The Tao of Emerson (3 page)

Nature arms each man with some faculty
   which enables him to do easily
   some feat impossible to any other,
And this makes him necessary to society.

The peril of every fine faculty
   is the delight of playing with it for pride.

When the intelligent and animal souls are held together
   
in one embrace,
They can be kept from separating.
When one gives undivided attention to the vital breath
,
   
and brings it to the utmost degree of pliancy,
He can become as a tender babe.
When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights
   
of his imagination,
He can become without a flaw
.

In loving the people and ruling the state
,
   
cannot he proceed without any purposeful action?
In the opening and shutting of his gates of heaven,
   cannot he do so as a female bird?
While his intelligence reaches in every direction,
   Cannot he appear to be without knowledge?

The Tao produces all things and nourishes them;
It produces them and does not claim them as its own
.
It does all, and yet does not boast of it;
It presides over all, and yet does not control them
.
This is what is called the Mysterious Quality of the Tao
.

By yielding to the spirit which is innate
   in every man,
Canst thou silent lie?
Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like nature
   pass into the winter night’s
   extinguished mood?
Canst thou shine now, then darkle?
And being latent feel thyself no less?
Wilt thou not open thy heart to know
What rainbows teach and sunsets show?
But you must have the believing and prophetic eye.

Respect the child.
Be not too much his parent.
Trespass not on his solitude.
Have the self-command you wish to inspire.

The thirty spokes unite in the one nave;
      
but it is on the empty space
      
that the use of the wheel depends.
Clay is fashioned into vessels;
      
but it is on their empty hollowness
      
that their use depends.
Doors and windows are cut out to form an apartment;
      
but it is on the empty space within
      
that its use depends.
Therefore, what has a positive existence serves
      
for profitable adaptation,
And what has not that for actual usefulness
.

An inevitable dualism bisects nature;
If the south attracts, the north repels.

What we gain in power is lost in time.
If the good is there, so is the evil.
If the affinity, so the repulsion.
If the force, so the limitation.
All things are double, one against another.

Whilst the world is thus dual,
   so is every one of its parts.
The entire system of things
   gets represented in every particle.

Color’s five hues from th’ eyes their sight
   
will take;
Music’s five notes the ears as deaf can make;
The flavors five deprive the mouth of taste;
The chariot course, and the wild hunting waste
Make mad the mind; and objects rare and strange,
Sought for, men’s conduct will to evil change
.

Therefore the sage seeks to satisfy the craving
   
of the belly,
And not the insatiable longing of the eyes.
He puts from him the latter
,
   
and prefers to seek the former
.

As soon as leisure plays with resemblances
   for amusement,
We call its action Fancy.
Fancy relates to surfaces,
   is willful, superficial,
A play as with dolls and puppets.
Fancy surprises and amuses the idle,
   but is silent in the presence of great passion.

We must learn the homely laws of fire and water.
We must feed, wash, plant, build.
These are the ends of necessity,
   and first in the order of nature,
   the house of health and life.

Favor and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; Honor and great calamity
,
   
to be regarded as personal conditions of the same kind
.

What is meant by speaking thus of favor and disgrace?
Disgrace is being in a low position after the enjoyment of favor.
Getting that favor leads to the apprehension of losing it
,
   
and losing it leads to the fear of still greater calamity
—
This is what is meant by saying that favor and disgrace
   
would seem equally to be feared
.

And what is meant by saying that honor and great calamity
   
are to be regarded as personal conditions?
What makes me liable to great calamity is my having the body
,
   
which I call myself,
If I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me?

Therefore, he who would administer the kingdom,
Honoring it as he honors his own person
,
   
may be employed to govern it.
And he who would administer it with the love
   
which he bears to his own person may be entrusted with it
.

Blame is safer than praise.
Every sweet hath its sour, every evil its good.

Do men desire the more substantial
   and permanent grandeur of genius?
Neither has this an immunity.
He who by force of will or of thought is great
   has the charges of that eminence.
With every influx of light comes new danger.
Has he light? He must bear witness
   to that light
And always outrun that sympathy
   which gives him such keen satisfaction.

Welcome evermore to gods and men
   is the self-helping man.
For him, all doors are flung wide:
Him all tongues greet, all honors crown,
   all eyes follow with desire.

We look at it, and we do not see it, and we name it
      
the Equable.
We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it
      
the Inaudible.
We try to grasp it, and we do not get hold of it, and we name it
      
the Subtle.
With these three qualities, it cannot be made the subject
   
of description;
And hence, we blend them together and obtain The One
.

Its upper part is not bright, and its lower part is not obscure.
Ceaseless in its action, it yet cannot be named, and then
   
it again returns and becomes nothing.
This is called the Form of the Formless
,
   
and the Semblance of the Invisible;
This is called the Fleeting and Indeterminable
.

The true order of nature beholds the visible
   as proceeding from the invisible.
The rushing stream will not stop
   to be observed;
So old and so unutterable,
It is inexact and boundless.
But all the uses of nature admit of being
   summed in one.

Here about us coils forever
   the ancient enigma.
It is faithful to the cause
   whence it had its origin.
It is a perpetual effect,
A great shadow pointing always
   to the sun behind us.
How silent, how spacious, what room for all,
   yet without place to insert an atom;
It will not be dissected, nor unraveled,
   nor shown.
We learn that behind nature,
   throughout nature,
Spirit is present, one and not compound;
The history of the genesis of the old mythology
   repeats itself.

The skillful masters in old times
,
   
with a subtle and exquisite penetration
,
Comprehended its mysteries and were deep
   so as to elude men’s knowledge
.
As they were thus beyond men’s knowledge
,
I will make an effort to describe what sort
   they appeared to be
.

Shrinking looked they, like those
   
who wade through a stream in winter;
Irresolute like those who are afraid of all around them;
Grave like a guest in awe of his host;
Evanescent like ice that is melting away;
Unpretentious, like wood
   
that has not been fashioned into anything
Vacant like a valley and dull like muddy water
.

Who can make the muddy water clear?
Let it be still, and it will gradually become clear
.
Who can secure the condition of rest?
Let movement go on
,
   
and the condition of rest will gradually arise.
They who preserve this method of the Tao
   
do not wish to be full of themselves.
It is through their not being full of themselves
   
that they can afford to seem worn and not appear
      new and complete
.

In all nations there are minds which incline
   to dwell in the conception of the fundamental Unity.
The world is upheld by the veracity of great men;
They make the earth wholesome.
Those who live with them find life glad and nutritious.
What they know, they know for us.
With each new mind, a new secret of nature transpires.

Great men are then a collyrium to clear our eyes
   from egotism,
And enable us to see other people and their works.
They teach us the qualities of primary nature—
   admit us to the constitution of things.
The escape from all false ties.
Courage to be what we are
And love what is simple and beautiful.
      These are the essentials.

But true genius seeks to defend us from itself.
True genius will not impoverish,
   but will liberate and add new senses.
He is great who is what he is from nature
   and who never reminds us of others.
The hero is he who is immovably centered.

The state of vacancy should be brought to the utmost degree
,
   
and that of stillness guarded with an unwearying vigor.
All things alike go through their processes of activity,
And then we see them return to their original state.
When things in the vegetable world
   
have displayed their luxuriant growth,
We see each of them return to its root.
This returning to their root is what we call
   
the state of stillness;
And that stillness may be called a reporting
   
that they have fulfilled their appointed end
.

The report of that fulfillment is the regular, unchanging rule.
To know that unchanging rule is to be intelligent;
Not to know it leads to wild movements and evil issues.
The knowledge of that unchanging rule produces
   
a capacity and forbearance,
And that capacity and forbearance lead to a community
   
of feeling with all things.
From this community of feeling comes a kingliness of character;
And he who is king-like goes on to be heaven-like.
In that likeness to heaven, he possesses the Tao.
Possessed of the Tao, he endures long;
   and to the end
   
of his bodily life, is exempt from all danger of decay
.

Then retire and hide,
   and from the valley
Behold the mountain.
Have solitary prayer and praise.
Real action is in silent moments,
   in a thought which revises
   our entire manner of life.

Be the lowly ministers of the pure omniscience.
The sanity of man needs the poise of
   this immanent force.
His nobility needs the assurance of
   this inexhaustible power.
If he listens with insatiable ears,
   richer and greater wisdom is taught him.
He is borne away as with a flood.
His health and greatness consist
   in his being the channel
   through which heaven flows to earth.

He who knows this most, he who knows
   what sweets and virtues are in the ground,
The waters, the plants, the heavens,
And who knows how to come at these enchantments
   is the rich and royal man.

In the highest antiquity, the people
   did not know that there were rulers.
In the next age they loved them and praised them.
In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them.
Thus it was that when faith in the Tao was deficient in the rulers
,
   a want of faith in them ensued in the people
.

How irresolute did those early rulers appear
,
   showing by their reticence the importance

   which they set upon their words!
Their work was done and their undertakings were successful
,
   while the people said, “We are as we are, of ourselves!”

The old statesman knows that society is fluid;
There are no such roots and centers;
But any particle may suddenly become
   the center of the movement.

The wise know that foolish legislation
   is a rope of sand,
   which perishes in the twisting;
That the state must follow, and not lead
   the character and progress of the citizen.

The appearance of character makes the state unnecessary.
The wise man is the state.

When the great Tao ceased to be observed
,
   benevolence and righteousness came into vogue
.
Then appeared wisdom and shrewdness
,
   and there ensued great hypocrisy
.

When harmony no longer prevailed
   throughout the six kinships
,
   filial sons found their manifestation;
When the states and clans fell into disorder
,
   loyal ministers appeared
.

Society gains nothing whilst a man,
   not himself renovated,
Has become tediously good in one particular
   but negligent or narrow in the rest.

Hypocrisy is the attendant of false religion.
When people imagine that others
   can be their priest,
Whenever they understand that no religion
   can do them any more good than
   they actually taste,
They have done fearing hypocrisy.