings who seek him, he does not deny himself. He is eternally in a state of service.
Remember the concept of platonic love? There comes a time when you don't think how can it serve me. But you think, how can I serve this?
He knows he came into the world to add something to the world. He is eternally in a state of transmitting what he is. He is still what he is.
But being what he is, he goes to the limit of his possibilities to add to the world. It is that old pedagogical principle that I already told you. Any being who asks you for help, you have in mind: to go up, count on me.
To go down, go on you own. You want to be wise? Count on me to the limit of my possibilities and maybe more.
But not to animalize yourself. I'm not going with you, I don't need it. I will not run after you because I want you to like me.
If you want to go up, count on me infinitely. With everything I have and shall conquer. This is a very interesting principle.
"He creates and still has nothing. "He acts and does not keep anything. "When the work is done, he does not cling to it.
And because he doesn't cling to it, he is not abandoned. " As he has nothing, selfishly speaking, he does not lose anything. What he has cannot be taken from him.
What he has is his essence. This can't be taken from him. This phrase that I've repeated many times to you.
"Nothing that is really yours can be taken from you. What he has, he cannot lose. And the things that come and go were never his.
Therefore, he does not feel a loser at any time. This is a curious phrase. You never asked me.
You are not so curious. But this phrase is from the Confessions of Saint Augustine. It is a beautiful book.
Beautiful! Once a student told me about it and I did not know it. The Confessions of Saint Augustine is really a very beautiful book.
"Nothing that is really yours can be taken from you. " "Straight action, the action for duty" When you don't act for duty, you begin to generate selfishness or karma. The action for desire, the hypothetical imperative.
The action for duty is the one that satisfies by being human. And not with what you'll gain or lose with it. This is secondary and we will see later.
Now I just want one thing, to be. And I realize myself in it. The moments you tasted it mus've been the most important of your life.
They show you that you are human. When our consciousness looks for a motivation, a deep identity, it hits this point. Look, this is what I am.
One day I did this. This proves to me that I am human. It is a pearl that we should keep in our golden box of consciousness.
"The light and the bamboo stick. " I've told you many times about tit, which is a Taoist example. Our body, our life is like a bamboo stick.
Light passes through it and comes into the world. If it is unobstructed. If it is polluted, the light enters and casts a shadow on the world.
The air enters and casts dust on the world, not pure air. The fact that man is pure of any type of selfishness makes the Tao reach the world through him. The law of the universe reaches the world through him.
What the Indian tradition called Dharman or Dharma. The law of the universe reaches the world through him. He is a digit of God.
He is an intermediary, a pontiff. But from the moment he creates any form of selfishness, of line, of limitation, he wants things to be inside and not on theoutside. Well, he obstructed it.
He put dust inside this bamboo stick.
