Tao Te Ching Ch 14

 The Door of all Wonders: 

The Commentary on the Tao Te Ching

by Nirguna Chor Kok Lam

Chapter 14

 

What cannot be seen is called colourless.

What cannot be heard is called soundless.

What cannot be grasped is called formless.

About these three cannot be asked questions.

They are combined as the One.

Its upper part is not bright.

Its lower part is not dim.

Boundlessly, endlessly, it cannot be named.

Ever changing, it returns into nothing.

Thus, it is called the form of the formless, the image of the imageless.

It is called vague and indistinct.

Going ahead, you cannot see its head.

Following behind, you cannot see its back.

Hold fast to the Truth of antiquity, 

for keeping in control of everything today.

Know the beginning of antiquity as the Law of the Truth.

 

Review

 

In the previous Chapters, Lao Tzu depicts the Truth (Tao) as the emptiness (Chapter 4), as a bellow to generate wind (Chapter 5), and as a hollow valley for flowing water (Chapter 6). Here in this Chapter, Lao Tzu depicts the appearance of the Truth. The Truth is the appearance of nothing. How can people describe it? So, we can only describe it by negation, i.e., not this, not that. This is the way the ancient sages in India taught about the Truth in the Upanishads. The Buddhist literatures used the same way also. Here Lao Tzu begins:

 

“What cannot be seen is called colourless.

What cannot be heard is called soundless.

What cannot be grasped is called formless.

About these three cannot be asked questions.

They are combined as the One.”

 

For Lao Tzu, the appearance of the Truth is colourless, soundless and formless. We cannot see it with our eyes. We cannot hear it with our ears. We cannot touch it with our hands. Even we cannot ask why about this nothingness because no answer will be given. It is beyond the material level and our human understanding. Imagine a material thing with the One only. It is hard for people to describe it in words.

 

Truth is the One, which is repeatedly mentioned in the Tao Te Ching. There are the verses in the previous Chapter:

 

“In holding the soul and embracing Oneness,

can you be steadfast without straying?”

(Chapter 10)

 

Here in this Chapter again as told:

 

“They are combined as the One.”

 

Lao Tzu further describes that the appearance of the Truth is neither bright nor dim. It is without end, without boundary, ever changing and finally return to nothing. You cannot see its head whenever you go forward. You also cannot see its back whenever you go backward. There is no head, and no back. This means Truth is without beginning and without end. It is eternal. This emptiness of the Truth is not imagination by anyone. It is the Reality, really exists, only we can faintly and seemingly feel its existence, thus Lao Tzu says:

 

“Its upper part is not bright.

Its lower part is not dim.

Boundlessly, endlessly, it cannot be named.

Ever changing, it returns into nothing.

Thus, it is called the form of the formless, the image of the imageless.

It is called vague and indistinct.

Going ahead, you cannot see its head.

Following behind, you cannot see its back.”

 

Though the Truth is formless and imageless, it really exists as the Oneness, i.e., Allah, the One God in Islam. Allah is the Lord of all creatures. He is not any of His creatures. Nothing can resemble Allah in form as Allah is beyond all the images and forms. He is omnipresent, all-wise and all-knowing, creating and nourishing all creatures, i.e., the Truth in the Tao Te Ching. It is the Ultimate Reality of God every religion has tried to express to people in their own culture and understanding.

 People can only use their purified mind to understand the Truth. How can we purify our mind? We should renounce all our desires aiming to understand Allah, the Truth only, nothing else. To know Allah for Allah’s sake, not for this benefit, that benefit, completely giving up all unnecessary material desires. Do not hanker for sensual enjoyment, even fame and honor for the good deeds. It is very hard for most people, but it is really the way for all saints to attain the Truth in different times and cultures. They abandoned everything unworthy in order to attain the best, i.e., the Truth, the most precious of all. It is the “Truth of antiquity” which the ancient sages hold fast. The Truth can help us understand everything and keep things in control because the Truth is the Lord of all.

 

To know God and becomes His bosom friend is the most valuable reward much better than all the wealth, honor and goodness in the world. To be Oneness with God is God realization, i.e., Tao, the Truth in the Tao Te Ching. To have attained this Oneness, spiritually we can master the whole world because this material world cannot control our soul to go astray from the Truth. The knower himself is enlightened. He acts with the Truth. He can see the Truth functioning in this world from the very beginning up to now as the Eternal Law, the Law of the Truth, thus Lao Tzu says in the end:

 

“Hold fast to the Truth of antiquity, 

for keeping in control of everything today.

Know the beginning of antiquity as the Law of the Truth.”