{"collection":"Taoism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/tao/mt/mt32.htm","path":"tao/mt/mt32.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/tao/mt/mt32.htm","text":"The Tao Teh King: A Short Study in Comparative Religion, by C. Spurgeon Medhurst, [1905]\nI perceive that no desire can succeed which has as its objective the moulding of the state. The state possesses a divine capacity, which cannot be moulded.\nTo make is to mar; to grasp is to lose.\nThus in nature some things lead, others follow; some inspire, others expire; some are strong, some are weak; some survive, others succumb; hence, the Holy Man renounces excess, extravagance, exaltation. 1\n52:1 The Sage leaves everything to work out its own destiny \"Even should a Master\u2014a J\u00eevanmukta, one who has attained union, while still in the body, with that Higher Self\u2014cast the mantle of his power round the disciple, should be wrap him in his aura, even then, it would be of no profit, if the disciple is not ready to burst the veils of his Soul with self-effort.\n\"If the nature of the disciple does not respond of its own will, and grow of its own energy, the artificial exaltation would be not only unprofitable but even injurious. For the instant the protecting wall were removed, the reaction would sweep the unprepared neophyte off his feet.\u2026 And that is why it is so difficult for a Master to interfere with the natural growth of the disciple.\u2026 Nature must work on in her own way, and growth must proceed from within without and never from without within.\"\u2014The World-Mystery, by G. R. S. Mead, B.A., M.R.A.S., pp. 146, 147.","title":"The Tao Teh King: A Short Study in Comparative Religion: Chapter XXIX","type":"page"}