The student said to Lao Tzu:
- Teacher, I have come.
“If you say that you have come,” replied Lao Tzu, “you probably have not come yet.”
The student waited a few more months and one day said:
- You were right, Teacher, - now It has come.
Lao Tzu looked at him with the greatest sympathy and love and patted him on the head:
“It’s okay now, tell me what happened.” Now I'll be happy to listen. What's happened?
The student said:
— Until the day you said: “If you say that you came, then you probably didn’t come,” I, making efforts, tried, did everything I could. The day you said, “If you say you came, you probably didn’t come,” it dawned on me. How can "I" come? “I” is a barrier, I must give way. The Tao has come,” he said. “It only came when I was gone.”
“Tell the others the situation in which this happened,” Lao Tzu asked. And the student replied:
“I can only say that I was not good, I was not bad, I was not a sinner, I was not a saint, I was neither this nor that, I was not anything when It came. I was only passivity, the deepest passivity, only a door, an opening. I didn’t even call: after all, the call would have come with my signature. I completely forgot about Him, I just sat and didn’t even strive, didn’t rush, didn’t burn. I wasn't there. And suddenly It filled me.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru