The Tao of Emerson (4 page)

If we could renounce our sageness
   and discard our wisdom
,
   it would be better for the people a hundredfold
.
If we could renounce our benevolence
   and discard our righteousness
,
   the people would again become filial and kindly
.
If we could renounce artful contrivances
   and discard our schemes for gain
,
   there would be no thieves or robbers
.

Those three methods of government
Thought old of ways in elegance did fail
And made these names their want of worth to veil;
But simple views, and courses plain and true
Would selfish ends and many lusts eschew
.

The inner life sits at home,
   and does not learn to do things.
It loves truth because it is itself real,
   it knows nothing else;
But it makes no progress, was as wise
   in our final memory of it as now.
It lives in the great present;
It makes the present great.
This tranquil, well-founded, wide-seeing soul
   is no express-rider, no attorney, no magistrate.
It lies in the sun and broods on the world.

When we renounce learning we have no troubles
.
The ready “yes” and the flattering “yea”
—
Small is the difference they display
.
But mark their issues good and ill
—
What space the gulf between shall fill?

The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased;
As if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower
   in spring
.
I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet
   given no indication of their presence
.
I am like an infant which has not yet smiled
.
I look dejected and forlorn
,
   as if I had no home to go to
.
The multitude of men all have enough and to spare
.
My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos
.

Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone
   seem benighted
.
They look full of discrimination, while I alone
   am dull and confused
.
I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if
I had nowhere to rest
.
All men have their spheres of action, while I alone
   seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer
.

Thus I alone am different from other men, but I
      value the Tao
.

Away profane philosopher!
Seekest thou in nature the cause?
This refers to that, and that to the next,
And the next to the third, and everything refers.

The world rolls, the din of life
   is never hushed,
The carnival, the masquerade is at its height;
Nobody drops his domino.

But I am only an experimenter;
Do not set the least value on what I do
   or the least discredit on what I do not,
As if I pretended to settle anything as true or false;
I unsettle all things.

No facts are to me sacred, none are profane.
I simply experiment, an endless seeker,
   with no past to my back.
I am a weed by the wall.
I see that I am a pensioner, not a cause,
   but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water;
That I desire and look up,
And put myself in the attitude of reception;
But from some alien energy,
   the visions come.

The grandest forms of active force
From the Tao come, their only source
.
Who can of Tao the nature tell?
Our sight it flies, our touch as well
.
Eluding sight, eluding touch
,
The forms of things all in it crouch;
Eluding touch, eluding sight
,
There are their semblances, all right
.
Profound it is, dark and obscure;
Things’ essences all there endure
.
Those essences the truth enfold
.
Of what, when seen, shall then be told
.
Now it is so; ’twas so of old
.
Its name
—
what passes not away;
So, in their beautiful array
,
Things form and never know decay
.

There are no fixtures in nature;
The universe is fluid and volatile.
There is no outside, no inclosing wall,
   no circumference to us.
Every natural fact
   is a symbol of some spiritual fact.
The sage, until he hit the secret,
Would hang his head for shame,
But our brothers have not read it;
No one has found the key.

Thus there is no sleep, no pause,
   no preservation,
But all things renew, germinate
   and spring.

The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; The empty, full; the worn-out, new
.
He whose desires are few gets them;
He whose desires are many goes astray
.

Therefore the sage holds in his embrace
   the one thing, humility, and manifests it to all the world
.
He is free from self-display, and therefore he shines;
From self-assertion, and therefore he is distinguished;
From self-boasting, and therefore his merit is acknowledged; From self-complacency, and therefore he acquires superiority. It is because he is thus free from striving
   that therefore no one in the world is able to strive with him
.

That saying of the ancients
   that “the partial becomes complete” was not vainly spoken
—
All real completion is comprehended under it
.

Those who are capable of humility,
   of justice, of love, of aspiration,
Stand already on a platform that commands
   action and grace.
This energy did not descend into individual life
   on any other condition
   than entire possession.

It comes to the lowly and the simple;
It comes to whomsoever will put off
   what is foreign and proud;
It comes as insight, it comes as
   serenity and grandeur.

Abstaining from speech marks him who is obeying
   
the spontaneity of his nature.
A violent wind does not last for a whole morning;
A sudden rain does not last for the whole day.
To whom is it that these two things are owing?
To heaven and earth.
If heaven and earth cannot make such actions last long
,
   
how much less can man!

Therefore, when one is making the Tao his business
,
Those who are also pursuing it, agree with him in it
,
And those who are making the manifestation of its course
   their object agree with him in that;
While even those who are failing in both these things
   agree with them where they fail
.

Hence, those with whom he agrees as to the Tao
   have the happiness of attaining to it;
Those with whom he agrees as to its manifestation
   have the happiness of attaining to it;
And those with whom he agrees in their failure
   have also the happiness of attaining to the Tao
.
But when there is not faith sufficient on his part
,
A want of faith in him ensues on the part of the others
.

Silence is better than speech.

All things are in contact,
Every atom has a sphere of repulsion.
For nature, who abhors maneuvers,
   has set her heart on breaking up all styles and tricks.
Nature keeps herself whole,
   and her representation complete.

In splendid variety these changes come,
   all putting questions to the human spirit.
Those men who cannot answer by a superior wisdom
   these facts or questions of time, serve them.
Facts encumber them, tyrannize over them,
   and make the men of routine the men of sense,
In whom a literal obedience to fact
   has extinguished every spark of that light
   by which man is truly man.

But if the man is true to his better instincts
   or sentiments, and refuses the dominion of facts,
As one that comes of a higher race
   remains fast by the soul and sees the principle,
Then the facts fall aptly and supple
   into their places;
They know their master, and the meanest of them
   glorifies him.

He who stands on his tiptoes does not stand firm;
He who stretches his legs does not walk easily
.
So, he who displays himself does not shine;
He who asserts his own views is not distinguished;
He who vaunts himself does not find his merit acknowledged;
He who is self-conceited has no superiority allowed to him
.
Such conditions, viewed from the standpoint of the Tao
,
Are like remnants of food, or tumors on the body
,
   which all dislike
.
Hence those who pursue the Tao do not adopt and allow them
.

If a man lose his balance, and immerse
   himself in any trades and pleasures
   for their own sake,
He may be a good wheel or pin,
But he is not a cultivated man.
The man of the world avoids all brag.

Prudence consists in avoiding and going without,
   not in the inventing of means and methods,
   not in adroit steering, not in general repairing.
Such is the value of these matters
That a man who knows other things,
   can never know too much of these.

There was something undefined and complete,
   coming into existence before Heaven and Earth
.
How still it was and formless
,
   
standing alone, and undergoing no change
,
   
reaching everywhere and in no danger of being exhausted!
It may be regarded as the Mother of all things
.

I do not know its name, and I give it the designation of the Tao
   (the Way or Course)
.
Making an effort to give it a name
   
I call it the Great
.

Great, it passes on in constant flow
.
Passing on, it becomes remote
.
Having become remote, it returns
.
Therefore, the Tao is great;
Heaven is great; Earth is great;
And the sage is also great
.
In the universe there are four that are great
,
And the sage is one of them
.

Man takes his law from the Earth;
The Earth takes its law from Heaven;
Heaven takes its law from the Tao
.

The law of the Tao is its being what it is
.

For the world was built in order
And the atoms march in tune,
Rhyme the pipe, and time the warder,
The sun obeys them and the moon.

We cannot learn the cipher
That’s writ upon our cell.
Stars taunt us by a mystery
Which we could never spell.

The conscious stars accord above,
   the waters wild below.
For nature listens in the rose
   and hearkens in the berry’s bell.
There is a melody born of melody
   which melts the world into a sea.
Nature is a mutable cloud,
Which is always and never the same.

Nothing divine dies.
The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind,
   and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation.

Gravity is the root of lightness;
stillness, the ruler of movement
.

Therefore, a wise prince, marching the whole day
,
   does not go far from his baggage wagons
.
Although he may have brilliant prospects to look at
,
   he quietly remains in his proper place
,
   indifferent to them
.
How should the lord of a myriad chariots
   carry himself lightly before the kingdom?
If he do act lightly, he has lost his root;
If he proceed to active movement
,
   he will lose his throne
.

The fact of two forces, centripetal and centrifugal,
   is universal.
And each force by its own activity
   develops the other.
Nature will not have us fret and fume.
Our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless.
Only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action
   are we strong.
There is no need of struggle, convulsions,
   and despairs,
Or the wringing of hands and the gnashing of teeth.
We miscreate our own evils.

The skillful traveler leaves no traces
   
of his wheels or footsteps;
The skillful speaker says nothing
   
that can be found fault with or blamed;
The skillful reckoner uses no tallies;
The skillful closer needs no bolts or bars
,
   
while to open what he has shut will be impossible;
The skillful binder uses no strings or knots
,
   
while to unloose what he has bound will be impossible
.

In the same way the sage
   is always skillful at saving men
,
And so he does not cast away any man;
He is always skillful at saving things
,
And so he does not cast away anything
.
This is called “hiding the light of his procedure.”

Therefore, the man of skill is a master to be looked up to
   by him who has not the skill;
And he who has not the skill is the helper
   of the reputation of him who has the skill
.
If the one did not honor his master
,
   and the other did not rejoice in his helper
,
An observer, though intelligent, might greatly err about them. This is called “the utmost degree of mystery.”