Tertium Organum (P.D. Ouspensky) · 186 of 225 · tr. Nicholas Bessaraboff and Claude Bragdon
Chapter XXII (part 14)
How many arguments, how many religious struggles, how much of violence toward the thoughts of others would be rendered unnecessary and impossible if men would only understand that nobody possesses truth, but all are seeking for it, each in his own way.
The ideas of Clement of Alexandria about God are highly interesting, and closely approximate to those of the Vedânta, and particularly to the ideas of the Chinese philosophers.
The discourse respecting God is the most difficult to handle.
For since the first principle of everything is difficult to find out, the absolutely first and the oldest principle, which is the cause of all other things being and p.
289 having been, is difficult to exhibit.
For how can that be expressed which is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor individual, nor number; nay more, is neither an event, nor that to which an event happens?
No one can rightly express this wholly.
For on account of his greatness he is ranked as the All and is the Father of the universe.
Nor are any parts to be predicated of them.
For the one is indivisible, wherefore also it is infinite, not considered with reference to its being without dimensions, and not having a limit.
And therefore it is without form and name.
And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the one, or the good, or mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator, or Lord.
We speak not as supplying His name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have these as points of support, so as not to err in other respects.
1 Among Chinese mystical philosophers our attention is arrested by Lao-Tzu (VI cent.
B.
C.), and Chuang-Tzu^ (IV cent.
B.
C.) by the cleanliness of thought and the unusual simplicity with which they express the most profound doctrines of idealism.
The Sayings of Lao-Tzu^ The Tao, which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao; the name which can be uttered is not its eternal name.
2 Tao eludes the sense of sight, and is therefore called colorless.
It eludes the sense of hearing, and is therefore called soundless.
It eludes the sense of touch, and is therefore called incorporeal.
These three qualities cannot be apprehended, and hence they may be blended into unity.
Ceaseless in action, it cannot be named, but returns again to nothingness.
We may call it the form of the formless, the image of the image-less, the fleeting and the indeterminable.
There is something chaotic, yet complete, which existed before heaven and earth.
Oh, how still it is, and formless, standing alone without changing, reaching everywhere, without suffering harm!
Its name I know not.
To designate it I call it Tao.
Endeavoring to describe it, I call it Great.
Being Great, it passes on; passing on, it becomes remote; having become remote it returns.
The law of Tao is its own spontaneity.
Tao in its unchanging aspect has no name.
The mightiest manifestations of active force flow from Tao.
p.
290 Tao as it exists in the world is like great rivers and seas which receive the streams from the valleys.
All-pervading is the Great Tao.
It can be at once on the right hand and on the left.
Tao is a great square with no angles, a great sound which cannot be heard, a great image with no form.
Tao produced Unity; Unity produced Duality; Duality produced Trinity; and Trinity produced all existing objects.
He who acts in accordance with Tao, becomes one with Tao.
All the world says that my Tao is great, but unlike other teachings.
It is just because it is great that it appears unlike other teachings.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
[auto] The passage extensively describes the divine as beyond expression, neither genus nor species, without form or name, and states that naming it is improper.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
Spontaneity and non-striving action imply a letting-go of coercive will.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
[auto] The passage outlines a specific cosmogonic chain: 'Tao produced Unity; Unity produced Duality; Duality produced Trinity; and Trinity produced all existing objects.'
Using apparent contradiction, reversal, or riddle to destabilise ordinary understanding and induce insight.
[auto] The text relies on paradoxical statements such as 'The Tao, which can be expressed in words is not the eternal Tao' and 'great square with no angles.'
The Buddhist doctrine that all phenomena lack independent self-nature; emptiness as the positive recognition that things arise only in dependence on conditions — distinct from kenoma's mere deficiency.
The Tao is associated with nothingness and formlessness akin to emptiness doctrines.
Effortless action aligned with the spontaneous flow of the Dao; non-coercive, non-striving conduct that yields results without forcing — the sage acts without acting.
The law of Tao is described as spontaneity, implying effortless action aligned with the natural flow.