Tao Te Ching: Fourth Chapter
Tao-te Ching
Chapter Four
Tao is empty (like a bowl).
It may be used but its capacity is never exhausted.
It is bottomless, perhaps the ancestor of all things.
It blunts its sharpness,
It unties its tangles.
It softens its light.
It becomes one with the dusty world.
Deep and still, it appears to exist forever.
I do not know whose son it is.
It seems to have existed before the Lord.
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As I understand it:
Tao is invisible. Yet, it is deep within us and around us. It links us to what is “more than” us – infinite awareness. It untangles the knots and smoothens sharp edges of life. And it includes dust as well as diamonds.
We must remain aware of Tao and make those we love and those less fortunate aware of it. Tao within us has limitless creative potential.
If we’re aligned with Tao, if our minds are clear, the thoughts of well-being will become benevolent actions.
When we have a dilemma, a problem or a worrisome situation, and we listen to our infinite self, the Tao, we’ll come up with a satisfactory solution.
Tao was there from the very beginning — even before the Gods of the world’s religions emerged. It is and will always be. In order to live an inspired life we must work in co-operation with our innermost self, the Tao.
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Suggested Readings:
Lao Tzu, The Way of Lao Tzu, tr. Wing-Tsit Chan, The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. 1963.
Dyer, Wayne W., Change Your Thoughts – Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of Tao. Hay House, Inc. 2007.