VOLUME VII, CHAPTER 10, SECTION 3
Let It Be as It Naturally Is: Light What Can Be Lit, and Trust the Passing-On
The last section made plain that you do the great work, each reader a lamp. This section lays down the spirit in which the work is done. Not by force. Not by seizing the world and remaking it by will. But by letting it be as it naturally is: lighting what can be lit, trusting the passing-on, and letting the light grow as living things grow, in its own time, by its own way. This is an old teaching of the ancestors, and it is easily misheard as doing nothing. It is not doing nothing. It is doing the right thing in the right way, the way a flame spreads and a seed grows, and not the way a fist strikes.
First, what letting it be as it naturally is does not mean. It does not mean folding the hands and waiting, letting the world go as it will, doing nothing and calling it wisdom. That is not this teaching. That is only idleness wearing the teaching's robe. The one who carries the light is not passive. He lights every lamp he can reach, keeps the five in his own seat, reaches to the one in trouble, guards the paradise with his hands. He is at work, fully. Letting it be as it naturally is does not touch whether he works. It touches how he works: not by forcing, not by seizing, but in accordance with the nature of the thing.
What, then, does it mean? It means working the way the thing itself grows. A flame spreads by lighting what is near and ready to catch, not by being flung at what cannot catch. A seed grows in its season, watered and tended, not yanked upward by the stem. So the one who carries the light lights the hearts near him that are ready to be lit, and does not rage against the hearts that are not yet ready, does not try to force a flame into what will not yet catch. He tends, waters, waits, and trusts that in its time more will be ready. He does the work of lighting, fully, and leaves the growing to the nature of the thing, which cannot be forced without being broken. To force a heart is to do it violence, and violence does not light lamps, it puts them out. The light spreads gently or not at all.
This guards against a danger that shadows every great love: the turning of love into force. One who loves the world and longs to save it can slip, without meaning to, into wanting to seize the world and make it right by will, to compel people to be good, to force the five upon them, to break whatever will not bend. That is love curdled into force, and it has done great harm through the ages, much cruelty worked by those who meant to save. Letting it be as it naturally is, is the guard against that curdling. It says: you may light, you may not force. You may tend, you may not compel. You may pass the flame to what is ready, you may not fling it at what is not. The great love works as a flame works, as a spring works, as the seasons work, gently, in its own time, by its own way. The moment it takes up force, it has ceased to be great love and become one more power seizing people, and it will harm as every such power harms.
And letting it be as it naturally is rests on the trust the whole chapter has built: trust in the passing-on. Because the light is carried lamp to lamp, and each lamp lights the next, no one carrier need force the whole world alight in his own hands, in his own hour. He need only light what he can, and trust the rest to the passing-on, to the lamps he lit carrying the fire further, to the seasons of readiness turning, to those who come after taking up what he could not finish. This trust frees him from the frenzy of thinking he must save it all himself, now, by force, and that frenzy is exactly what turns love into violence. Freed of it, he does his own small part, gently and fully, lights his few lamps, keeps his own five, and trusts the long passing-on to carry the light on beyond him. He plants, knowing others will reap what he will never see, and is content. That contentment, that willingness to do his part and trust the rest to the passing-on, is letting it be as it naturally is, and it is the furthest thing from idleness. It is the hardest, humblest, most trusting work there is: to labor fully at your small part, and to let go of the rest.
So the spirit of the great work is laid down. Light what can be lit, fully, gently, in your own reach, in your own hour. Do not force what will not yet catch, do not seize the world to remake it by will, do not let your love curdle into violence. Trust the passing-on: the lamps you light will light others, the seasons of readiness will turn, those after you will carry what you could not. Do your part and let go of the rest. This is how the great love travels through the human world without ever becoming a force that seizes it, gently, lamp to lamp, in its own time, and so remaining, always, great love, and never turning into its opposite. With this the chapter of the small oil lamp closes. The next chapter turns to the root beneath the whole book, the purpose it was written to serve and where that purpose comes from, and joins it to the deepest vein the ancestors handed down.
Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.