Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 7 — Selfless Endurance
Heaven and earth endure because they do not live for themselves
The sage puts the self last and so the self comes first; treats the body as outside and so the body is preserved. Through selflessness, self is fulfilled.
Source context
- Theme
- self-effacement of the sage as condition for enduring presence and universal service
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta / Bhagavad GitaThe Gita's teaching on nishkama karma — acting without attachment to personal results — exhibits cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 7's principle that the sage, by placing self last, endures and accomplishes what the self-seeking cannot.
- Christian mysticism / kenosisThe Pauline and Eckhartian concept of kenosis — self-emptying as the condition for divine indwelling — exhibits cross-tradition congruence with the Tao Te Ching's claim that heaven and earth last long precisely because they do not live for themselves.
- Aristotelian ethicsAristotle's account of the magnanimous person, who acts for the common good rather than private advantage and thereby attains the highest honour, exhibits partial structural congruence with Chapter 7's paradox of self-subordination yielding pre-eminence.
Chapter 7
Heaven is long-enduring and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves. This is how they are able to continue and endure.
Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. Is it not because he has no personal and private ends, that therefore such ends are realised?