Master Woo Myung Writing – The Misconceptions About Dō (Tao)
Images that arise in the mind are all illusions. Furthermore, everything that one sees and hears is an illusion also, because they are seen and heard from within his mind. Many people want to do dō – pursue Truth – in order to become superior or to gain something. However dō is about discarding; simply put, it is about discarding all of one’s mind and body so that nothing remains. This is so that his mind can become the never-changing existence of Truth, from which he can then be reborn.
Only when the master of dō comes to the world, will there be a method to achieve dō. Such a method had not existed in the world thus far because the true existence of dō had not yet come to the world. People frequently talk about Maitreya, the Savior, Jung-do-ryung, or the Great Leader who will come to the world. All of these expressions and prophecies mean that the master of the world – the master of dō – will come.
People are living inside their minds, that is, they have turned against dō. Therefore, dō is discarding man’s body and mind that has turned against dō. It can also be explained by saying that it is falseness going towards Truth, and that it is falseness becoming real. It can further be said that dō is man’s mind becoming the true consciousness – the mind of the original foundation. To “achieve” dō is to come out into the true world from the illusionary world. It is harder for man who is false to achieve dō than it is for him to claw his way out from within an iron mountain. There is a Korean saying that it is harder to triumph over one’s self than it is to win a war against a million soldiers. This saying must surely refer to achieving dō.
While teaching dō, I have found that people try to achieve it while holding onto their selves. Their false selves want to have Truth, so in the end, they are still false. The stronger one’s sense of inferiority is, the more he wants to gain something by doing dō. I have often found that such people eventually become possessed. This happens because they try to achieve dō without discarding themselves. There are also cases of people who are still in their mind worlds, deluding themselves that they are in the heaven of Truth, and they claim to be born in heaven. There are still others who claim that they have come from heaven. These are all cases of people who were reborn in their mind worlds. Although they must get to the original foundation by discarding, they drift further away from this path and only add to their sins. This usually happens to those who have many sins. It happens because of their greed; and what one sees and knows from this world is seen and known by ghosts that are delusions.
When one becomes the mind of the original foundation in the original foundation, one comes to know Truth through wisdom. When one claims he sees, hears or knows something out of the ordinary, they are just voices from within himself, the ghost. This is called megalomania in modern psychiatry. When other people get caught in someone else’s megalomania, they also become patients of a joint or collective megalomania. In certain areas of world, rites are performed that invoke a spirit to enter a person who is a spiritual medium. This kind of thing is no different from cases of joint megalomania. When one claims to be able to see another world in heaven and speaks of things that are out of the ordinary, it is an effort to fulfill his greed and it is an expression of his sense of inferiority.
When people who are on the same “wavelength” as he is become caught in his demented mind – his false mind world – they speak and behave in the same way as he does, without knowing that they are also demented. Together they are in a world of shared collective megalomania, and their actions are those of ghosts who are unable to wake from a dream. Ghosts and collective ghosts are delusions.
A soul that is born into existence in the world of Truth is liberated from death, birth, aging and sickness. He is in the place of freedom; beyond desires, anger, foolishness, the five desires and seven sins. It is the place where all knowing has ceased. Sometimes, a person gets a glimpse of this world and puts an image of it inside his mind, claiming that he has received a crown or that he is the master of this world. Such a person is speaking from within his mind world. His actions are those of a ghost, a delusion, which happens because he is unable to discard himself; they are a manifestation of his sense of inferiority giving rise to a mind of greed.
God and heaven only exist in one’s mind which has become one with the world. Only then does the world that is the land of God and the original foundation exist in his mind. This world does not exist in one’s mind of delusion. Images that exist and arise in one’s mind are not the world of God, but his own false mind world. Such a person ends up dying for eternity. There is the old adage, “birds of a feather flock together”. In the same way, people suffer from a shared, collective megalomania because they are similar people who have “flocked together”. In any case, whenever somebody says that he has had a divine revelation or that he has heard something supernatural, it is all coming from within his illusionary mind world.
-Woo Myung-
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