United States or Tuvalu ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Viewing things thus," continues our Chwangtse, "you are able to comprehend and master them. So it is that to place oneself in inner relation with externals, without consciousness of their objectivity, this is Tao. But to wear out one's intellect in an obstinate adherence to the objectivity the apartness of things, not recognizing that they are all one this is called Three in the Morning.
What Toism, and especially Chwangtse as I think, did for the Chinese was to publish the syntax and vocabulary of that ancient language; to make people understand how to take these grand protagonists of Tao; how to communicate familiarly with these selfless avatars of the Most High. Listen to this: the thought is close-packed, but I think you will follow it:
In the meantime night is beginning to encircle us, and many dark Powers will be freed and resort to these inaccessible slopes. Accompany me, therefore, to my bankrupt hovel, where you will be safe until you care to resume your journey." To this agreeable proposal Chang Tao at once assented.
Three years later, at a grand durbar, the Minister descended from heaven on a white horse, and shot the King dead before the eyes of all. Traces of Mysticism. Chuang Tzu, the famous philosopher of the third and fourth centuries B.C., and exponent of the Tao of Lao Tzu, has the following allusions to God, of course as seen through Taoist glasses:
Crafty and ambitious, he is already deep in questionable ventures, and high as he carries his head at present, there will assuredly come a day when Kuo Wang will appear in public with his feet held even higher than his crown." "The rod!" exclaimed Chang Tao in astonishment. "Can it really be that one who is so invariably polite to me is not in every way immaculate?"
"Your voice is just," confessed Kai Lung, "and your harmonious ear corrects the deficiencies of my afflicted style. Admittedly in the story of Chang Tao there are here and there analogies which may be fittingly left to the imagination as the occasion should demand.
I spoke as sternly as I could, and the little man received my words with voluble protestations of extreme activity on his part. When he had bowed himself out I smiled at Miela hopelessly. "This has got to be a mighty different government before we can ever hope to accomplish anything against Tao." Tao was not worrying me for the moment.
"That is my secret; still this I will confide to you;" her whisper became scarcely audible as she added, "I shall flee!" "Whither?" gasped Say in surprise. "To the Tehuas! But, sa tao, be silent, as silent as the stone, as quiet as kohaio when in winter he is asleep. Whatever you may hear, heed it not; what you may see, do not notice.
When one quotes Chwangtse as speaking of "the delegated adaptability of God," one must remember that one has to use some English word for his totally impersonal Tao or Tien, or even Shangti, or whatever it may be.
As the seasons passed, Tao found mates along the way and left a string of his progeny behind him, and he had new masters, one after another, until he was grown old and his muzzle was turning gray. And never did one of these masters turn south with him.
Word Of The Day