Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 1 — The Eternal Tao
The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao
The opening teaching: the Way as nameless source. The named is mother of the ten thousand things; the nameless is origin of heaven and earth. The two emerge together yet are differently named.
Source context
- Theme
- the unnameable origin of all things and the distinction between the named and the nameless as gateway to mystery
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta (Neti Neti doctrine)The Upanishadic method of negation (neti neti) parallels Chapter 1's insistence that the Tao which can be named is not the eternal Tao — both traditions identify the Absolute as structurally prior to any predication or conceptual name.
- Kabbalah (Ein Sof)The Kabbalistic Ein Sof, the boundless ground that precedes all divine emanation and cannot be named by any attribute, exhibits cross-tradition congruence with the unnamed Tao as the source from which named multiplicity proceeds.
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, the One)Plotinus's account of the One as utterly beyond intellect and predication — prior to Being and Nous — presents a structural parallel to the eternal Tao that exceeds any designation, with named reality emerging as secondary differentiation.
Chapter 1
The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao. The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.
(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things.
Always without desire we must be found, If its deep mystery we would sound; But if desire always within us be, Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.
Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.