Chen Wu said to Sune-shu Au, `Lord, you were prime minister three times and took no pride in it; three times you were removed from this position and did not show disappointment. In the past I did not quite trust you, but now I see how regularly and calmly your breath passes through your nostrils. How can you thus control your mind?’
To this Sune-shu Au replied, `Wherein did I excel others? When I was elected to the office, I thought it ought not to be refused. When the office was taken away from me, I thought it ought not to be retained. I considered that the fact of receiving or losing did not make me what I am, so there was no reason for disappointment; that was all. Wherein did I excel others? And besides, I did not know whether the honour was meant for my high position or for my person. If it devolved on my position, it was not meant for me. If it was for me, it had nothing to do with my position. Beset as I was with these uncertainties, and all things considered, I had no way of discerning whether people had high or low regard for me’.
When Chung Ni heard about this he said, ‘Not even the greatest sage could completely describe the true human beings of old, who could be neither tempted to extravagance by the most beautiful things nor overpowered by the most dangerous criminal. Neither Emperor Fu Hi, nor Huang Ti could compel them to friendship. Their deepest selves could be affected neither by life nor by death, even though both are important events, and even less could rank or gain affect them. With such a nature, they could pass through the Thai Mountain without obstruction, plunge into the deepest pool without getting wet, and occupy the lowest, most insignificant position without being humiliated. Theirs was the plenitude of heaven and earth. The more they gave to others, the more they had left for themselves.
This quotation from the works of Chuang Tzu deals with the ups and downs of fortune that so often occur in the lives of dialectical human beings and can so completely alter their circumstances.
The hero of the story seems to be someone who is engaged in the process of soul rebirth. His sublimity of soul kept him from exulting when he became prime minister, and from feeling disappointed when he had to relinquish the position. He carried out his social obligations and stepped down from his office when the time had come. His inner task was not in any way affected by all this. `I considered; he said, ‘that receiving or losing did not make me what I am, and that there was no reason for showing disappointment; that was all:
Indeed, he had risen above the vicissitudes of fortune and accepted each situation as it presented itself from day to day, and his soul’s serenity remained undisturbed.
But let us now consider the situation of a person whose state of being does not allow him to rise above the vicissitudes of fortune, but who is fully involved in it and party to it. If such a person were to adopt an attitude similar to that of the ex-prime minister it would simply be a lie, an act, and not at all in keeping with the reality.
As long as the heart is not yet cleansed of its impurities, and tranquillity cannot yet prevail in the soul, the ups and downs of experience carve deep grooves in our lives, sometimes striking us like hammer blows.
Now in a situation like this, can one say, ‘I don’t care. I’m above all that. It leaves me cold. Not so much as my little finger is going to react?? Decidedly not! And if a per-son does, it proves either that he has not understood, or that he does not want to understand anything about the causes of his experience, and refuses to accept the conse-quences. Such an attitude is proof of stupidity, or pride, or self-preservation, or a combination of the three.
If you make a mistake and the Brotherhood corrects you — and such corrections always come through experience — you ought to accept the correction with humility and thankfulness, resolving to learn the lesson and accept all its consequences. If you as yet lack the wisdom of insight, then you should ask for insight and information on the path you need to follow. In this way, the intervention in your fate will make a profound impression on your soul and the resulting chastening will contribute to the purification of your heart.
So in such situations it is still not possible to behave as the ex-prime minister did. His attitude was ennobled by the high quality of his soul. But if one were to copy this attitude without being ennobled to it, one’s behaviour would only be an imitation, a pretence, from which the soul could derive no benefit. On the contrary, your be-haviour would cause the build-up of even worse tensions, leading to explosions of fate which could ultimately shat-ter you, possibly to such an extent that for some time to come you would no longer have a spark of energy left for any worthwhile advancement on the path.
Every pupil is occasionally inclined to imitate the teach-ings given to him by the School, and so can easily delude himself into believing that he has long since `arrived. But the holy language always gives strong warnings against such behaviour.
In the story about Sune-shu Au he says that a person who is engaged in the process of soul-rebirth is immune from danger, ‘and cannot be overpowered by the most dangerous criminal’. But one needs to remember, also, that if, for whatever reason, one’s pupilship is only an imi-tation, one will be liable to fall prey to the first criminal encountered. These are facts you need to face, accepting that you still have much to learn from experience, and be-having in a way which reflects that acceptance.
Having read this, it may be that fear is disturbing your soul, for you may be thinking that ‘as long as I have not overcome all the impurities of my soul and therefore have a great deal to learn from experience, I will remain vulnerable to by all kinds of depredations; to attacks from the reflection sphere, for instance:
But that doesn’t need to happen at all! If you begin to walk the path and obey the law of the Kingdom in all humility, profoundly aware of your weakness, then your weakness will be neutralised, enfolded, in the strength of the Gnosis. If, in the distress of your experience, you reach out for help, your hand will be grasped.
However, if someone says, ‘I will act as if I do not need help, he will not evoke the experience of help, but rather the experience of downfall.
Let us use the story of Sune-shu Au to deepen our insight!