Posts Tagged ‘Namaste’
You Are the Wisdom You Seek
Wednesday, February 16th, 2011
Throw away holiness and wisdom, and people will be a hundred times happier. ~Tao Te Ching
In her book, A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are, Byron Katie brings together self-inquiry (The Work) and the teachings of the Tao. Each chapter takes excerpts from that ancient text as a means for Katie to talk about some essential issues such as life and death, love, work, and getting out of our own way.
I am re-reading this book (actually I am re-re-re-re-re-re-reading this book). In the chapter referring to above Tao text, Katie writes, “You are the wisdom you’re seeking, and inquiry is a way to make that wisdom available whenever you want. My experience is that there’s no one with more or with less freedom. We all have it equally.”
Katie continues by telling a story:
God’s will and your will are the same, whether you notice it or not. There’s no mistake in the universe. It’s not possible to have the concept “mistake” unless you’re comparing what is with what isn’t. Without the story in mind, it’s all perfect. No mistake. Strangers used to hear about me and show up at my front door (this was in 1986), and some of them would put their palms together and bow and say, “Namaste.” I had never heard this before – people don’t say “Namaste” in Barstow, the little desert town where I lived. So I thought they were saying, “No mistake.” I was thrilled that the people coming to my door were so wise. “No mistake. No mistake.”
Namaste – No mistake,
Mary Anne