Spontaneity of the Third Act

Alan Watts, Don’t Force Anything

“Wu wei is based on knowledge…. at the time.

Wu wei is the art of sailing rather than the art of rowing.

So, one of the most famous sayings in the Lao Tzu book is:

‘Superior virtue has no intention to be virtuous, thus is virtuous.

Inferior virtue cannot let go of virtuosity, and thus is not virtuous.

So one could also say, the real wu wei is not intentionally wu wei and so is wu wei.

But, inferior wu wei so tries to be wu wei that it isn’t.

In other words, Wu wei is not a matter of cultivated passivity or of cultivated spontaneity because there are people who think that they are released, that they have realized that they are the Tao, as all of us in fact are, or in Vedanta terms, every one of us is the Brahman, the eternal self of the universe, beyond all description or classification or form.

And say, “Okay baby I’m that. Now I’m gonna have a ball!”

“Well, what kind of a ball do they have?

Well what they do is they look up the rules on which society runs and do the opposite. Well, that’s still running by the rules of society. It’s the mirror image in reverse. That’s not spontaneity.

You have to be able to realize that you don’t know what you really want to… until you are very quiet and it tells you.

It tells you….that you don’t know what you really want to.

It tells you….that you don’t know what you really want to.

It tells you…that you don’t know what you really want to.

Alan Watts

To know that you do not know … the verb that is the Holy Maybe,

relevant only in its’ particular time and place,

leaving only an impression of what is already passed,

leaving a longing for what is to come,

to sail again the Nameless – “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh”

“I shall become what I shall become”

A gift bestowed or not bestowed on the movements of each breath,

In time.

Author: DrRachel

Rachel Magnell, Ph.D. is studied in Counseling Psychology, Neuroscience, Jungian Depth Psychology, Hypnosis, Yoga Philosophy and Meditation.

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