Lao Tan said, “I was letting my mind wander in the beginning of things.”
“What does this mean?” asked Confucius. Lao Tan said, “It means to attain Perfect Beauty and wander in Perfect Happiness. He who attains Perfect Beauty and wanders in Perfect Happiness may be called the Perfect Man.”
The essence of the offering is that it be analogous to the sin, and that a man offer to God his desires and passions, for this is more acceptable than all.
One who identifies himself with his soul regards bodily transmigration of his soul at death fearlessly, like changing one cloth for another.
Behold the man who shields his family from all suffering. Has not his body become a willing vessel for affliction? Without good men to hold it up, the family house will fall when misfortune descends.
The gods and demons were rivals of each other. The demons, swollen with pride, said, “In what, pray, should we place the oblation?” And they proceeded to place it in their own mouths.
Not knowing the consequence of good and evil karmas, he is afflicted and hurt. Nevertheless, he, due to his egotism, piles up karmas and undergoes births and deaths again and again.
Devotion to God’s Name is my lamp; In this lamp is poured the oil of suffering. The light of realisation burns away this oil…Vast loads of firewood are reduced to ashes by a tiny spark of fire.
Ignorance is the failure to discriminate between permanent and impermanent, pure and impure, bliss and suffering, Self and non-Self.
In primal time, in all time, was the Creator; Nothing is real but the Eternal. Nothing shall last but the Eternal.
