Indian stream·Tao Te Ching·Chapter 52 — Returning to the Mother
Hold to the mother to know the children
The world has a beginning, called the Mother. Knowing the Mother, one knows the children; knowing the children and returning to the Mother — to the end of life there is no danger. Close the mouth, shut the gates — and to the end of life there is no toil.
Source context
- Theme
- return to the primordial source (Tao) as the root of all existence, with knowledge of the eternal mother grounding perception and preserving life
- Soul-faculty
- Consciousness Soul
Steiner
not engaged in the GA corpus
Cross-tradition
- Vedanta (Upanishadic tradition)The Upanishadic teaching that Brahman is the ultimate ground from which all manifestation arises and to which it returns shows cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 52's identification of the Tao as the 'mother of all things' whose recognition constitutes the highest knowledge.
- Neoplatonism (Plotinus, Enneads)Plotinus's doctrine of epistrophe — the soul's return to the One as its originating source — exhibits cross-tradition congruence with Chapter 52's movement from the manifest world back to the eternal root as the condition for imperishable insight.
- Kabbalah (Ein Sof doctrine)The Kabbalistic teaching that the ten Sefirot emanate from and must be traced back to Ein Sof (the Limitless) parallels Chapter 52's injunction to return to the beginning, treating the source as that which alone grants enduring life to what emanates from it.
Chapter 52
(The Tao) which originated all under the sky is to be considered as the mother of them all.
When the mother is found, we know what her children should be. When one knows that he is his mother's child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother that belong to him, to the end of his life he will be free from all peril.
Let him keep his mouth closed, and shut up the portals (of his nostrils), and all his life he will be exempt from laborious exertion. Let him keep his mouth open, and (spend his breath) in the promotion of his affairs, and all his life there will be no safety for him.
The perception of what is small is (the secret of clear- sightedness; the guarding of what is soft and tender is (the secret of) strength.
Who uses well his light, Reverting to its (source so) bright, Will from his body ward all blight, And hides the unchanging from men's sight.