Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 35 — Holding the Great Image
The Tao's flavor is bland, almost tasteless
Hold the great image (dà xiàng) and the world will come. They come and suffer no harm; great peace prevails. Music and food make the passer-by stop. The Tao spoken — bland, without flavor — yet inexhaustible in use.
Source context
- Theme
- the great image as inexhaustible attractor: those who hold the formless draw all beings to themselves without harm
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta / Upanishadic traditionThe Upanishadic concept of Brahman as the self-luminous, attribute-free ground that all beings seek without exhausting it shows structural congruence with the Tao as the formless great image that nourishes without diminishing.
- Neoplatonism / PlotinusPlotinus's account of the One as an inexhaustible source toward which all souls are drawn by eros, without the One suffering any depletion, mirrors the chapter's teaching that the holder of the great image sustains universal attraction without harm.
- Sufi metaphysics / Ibn ArabiIbn Arabi's doctrine of the Divine Essence as the hidden reality whose self-disclosure draws created beings without limit shows cross-tradition congruence with the Tao's inexhaustible availability to those who approach it.
Chapter 35
To him who holds in his hands the Great Image (of the invisible Tao), the whole world repairs. Men resort to him, and receive no hurt, but (find) rest, peace, and the feeling of ease.
Music and dainties will make the passing guest stop (for a time). But though the Tao as it comes from the mouth, seems insipid and has no flavour, though it seems not worth being looked at or listened to, the use of it is inexhaustible.