The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao; that is what gives her radiance.
The Tao is ungraspable. How can her mind be at one with it? Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.
The tao is dark and unfathomable. How can it make her radiant? Because she lets it.
Since before time and space were, the tao is. It is beyond is and is not. How do I know this is true? I look inside myself and see.
This verse is talking about what the tao is.
It is ungraspable, dark, unfathomable, before time, before space, beyond what is, beyond what is not.
This sure makes me feel like I will never get it!
But I know that I need to try. I look inside myself and I can see that it is the right thing. That I have all the answers. “The Master keeps her mind always at one with the Tao …. it gives her radiance”
Definition of radiance:
- An attractive combination of good health and happiness
- The quality of being bright and sending out rays of light
- The amount of electomagnetic radiation leaving the surface
- A type of glowing: either from a light source or a healthy beaming person.
This makes me think of auras. Whenever someone talks about auras, it is about a person that is happy, healthy, and usually spiritual. When Rob came back from his retreats, people always make comments that his is glowing or radiant.
It also makes me think of the opposite. I can’t see people’s auras but I can sure tell when someone is not healthy. When their skin is grayish, dull, sickly looking.
How can her mind be at one with it? Because she doesn’t cling to ideas.
This makes me think of the time I was in a kayak going down the river. I didn’t like the looks of the river ahead so I decided to grab a branch and hold on to it, trying to stop my movement down the river. It didn’t turn out so well. The more I tried to cling on to the branch and avoid the flow of the river, the worse the situation became. The river is the tao. I need to be at one with it. Not clinging to ideas of the way I think things should or should not be. Don’t fight the river, just trust the river and release the branch and go with the flow of the river. Don’t fight the tao, just trust the tao and release your ideas and go with the flow of the tao.
We came from nothingness. We are expressions of nothingness. We are a human reflection of the tao.
How do I know this is true? I look inside myself and see.
The previous chapters were warning us about what happens when we forget the tao. Now it is telling us how we can know it. Look inside myself. In order to do this – to sense the awareness – your mind can not be distracted – scattered everywhere – It must be completely at this present moment.