"Tao is neither a belief nor a disbelief but the dropping of all beliefs and disbeliefs. When you drop all beliefs and disbeliefs and you are immediate, in contact with life, a trust arises, a great 'yes' arises in your being. That 'yes' transforms, transforms totally.

"So the first thing you ask: 'Can one believe in Tao…?' No, it is not a belief. Don't approach through the door of belief otherwise you will reach into a philosophy, into a religion, into a church, into a dogma, but you will never reach into life. Life simply is. It is not a doctrine preached by somebody. Life is simply there all around you within and without. Once you don't look through words, concepts, verbalizations, it reveals to you; everything becomes so crystal clear, so transparent. In that transparency you are not separate from it; how can you believe in it or disbelieve in it? You are it. That is the way of Tao: to become Tao.

"The second thing: 'Can one believe in Tao, not interfering with other people's lives…?' Once you have stopped interfering with your own life, you have stopped interfering with others' lives. If you continue to interfere with your own life, you are bound to interfere with others' lives. That is just a reflection, that is just a shadow. Stop interfering with your own life, then suddenly all interference disappears because that is absurd. Life is already going where it needs to go, why interfere?

"The river is already flowing towards the ocean, why interfere? Why direct it? If you start directing the river, you kill it – it becomes a channel. Then it is no more a river, then the life has disappeared, then it is a prisoner. Then you can force it anywhere you want to take it, but there will be no song and no dance; it will be carrying a corpse. The river was alive, the channel is dead. The channel is just a river for the name's sake. It is not a river, because to be a river means to be free, to flow, to seek, to follow one's own intrinsic nature. Not being directed, not being pulled and pushed, not being manipulated, is the very quality of being a river."