Its Name may be named [i.e., the TAO may receive a designation, though of itself it has none]; but it is not an ordinary name, [or name in the usual sense of the word, for it is a presentment or ειδωλον of the Infinite].
Its nameless period was that which preceded the birth of the Universe;
In being spoken of by name, it is as the Progenitrix of All Things.
It is therefore in habitual passionlessness [the Quiescent phase of TAO] that its mystery may be scanned; and in habitual desire [the Active phase of TAO] that its developments may be perceived.
These two conditions, the Active and the Quiescent, alike proceed [from TAO]; it is only in name that they differ. Both may be called profundities; and the depth of profundity is the gate of every mystery.
– Frederic Henry Balfour; Taoist Texts, Ethical and Political Speculative, 1884
(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth; (conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things.
Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.
Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them the Mystery. Where the Mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.
– J. Legge; Tao Te Ching by Lao-tzu. From Sacred Books of the East, Vol 39, 1891
The nameless is the beginning of the Heaven Earth; [*2] the mother of all things [*3] is the nameable.
Thus, while the eternal not-being [*4] leads towards the fathomless, the eternal being conducts to the boundary. Although these two [*5] have been differently named they come from the same. [*6]
As the same they may be described as the abysmal. The abyss of the abysmal [*7] is the gate of all mystery.
That aspect of God which is hidden in eternity, without bounds, without limits, without beginning, must be distinguished from that side of God which is expressed in nature and in man. The one, apparently subjective, certainly unknowable; the other, a self-manifestation, or a going forth, the commencement of our knowledge, as of our being. “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” Whether “the only begotten Son” be identified with an historical person or not, the conception is necessary to any thought of God. Without a self-revelation, the Eternal Presence remains unknown. Hence the Indian has his avatars, the Christian his incarnation.
Lao Tzu is strictly logical when he ascribes the origin of all phenomena to the manifesting Deity, rather than to the Undifferentiated One, which being changeless could not create.
Says Herbert Spencer: “The antithesis of subject and object, never to be transcended while consciousness lasts, renders impossible all knowledge of the Ultimate Reality in which subject and object are united.” (Principles of Psychology, i., 272.)
Footnotes
*1 Hsu-hui-hi sagely observes that as names always leave the essence unnamed it is certain that no name can express the TAO.
*2 The noumenal or arupa world–the world of causes.
*3 The phenomenal or rupa world–the world of effects.
*4 Yet, as Hsu-hui-hi says, the very term “Not-Being” is misleading, for the Tao is absolutely inexpressible.
*5 The Tao in its two-fold aspect.
*6 i.e. “That which is above Being and Not-Being.”–Native Commentator.
*7 Whence both Being and Not-Being emerge.
N. B. Seek not for a name for God; for you will not find any: For everything that is named is named by its letter so that the latter gives the name and the former gives ear. Who then is he who hath given God a name, “God” is not a “name,” but an “opinion about God.”–Sextus.
“There was when naught was; nay even that ‘naught’ was not aught of things that are For that ‘naught’ is not simply the so-called ineffable; it is beyond that, For that which is really ineffable is not named ineffable, but is superior to every name that is used.”–Basilides. (vid. “Fragments of a Faith Forgotten” by G. R. S. Mead, p. 256.)
– C. Spurgeon Medhurst; The Tao Teh King: A Short Study in Comparative Religion, 1905
The Reason
The Reason that can be reasoned is not the eternal Reason. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The Unnamable is of heaven and earth the beginning. The Namable becomes of the ten thousand things the mother. Therefore it is said:
“He who desireless is found
The spiritual of the world will sound.
But he who by desire is bound
Sees the mere shell of things around.”
These two things are the same in source but different in name. Their sameness is called a mystery. Indeed, it is the mystery of mysteries. Of all spirituality it is the door.
– D. T. Suzuki; The Canon of Reason and Virtue. From Lao-Tze’s Tao Teh King, 1913
What is the Tao
The Tao that can be understood cannot be the primal, or cosmic, Tao, just as an idea that can be expressed in words cannot be the infinite idea.
And yet this ineffable Tao was the source of all spirit and matter, and being expressed was the mother of all created things.
Therefore not to desire the things of sense is to know the freedom of spirituality; and to desire is to learn the limitation of matter. These two things spirit and matter, so different in nature, have the same origin. This unity of origin is the mystery of mysteries, but it is the gateway to spirituality.
– Dwight Goddard and Henri Borel; Laotzu’s Tao and Wu Wei, 1919
Since human beings are a small likeness of the great Universe, they can only realize their Taohood by making close imitations of it. Before one can attain the supreme perfection of Taohood, he must first realize its inmost mystery, that is, he must enter the door of this mystery of mysteries.
There are two ways for effecting this realization, both of which can be followed by the human organism. One way to realize the wonderful mystery of TAO is to put away all thoughts and desires. The other way is to concentrate both true intention and sincere devotion. These two ways of realization have different names but they both lead to a realization of the mystery that we call TAO.
– Bhikshu Wai-Tao and Dwight Goddard; Laotzu’s Tao and Wu Wei, 1939