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St. Mary Lake, GNP
Photo Credit: Meena Rose
Today, we will explore the seventh Taoist observation of the way of the Ancient. Please look below for the other articles in the series.
Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the sage makes use of it,
embracing his aloneness, realizing
he is at one with the whole universe.
I am certain we all know or know of people who are perfectly at peace with their alone-ness. In some extreme cases even the breath takes by another is too loud a distraction. Yet, in their quietness and solitude, they are aware of so much more. They take notice of their environment: the plants, the animals, the insects, the weather, other people and so on.
The Ancients are a loners. They avoid unnecessary contact with people. They do not feel at home with small talk. They abhor gossip. They avoid talking too much. Most people would probably find their company dull. Not that they would mind, for they are indifferent to their own popularity.
This is a different story for the Modern Day Ancients who find themselves unable to escape a reality of ever increasing social interactions both real life and virtual. They are forced to reconcile the societal drive for headlines and newsflashes in the face of ever dwindling personal time.
The sage drifts like a cloud,
having no specific place.
Like a newborn babe before it smiles,
he does not seek to communicate.
In the eyes of those
who have more than they need,
the sage has nothing, and is a fool,
prizing only that which of the Tao is born.
The Ancients are timeless. They live outside the collective paradigms and ideologies controlling and manipulating society at any given time. They seem immune to even the subtlest efforts of indoctrination or manipulation.
The Modern Day Ancients, on the other hand, tread a fine line around the periphery of society which in many ways has become a global collective with the advent of the World Village. In many ways, the Ancients, modern day or otherwise, are able to sense each other out and, at times, do engage in discourse about insights gained from solitude and inner reflection.
The Ancients move in society without being immersed in it. They stand aloof from the conceptually fashionable. They do not become part of socially acceptable prejudices. They refuse to participate in the pretentious verbal exhibition of the latest in intellectual chic.
It is a similar challenge for the Modern Day Ancients as well. They move through society and yet need to be on guard when engaging in exhibitions of wisdom as more people reach out for answers to a lifestyle suddenly gone terribly wrong. The Modern Day Ancients who have indeed taken up the role of Teacher must do so with utmost care as those generally seek them out are at their most impressionable.
For the ordinary man it is difficult
to know the way of a sage,
perhaps because his words
are from the distant past,
and his actions naturally disposed.
Historic paradigm shifts do not unsettle the Ancients. They know that everything changes and yet nothing changes. Their perspective is timeless, vaster than any scientific dimension. For this reason the Ancients remain calm in times of upheaval. Even when humanity is losing its faith in whatever it has lately invested its faith, the Ancients remain unperturbed. They do not invest their faith in man-made concepts and therefore have no faith to lose.
This indeed holds true for the Modern Day Ancients as well. They are sometimes labelled apathetic by a society that does not see them rising to the furor of the mass during these difficult times. If those people were to have calmed themselves enough, they would see that Modern Day Ancients suffer with them as well through their boundless compassion. However, resolution is not often found by stepping into the wave of group think.
When The Ancients are left with no other choice, they will actively oppose the predominant delusions of their day, and they will do so courageously, suffering any resulting persecution with quiet dignity.
Related articles
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: So What Is An Ancient Anyways? (meenarose.com)
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: A Harmony of Paradoxes(meenarose.com)
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: Close Harmony With Nature (meenarose.com)
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: Light Traveler (meenarose.com)
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: Equanimity (meenarose.com)
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: Peaceful Warrior (meenarose.com)
- Observations of Modern Day Ancients: An Invisible Tree (2voices1song.com)
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