Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 23 — Sparing Speech
A whirlwind does not last a morning
Nature uses few words. A whirlwind cannot last; a rainstorm cannot last. He who follows the Tao becomes one with the Tao; he who loses it becomes one with loss.
Source context
- Theme
- alignment with the natural order through sparse speech, yielding action, and identity with the Tao
- Soul-faculty
- Sentient Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta — mauna (silence) and karma-yogaThe injunction toward sparse speech and effortless action finds cross-tradition congruence with Vedantic mauna (disciplined silence) and the Bhagavad Gita's teaching that action performed without personal agency aligns the individual with Brahman.
- Stoic philosophy — logos and sympatheiaChapter 23's premise that the one who is of the Tao is received by the Tao exhibits cross-tradition congruence with Stoic sympatheia, wherein the rational soul participates in the logos precisely by conforming to rather than resisting universal order.
- Sufi doctrine — fana and tawakkulThe dissolution of personal will into the ground of being described in Chapter 23 shows cross-tradition congruence with the Sufi station of tawakkul (radical trust/reliance) culminating in fana, the annihilation of the ego-self in the divine.
Chapter 23
Abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying the spontaneity of his nature. A violent wind does not last for a whole morning; a sudden rain does not last for the whole day. To whom is it that these (two) things are owing? To Heaven and Earth. If Heaven and Earth cannot make such (spasmodic) actings last long, how much less can man!
Therefore when one is making the Tao his business, those who are also pursuing it, agree with him in it, and those who are making the manifestation of its course their object agree with him in that; while even those who are failing in both these things agree with him where they fail.
Hence, those with whom he agrees as to the Tao have the happiness of attaining to it; those with whom he agrees as to its manifestation have the happiness of attaining to it; and those with whom he agrees in their failure have also the happiness of attaining (to the Tao). (But) when there is not faith sufficient (on his part), a want of faith (in him) ensues (on the part of the others).