21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

also a response to the joy in others. Joy is found in relationship — either relationship with other embodied persons, or with nature. There is beauty in such interactions — indeed beauty is the highest aim as it embraces both compassion and love. Also, the idea of embodiment is critical. If we were only to relate as minds, then we would be back to the problems examined in the previous chapter. We would only have the idea of love rather than actual interaction. We are so caught up in this representation of experience, that the reality of embodiment, the actual experience of joy, gets immediately translated into a thought process. As such, it enters the ever-receding horizon of signifiers that our language has constructed and it is lost. It is so difficult, almost impossibly difficult, for us to grasp the reality of this crucial difference between being totally at one with our actions and representing our actions as examples in reference to an external truth. Eastern thought however, has long since understood this point. The passage below from the Tao will seem obscure from our Western perspective, but illustrates very well the way in which we lose ourselves when we try to quantify action:

‘The person of superior integrity takes no action,

Nor has he a purpose for acting.

The person of superior humaneness takes action,

But has no purpose for acting.

The person of superior righteousness takes action,

And has a purpose for acting.

The person of superior etiquette takes action, But others do not respond to him;

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