TAO TE KING # 02/28 - TAO TE KING - AFORISMO 01 - Leitura comentada LÚCIA HELENA GALVÃO

The first chapter of the book, which is one of the most famous, says the following "The Tao who can be pronounced is not the Eternal Tao. The name that can be uttered is not the Eternal one. At the beginning of heaven and earth, I call it "not-being".

To the mother of individual beings, I call it "being". Going to the "non-being" leads to contemplation of the wonderful essence. Going to the "being" leads to contemplation of spatial limitations.

Everyone got everything, I don't need to explain it. Let's skip to the next one. It's important that you realize, and by the way, the Kybalion, will give us a precious help.

Plato will give us another precious help, I am counting on several sponsors. Because this idea that the creator of the universe does not fit in a name, this is very recurrent, people. Because every name is a limitation.

Anything I say about God, I'm putting things out of it. Anything I say about God, I'm generating as if it were a "non-God". And then he becomes two.

He is limited by his own name. And sometimes the fact of naming things, by the way, Lao Tse talks a lot about it, when you name things, you start to exclude everything that is outside that name, and it starts to generate multiplicity, dualities and violence. Some kind of exclusion that will generate an internal exclusion and will generate some kind of violence.

So it's interesting to realize that this Tao nomenclature, the idea of ​​the Chinese tradition, because it's a very old name, is that Tao was a mysterious being, without any substance, neither spiritual nor material. That a creator, a demiurge, came out of him. And from this demiurge came out the spirit and matter, which is the primordial duality.

So it's something that is important for you to keep, because it will be very useful to us all the time. It's the sequence of the zero, the one and the two, for Pythagoras. The so-called Pythagorean decade.

So there is a zero, which was represented by many traditions, for the Egyptians it was the Abydos snail. The zero does not represent a mere, let's say, a mere symbol for accounting or for the math. The zero is an idea of ​​a being that precedes all manifestation.

And from inside him, when he decides to manifest the universe, it's like he's breathing. He breathes and breathes. When he breathes, he manifests the universe.

When he breathes, he absorbs everything again within himself. He is the first being. For India he was called Parabrahman, beyond Brahman.

Ayn Soph for Kabbalists. It's the void. And if there's a name that Lao Tse likes, it's this void.

It's said that the void is a very strong and surprising idea, but that men are afraid of it. You'll see that at some point, he says, look, it's a room. The four walls give the limit, but the emptiness inside it is what gives utility.

The emptiness inside all things is what gives the utility of all things. And the void is the most true. But man fears the void.

This word, void, let's put in our Taoist glossary, because he will use it all the time. The void is the zero, the one that precedes the manifestation. Then this being generated the manifestation.

He decided to generate the manifestations. Let's manifest, let's go. What do I do?

I create a supreme architect, a great builder, a demiurge, the "One". And this One, from within himself. .

. Have you ever seen in mythology, that a God is divided in half and generates heaven and earth? Have you ever heard of Tiamat, for example?

This is very common. That is, this One Being, this demiurge, this great creator, divides and will generate the Two, which is spirit and matter. And then begins the whole story of multiplicity.

Spirit and matter combine in various ways and generate all the multiplicity. So this first concept is very important to fix. What is the Tao?

The Tao is the void, is the zero, where all things are diluted, where everything come back to its own. Where all things retun to, and where it all come from. Because things come out of zero and in the end come back to it.

It would be the total manifestation of the universe, a complete cycle of manifestation. It seems abstract, but you'll see that it will find a thousand and one practical utilities for this concept. He will say, if we don't contemplate this, we become materialists.

Because if you believe that the substance is real, you'll want to possess it. And if you want to possess it, it will be full of desires. And if it's full of desires, it will be selfish.

And the substance is not just material, it's a spiritual substance. Because thinking that we're special from a spiritual point of view creates a worse vanity than thinking that we're special because we have a new car. Harder to beat.

So I'm the most fair here. I'm not a vain person, but the most fair here is me. Do you realize that this is a vanity?

It's a more difficult vanity, 'cause you can prove your car's better than mine. It's not that hard. But to prove you're fairer than me, if I don't want to see it, I won't.

It's a more arduous vanity to be knocked down. And it's also a sense of possession, also the separatism. That is, spiritual vanity, as Helena Blavatsky said, is more complicated than physical.

So if you think that the substance exists, you think it can be yours. And you'll become an egoist. And if you become an egoist, you'll make the world hell.

And then the story's over, the rest we know. Isn't that it? Very important.

Notice, the presumptions with which we work on life determine many of our acts, and we don't know. They are behind our motivations. Imagine opening your eyes in the morning and saying, what am I going to do today?

I'll own something, I've nothing to own. I'm going to project my name, I have nothing to project. I don't have a name, my name is the big name, it's already projected.

They've done this since the beginning of the universe, for me. The work is done. Imagine having a motivation that is not any kind of selfishness, no kind of vanity.

We probably wouldn't get out of bed. We would be looking at the ceiling thinking: "not this, this is vanity. Not this, this is also selfishness.

" Because we're so addicted to believing in separatism, that we practically don't think in other terms. I sooner or later, we fall into some kind of selfishness, in some kind of aggression, in some kind of violence. So, this root seems like an useless abstraction.

It's perhaps the most useful knowledge of all. At least that's what Lao Tse thought. So he continues saying, the principle of heaven and earth, the zero, I call it "non-being".

The mother of all beings, which is the one, I call it "being". Mother? Wasn't it a male "Uno", or "demiurge"?

What if it was female "Una"? What if it was female demiurge? Is there a female Uno?

I don't know. But we just invented one. Because it's very interesting.

They say that when the universe manifests, the Uno is the mirror of the zero. It's like the counterpart of the zero in the manifested world. So it's more likely that it's female.

The Indian tradition calls the Uno of Mulaprakriti. Lao Tse's great mysterious woman is Mulaprakriti. It's a substance that inside it has spirit and matter.

It has not yet divided. She is the great mother, from whose uterus will come out spirit and matter. The great demiurge would be feminine.

At least a large part of the universal tradition says so. It's Mulaprakriti, the great mother, the first shadow of the unknown. The first manifestation.

So this would be the root of being. And "being" is spirit and matter. "Non-being" is a mystery, it's nothing.

So if I'm walking through a mystery, I have to learn to love it. I can't cling to anything. Realize, people, that every time in history, when civilization denied matter, "we're only spiritualists", it generates the Middle Ages.

"No, everything that's material is sinful". Fanaticism. Then we fell into the modern and contemporary age, and denied the spirit, we're only material.

Fanatic and dogmatic. Do you realize that when you deny one of the columns, the template is broken, the front is broken? You have to have both columns.

That is, heaven and earth. The spirit's matter. Both are aspects of this great mother manifested, of this Uno.

Can you understand? Zero, without any substance. The Uno, the creator, or "Una", as you prefer.

This is politically correct. Then it goes to the two, which are spirit and matter. For India, Parabrahman, Mulaprakriti, and Purusha and Prakriti, spirit and matter, the primordial duality.

So he says, the "being" is the gateway to all beings you can imagine. Even spiritual ones. It's the bicycle and love.

It's the house and the fraternity. Everything is a game of forms. In a more concrete plan or in a more subtle plan.

Everything came out of this primordial unity. So far, so good? All alive?

So let's go. So, the "being" takes the spatial limitations. And the "non-being" takes an absolute that we can't even imagine what it's.

So, as I told you, essence and existence. And the history of the Zero, the One and the Two. Spirit and matter, in general, are associated with heaven and earth within Taoism.

This is the Taoist glossary. So, from now on, when I ask you what the "non-being" is, it's the Zero. What is the primordial woman?

It's the One. What is heaven and earth? It's the Two.

Spirit and matter. This is the Taoist genesis. It's the beginning of history.

And from the spirit and matter, the limited and individual beings begin. Which for him is the great illusion. If we ever realize that separatism is a great illusion, then we will become fraternal.

Because while we think that we're different, I will continue to want that this one has more than that one. If we realize that divisions are illusory, why am I going to steal from myself? There is a lecture that I have a lot of affection for it.

About a poem by Cecilia Meirelles, which are the Canticles. There is a passage that she says, "Whenever you say, this is mine, steal it from yourself. " It's beautiful, but was it possible for Cecilia Meirelles to read taoism?

She did. She loved Eastern philosophy. Did she read Plato?

She read. Only she hid it. She didn't publish it, but it's her most beautiful work, her 26 Canticles.

"Whenever you say, this is mine, steal it from yourself. " Everything is yours, why are you going to pick it? And what is mine in this story?

You're stealing from yourself, you're already everything. So, to Lao Tse, this perception has to be at the end of all our searches. Even if we don't understand very well at this point.

Got that? I already told this story to you 500 times. The 501 will be now.

I told you that when I'm locked in a house, I don't like the sunlight. I don't even want to know about the sunlight. And I'm in the dark, then I decide to make it up with the sun.

I open the doors and windows. Just the fact that I decide to make it up with the sun, its light already reaches me where I am. Although the distance has not changed with the closed window or the open window.

Just by my proposition to get in touch with him. So I consciously propose to get in touch with an ideal that has no separatism. I no longer have the same right to be selfish I had before.

You see? Because my goal is to overcome separatism. That is, the light of the sun reaches me wherever I am, only by my willingness to be in touch with it.

It's a long way to figure that the universe undivided, but just the fact that you say, I will discover, I will understand this, you're no longer the same. You opened the window, that's what you did. So there is light in here.

Although the distance hasn't changed. Mathematical distance hasn't changed. But the psychological distance has advanced enormously.

You have no idea. There are many ways to measure the universe. So let's go, let's continue this drawing there.

Which is present in several traditions. The Jewish tradition, which is the one we know the most, our closest, which is the Star of David. It represents the marriage between spirit and matter.

Do you realize that it has a dot in the center? That is, when you discover that spirit and matter have a common origin. They revolve around the same center, which is unity.

Spirit and matter are nothing more than a representation. In the dual world of an idea that is unity. And above unity there is the void.

This is the hierarchy of values of the Tao Te King. Let's go. By origin, both heaven and earth, spirit and matter, are one.

Differing only in name. Because one is called spirit and the other matter. But they all come from unity.

In their unity, this "One" is a mystery. The mystery of mysteries is the portal through which wonders enter. Everything that your conscience can consider.

Here, I talked a little about that. "Origin of spirit and matter", we already talked about it The One is more like feminine. It's the portal through which everything that your conscience imagines, enters.

Imagine anything. I imagined a human being. You imagined something apart.

It's within multiplicity. I imagined love. You imagined a separate love.

Because we can't imagine something limitless. Our mind, when creating an image, creates limits. When you you say to a child, draw a little house.

The first thing she does is a line. Divides inside and outside the little house. When we propose to imagine, the first thing we generate is separatism.

Anything you imagine is one of the wonders that came from this portal of unity. Whether it's from the spiritual or the material plane our mind has a lot of difficulty in thinking about things without a line. That's why we would need to develop something above the mind.

A little intuition. A little direct vision of things. But first of all, seeing ourselves.

To then practice outside. First of all, finding yourself within yourself. To then project it out.

Leonardo da Vinci had a habit, for those who have already seen Mona Lisa. It was a common technique within Renaissance. I mean, not that common.

But some practiced. It was the Sfumato. Look at Mona Lisa, she has no line.

Why would I put a line? Nothing has a line, I'm not seeing any. Where did these people get this line thing?

Things accentuate color, then they spread. But things are just a concentration in an infinite space. They are part of this space.

They are not separated from the background. Why would I put a line? And people would say to him.

Are you crazy? "Things must be separated from the background. No, they mustn't.

" He made Mona Lisa and proved they mustn't. It's a disconcerting thing. Because it does not end anywhere.

Nothing ends in it. The Sfumato don't have lines. It's not divided from the background.

So this idea is interesting. Everything we think is divided. Everything we think is fragmented, whether it's a spiritual or a material thing.

They are the wonders we know. And then we say. Let's live in unity.

What is unity? You don't even know what it is. What are you going to live?

I don't know, it's something called unity. What is it, my dear? If you can't think, you won't be able to live.

Somehow we had to be aware of how addicted we're to separatism, to one day overcome it. Because we don't think about anything that is not divided. I already told you about Parabrahman and Mulaprakriti.

It's not important, but the Indian tradition helps. This is not Taoism, this is India. The Indian tradition helps, it gives a name to the zero and to the one.

Which would be these two. So for Lao Tse, the Tao is the zero. The "One without a second" is the zero.

And the One would be feminine, it would be a shadow. It would be the manifestation. It's easy, right?

You look like the thing is self-explanatory. I promised to a student of mine who commented on YouTube that I was saying a lot that things were difficult. I wouldn't say that anymore, so it's easy.

This is suggestion, I learned it in Kybalion. So it's all easy, let's go.