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About the Inner Emptiness
Comment on a surprising similarity between one of Jesus' sayings and the first chapter of Lao-tzu's Tao-te ching
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Don't worry all the time about what you will wear and what you will eat. Your Heavenly Father gives you everything you need, just as He gives all their needs to plants and animals. This advice of not worrying about our day-to-day life was expounded by Jesus in the New Testament. Of course, except for the hermits, no one follows it. Even the most zealous worshippers
show no interest in rejecting the everyday life concern. On the contrary! And yet, we find elsewhere, in this case in the Taoist wisdom, a seemingly similar idea. The idea of inner emptiness, of emptying. To put it more simply, it is about getting rid of our desires in order to know the Tao, meaning the creator of the world. We find this idea explicitly in the first chapter of You must be without desire But if you do not give up the desire To be without desire means to give up all kinds of worries including what you will wear and eat, that is, the tomorrow needs. It means clearing the mind and get the stillness. It is true that the Jesus's doesn't limit itself to the everyday worries but adds a statement about feeding on the Lord's words. This statement is missing in Taoism as such. Still, understand the Tao leads one to the understanding the meaning that leads finally
to the so-called walking with the Tao. To conclude, feeding on the Lord's words may be taken to mean the same thing as walking with the Tao! I am aware of the fact that almost all religions and spiritual systems may have a statement resembling those commented above. Is this maybe a proof that all religions have a common background and ideas as if they originate from the same source?
If you want to know the depth (of the Tao).
You will not go beyond its (Tao) appearance.
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