Theos-Talk Archives (June 1994 Message tl00011)

This is by Brenda Tucker.  It is the first part of several parts.  The
speech was given in 1991 and I am rewriting from notes.

China had her Confucians and her Taoists.  Confucians circumscribe the
"Great Extreme" within a circle with a horizontal line.  Taoists place
three concentric circles beneath the great circle, and a third group,
the Sung Sages, show the "Great Extreme" in an upper circle, and Heaven
and Earth in two lower and smaller circles.

This presentation is taken from the classical work of Taoism, the TAO
TE CHING, as well as two other books from my library: THE TAO AND
MOTHER GOOSE by Robert Carter and THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER.

Of course the Tao is an Eastern term and Mother Goose is a Western
topic.  The reason we can study them together is that they both make
use of creation stories.

The story of creation is relevant both in the present and in the future
of man.  Creation is daily and constantly repeated, renewed, and
re-experienced by us all.  A million new cells are daily born.  In each
creation story the one becomes two, whether it takes the form of Light
and Darkness, Heaven and Earth, Land and Sea, or Male and Female (Yang
Yin)

In the East as well as the West, two is a lessening, a division, and a
diminishing that gives rise to a longing for the one.  Born with two is
a sense of alienation, a feeling of being irretrievably cut off from
the source.  Born also is a need for religion: something that will bind
us back to the one.  All social and governmental systems, arts,
architecture, and sciences were designed to be refections of the
heavenly order.  Most early human effort was not solely directed at
physical survival, but was influenced strongly by the need for
religion: a way to bind us back to the One.

Take as an illustration the separateness of our hands, which we join
together when we pray.  Another more eastern and less tangible analogy
is found pictured in the usefulness and beauty of desireless action or
non-action, for when there is no desire, the two hands become absorbed
and inseparable in accomplishing a common task.

In Christian prayer, an action of the heart and head, we find a linear
focus, one that is directed away from the self and outward to God.  In
Oriental tradition, a focus on the navel center (hara or belly) helps
to form a self-contained circle where the situation of the hands focus
a person downward and inward to a God within.  In both desire prevents
is what prevents successful communion with God.  Desire only exists in
the duality of object and subject.

Although desire for oneness is the highest and noblest human goal, it
is also the source of our deepest frustration and all attempts at
making the unknown known are self-defeating.

In the East there is a story about Chaos being discovered as the cause
of successful achievements by a group of followers.  They wish to repay
Chaos for their success, but Chaos has no organs of sense to
discriminate by.  They try to help their effort at repayment by each
day providing Chaos with another sense.  In so doing they now have
Chaos in their own image and while they congratulate themselves on
making retribution, Chaos dies.

Westerners show an experience of some of the same frustration, and as
Meister Eckhardt says "Christians had killed God and were worshiping
his antithesis.  To seek God by rituals is to gain the ritual and lose
God in the process, for He hides behind it." Verse 1.  Meister
Eckhardt.

If Invisible/Infinite cannot be made visible/finite, how may it ever be
approached? Well, the answer in the Tao Te Ching is this: With pairing.
Verse 1.

THE SECRET OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER, found printed in 1794 is translated
and explained by Richard Wilhelm with a commentary by Carl Jung.
Magically Lu-Tsu prefaced this book, he was thought to have lived in
800 A.D.  In the preface, he attributes the book's origin to Master
Yin-hsi of the Pass for whom Lao-Tse wrote down his Tao Te Ching.

In Jung's commentary he also provides an examination of the Western -
Eastern relationship and explains it this way.  The East creeps in
through the back door of the unconscious and strongly influences us in
perverted forms.  The West repels all unconcscious influence with
violent prejudice and shows preference to conscious, outwardly obtained
views of metaphysics as if the unconscious were a poison to the
scientific mind.

This book has been traced to wooden tablets of the 17th century, but
dates back orally to a religion of the Golden Elixir of Life developed
in the T'ang period in the end of the 8th Century.  The founder of this
religion, a Taoist adept, Lu Yen, later counted as one of the eight
immortals, has a rich store of myths concerning his life.  The sect
spread widely, but always as an esoteric and secret religion.  They
were persecuted by Manchus and government and 15,000 members were
killed.  When Taoism turned into wizardry, Lu Yen continued to stay in
line with Lao- tse's ORIGINAL ideas which were more alchemical than
magical.