saints and rockets

Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
What difference between success and failure?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

Other people have what they need;
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.

Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp,
I alone am dull.

Other people have a purpose;
I alone don't know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.

I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother's breasts.
-- Stephen Mitchell, Chapter 20, Tao Te Ching

"What is a saint?" I asked Jesus.

"A rocket is essentially propulsion and expansion," he said. "As a rocket, so a saint."

I was puzzled.

"Your expansion depends on your fuel that propels you," said Lao Tzu.

"A moment ago, you were fueled by a desire for a piece of cherry pie," he continued. "That desire produced a certain expansion of awareness."

"A limited expansion," said Jesus. "A small cherry pie aura."

"What are you fueled by?" I asked.

"Our Source, our Origin, our Father," said Jesus.

"The Tao, the Path, the Way, our Mother," said Lao Tzu.

"I call it the Wellspring," I said.

"That's okay. The name is not It," said Lao Tzu.

"When propelled by the Infinite, our expansion is Infinite," said Jesus.

I said, "That's what you mean by 'I and my Father are one.' "

"You got it," said Jesus.

Lao Tzu began singing "Dancing With The Tao" and whirling and cavorting like a child released from school.