Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 47 — Knowing Without Travel
Without going out, knowing the world
Without going out the door, one knows the world. Without looking through the window, one sees the Way of heaven. The farther one travels, the less one knows. The sage knows without going, sees without looking, accomplishes without acting.
Source context
- Theme
- inner knowing without outward travel; acting without external striving
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Advaita VedantaThe Vedantic principle of ātma-jñāna — self-knowledge as the ground of all knowing — parallels Chapter 47's teaching that the sage knows the world through inward realization rather than outward investigation.
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads I.6)Plotinus's doctrine that the soul ascends toward the One by withdrawal from exterior multiplicity exhibits cross-tradition congruence with the Taoist sage who, without journeying, comprehends the ten thousand things.
- Christian mysticism (Meister Eckhart)Eckhart's teaching that the ground of the soul (Seelengrund) contains all things without movement exhibits cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 47's image of still, non-discursive comprehension.
Chapter 47
Without going outside his door, one understands (all that takes place) under the sky; without looking out from his window, one sees the Tao of Heaven. The farther that one goes out (from himself), the less he knows.
Therefore the sages got their knowledge without travelling; gave their (right) names to things without seeing them; and accomplished their ends without any purpose of doing so.