October 4, 2010

32.
The Tao can’t be perceived.
Smaller than an electron,
it contains uncountable galaxies.

If powerful men and women
could remain centered in the Tao,
all things would be in harmony.
The world would become a paradise,
and the law would be written in their hearts.

When you have names and forms,
know they are provisional.
When you have instructions,
know where their function should end.
Knowing when to stop,
you can avoid any danger.

All things end in the Tao
as rivers flow into the sea.

The notion that the Tao is smaller than an electron yet contains uncountable galaxies is one that we encounter over and over again. William Blake put it this way in the opening lines from his Augeries of Innocence:

To see the World in a Grain of Sand
And heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.

Here’s Baba Muktananda in his autobiography, Play of Consciousness, describing his meditation realization of the Self (i.e. Tao) as the “Blue Pearl:”

As I gazed at the tiny Blue Pearl, I saw it expand, spreading radiance in all directions so that the whole sky and earth were illuminated by it. It was now no longer a Pearl but had become a shining, blazing, infinite Light; the Light which writers of the scriptures and those who have realized the Truth have called the divine Light of Chiti. The Light pervaded everywhere in the form of the universe. I saw the earth being born and expanding from the Light of Consciousness… In this condition, the phenomenal world vanished and I saw only pure radiance. Just as one can see the infinite rays of the sun shimmering in all directions, so the Blue Light was sending out countless rays of divine radiance all about it.

And the last words go to my  beloved Mechthild of Magdeburg:

Of all that God has shown me
I can speak just the smallest word,
Not more than a honey bee
Takes on her foot
From an overspilling jar.

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