We’re in the information era; somehow we are better informed than before. But i always wonder “are this information makes us wiser, or are they killing us subtly and softly…?”

There was this story from ‘Dao De Jing” by LaoZi Laoshi that I would like to share here.

Once upon the time, there were two guys walking through the dessert, half way through their journey, they ran out of water. Unfortunately one of the guys was immobilized due to heat-stroke. The other healthy guy decided to leave that ‘heat-stroker’ behind to search for drinking water for his partner to drink.

The guy, who was supposed to look for water, handed over a pistol to his partner before he left, and kept reminding him that: “There are five rounds in the pistol, after I left, fire one round into the sky in every two hours, the sound of the gun fire will guide me back to you”. After that, the healthy guy left hurriedly with good faith to search for water.

The guy, suffering from heat-stroke, was lying on the dessert floor, looking at the disappearing shadow of his partner and started to wonder. Many questions went through his mind, “Could his partner able to find water…?” “Could his partner able to hear his gun shot…?” “Had his partner ever any intention to come back to save him…”

Time went by and came the evening, only one bullet was left in the pistol, but his partner was still nowhere in sight. The heat-stroked guy began to worry and frighten; and he began to believe that his partner would never come back, and soon he would be dead. He started to imagine how the Vultures circling above him would eat his flesh alive…. And his mind never stop wondering about the pain and the suffering he may need to go through before he die. Finally he could not take it any longer, he shot himself in his head with the last bullet in the pistol.

Not long after he fired the last shot, The partner, who went out to look for water, came rushing back happily, and he also brought along a team of camel transporters, but only to realize that all these efforts were only greeted by his dead partner’s body.

A dumb person would never assumed. Assumption is what the ‘intelligent’ people often do. Precisely because of this knowledge of assumption, the ‘wise guy’ died.

LaoZi believes that a leader should let his people know not just the knowledge, but also understand the principles behind these knowledge, and apply them with virtues and deep sense of personal values; only that his people will achieve the perpetual sense of belonging. He also believe that once the quest for glory, recognition, and power are diminished; all the hypocritical acts will be uncovered, the world would then be trully peaceful and harmony.

We are part of the nature; we should live in compliance and with respect to the law of nature. We must learn to revive our simple mind in order to discover our purpose in the higher calling; Simplicity is power; only we have learned the skill and knowledge of seeing a complex things in their simplest form in our thoughts, we will not be free from the ‘evil’.

Principle of things is the simplest form in the universe . if we are able to understand that, we would then understand there is no difference between what is morally right or wrong; saint or evil, decent or otherwise. Everythings happen and exist for a reason. We can be food for others and others can be food for us.

If our heart has no such differentiation, the struggles and the reactive tensions within us will cease to exist. We will then be able to live in harmony and peace with ourselves, amongst human being, and with the nature.