Category: Tao Te Ching

We continue today the translation of Evola’s 1959 edition and commentary on the Tao Te Ching, published under the title Il Libro del Principio e della sua Azione [The Book of the Principle and its Action]. ← Chapters 20-21 Chapter 22 To be whole in the fragment Straight in the curved Full in the void…

To the unknowability and the unintelligibility which would be in the same way the predicate of the Principle is contrasted, in the last lines, with the form proper to a possible knowledge of its mystery: “this”, the  word refers to direct, metaphysical, and super-rational intuition.

These concerns about benevolence and righteousness recall a man who beats a drum while searching for a fleeing son, with the only effect of making him flee even further… Unite your influence to that of the Principle rather than imposing artificial virtues, and you will be able to achieve something.

For the benefit of all things, but without charity nor pride, he is limited to concentrate in himself an intact Majesty … this sovereign Majesty is not distinguished from pure Power nor from integral knowledge … An unknown Autocrat, he does his work without anyone noticing it, and this work is accomplished without affecting in…

The contemplation of this law, contemplation that begins detachment, and the perception of the immobile substrate of the transformation, that leads back “to the root”, makes the Real Man similar to Heaven and puts him outside of danger (only in the exoteric interpretation, from dangers and risks inherent in this unique way — esoterically: immunity…

The Tao is not far, yet reaching it is difficult … Empty and non-being, incorporeity and immateriality, that is called Tao. Heaven is empty, Earth is calm, neither one nor the other struggles. The I is discarded and falls silent: then divine clarity will persist.

Therefore: whoever is detached from greatness can freely rule the empire. Whoever is attached to the body as little as the empire can be entrusted with the empire.

The preeminence of the belly over the eye signifies that the True Man does not lose himself in the world that is revealed to the eye, i.e., in the outer world, in the not-I.

Various images are used to express the idea that the essence of the material and the sensible lies in the immaterial and the invisible, that the “fullness” is ordered to “emptiness”: a reference to the metaphysical plane and a reference concordant with the nature of non-acting.

Do not listen with the ear nor with the heart, but only with the spirit. To block the way of the senses, to keep the mirror of the heart pure. To keep oneself empty. From the outside, do not let things that no longer have names penetrate inside (impressions liberated from mental translations).