The Tao Teh King: A Short Study in Comparative Religion: Chapter XXVI

The Tao Teh King: A Short Study in Comparative Religion, by C. Spurgeon Medhurst, [1905], at sacred-texts.com

CHAPTER XXVI.

Lightness has its roots in heaviness. Restlessness has a master in stillness. Therefore, the Holy Man travels all day without leaving the baggage wagon. 1 Surrounded by sensuous enjoyments he remains peaceful and free.

How, then, can the Lord of ten thousand chariots 2 regard his personality as of less importance than his royal trust? By levity he will loose his ministers; by restlessness he will loose his throne.

The frail leaves of the woods owe their stability to the mountains in which the trees are rooted. It is the mighty flood which is the origin of the fleecy, fleeting clouds in the summer sky. The very conception of "heaviness" would be impossible without the idea of "lightness." Woe to that man whose passing moods have no foundation in a weighty soul. He will be swept as driftwood hither and thither, and never reach port.

All movement starts from rest, and is controlled by the still. It is the quiet river-bed which directs the course of the impetuous torrent. The restless wind is scattered by the passive block of masonry. It is the man whose heart is still who comes to the front as one of the world's rulers. Restlessness in the citadel of the soul will overthrow the loftiest prince. Even the Lord Jesus would have become tainted when he ate with publicans and sinners had he possessed no unchanging point of rest within. *

"See, O see, the flashing gold
   From a thousand suns outglancing,
See the starry Heavens unrolled,
   And the skies around me dancing:
Yet I feel a softer splendor,
   Flowing o'er my heart, like balm,
O how thrilling, and how tender!
   It is Christ!—Creation's Calm."

Footnotes

In the eighth chapter of the first book of the Confucian Analects we read, "Confucius remarked, If the Wise Man is not serious he will not inspire respect, nor will his learning be solid."

46:* I am indebted for these thoughts to Victor von Straus. See his Laò-Tsè’s Taò Te King, in loc.