Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The greatest virtue you can have
comes from following only the Tao;
which takes a form that is intangible and evasive.

Even though the Tao is intangible and evasive,
we are able to know it exists.
Intangible and evasive, yet it has a manifestation.
Secluded and dark, yet there is a vitality within it.
Its vitality is very genuine.
Within it we can find order.

Since the beginning of time, the Tao has always existed.
It is beyond existing and not existing.
How do I know where creation comes from?
I look inside myself and see it.

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Again, the mysticism of Lao Tzu. I think that if Wittgenstein had lived in the neighborhood of Lao Tzu, they would have become good friends. Did he not say in the last terse proposition of the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus that we should remain silent regarding what we cannot speak of? Wittgenstein’s sudden twist in the last brief portion of the book was that ethics and the transcendental are only in the realm of knowables and not expressibles.

However, the interesting point in the last verse of this chapter is that Lao Tzu can look into himself and “see it.” I do not see how this is the case. Was he indicating some sort of soul?

We end up reading only teasers about the tao throughout the chapters of the tao te ching. As I indicated in one of the above chapters, there was a reason why people mistakenly thought that they could benefit even physically – for example, living for hundreds of years which is certainly a laughable idea – if they found the tao. In the tao te ching, we discover numerous verses that seem to imply that if ancient Chinese people followed and found the tao, they could become happier and survive almost forever. Whether or not Lao Tzu intended this, it was easy for them to discover those notions in the text.  Their interpretation of Lao Tzu’s philosophy is distinctly different from my own. Or I should say that I have distinctly distorted, perhaps, Laozi’s philosophy. This is only expected because I am approaching his texts from a contemporary point of view. (Although I am not knowledgeable in diverse branches of philosophy throughout the ages, I am familiar with many of the bygone and current mainstream thoughts.)

I would like to clarify, though, that I sternly reject the notion that Laozi was able to know something about the tao that neither our predecessors nor we knew. One can only speculate what he indeed meant to say. I mustn’t be the only one to feel puzzled over what he had to say.