higher than matter and mind
Out of your awareness you cannot become soldiers in a war because you will be able to see, with clear eyes, that you are going to kill people -- people who have done no harm to you personally, people just like you. They have their children, their wives, their mothers, their old fathers to take care of -- and you are killing the person just to get a gold medal. Your gun will slip out of your hand, and that will be an act of awareness. And you will feel tremendously blissful that it happened; even if you are being shot your death will be a glory, a peace, an adventure, a journey into a new world. All dualities are part of the materialist world, part of the mind of man. But unless you get a little higher than matter and mind -- which is again a duality... So Taoism doesn't teach materialism, Taoism doesn't teach spiritualism. Taoism teaches a synthesis, something which is higher than both and which has no opposite to it. And this is the criterion: if you reach to a quality which has no opposite to it, then you can be certain you have attained something in your life. Traditional gurus everywhere are against progress. The reason is that every progressive statement, every new discovery challenges their scriptures. And the problem is, even if one thing in their scriptures -- which they are calling holy, written by God himself -- is wrong, that creates great problems. That means God can write wrong things. That also means that if one statement is wrong, perhaps other statements may also be wrong. It creates suspicion -- and the traditional priests depend on faith: any doubt is dangerous. And all progress depends on doubt, all science depends on doubt. So there is no meeting ground between doubt and faith.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlI8qrwFYRw
