The Door of All Essence

About this poem

The Tao Te Ching, a book of poetry consisting of 81 chapters, is a Chinese classic text traditionally credited to 6th-century BC sage Lao Tzu. The opening lines of Chapter One of the Tao Te Ching (John C. H. Wu translation) reads: Tao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Tao./ Names ca be named, but not the Eternal Name./ As the origin of heaven-and-earth, it is nameless:/ As “the Mother “ of all things, it is nameable./ So, as ever hidden, we should look at its inner essence:/ As always manifest, we should look at its outer aspects. / These two flow from the same source, though differently named;/ And both are called mysteries./ The Mystery of mysteries is the Door of all essence. Those metaphysical lines of the Tao Te Ching serve as an apt paraphrase of the divine essence of the “Eyeh-Asher-Eyeh” (found in Exodus 3:14) that defies any expression or limitations of grammatical tense or aspect, referring as it does to an eternally unchanging Being. Like the Eternal Tao, “Ehyeh-Asher-Eyeh,” in its full manifestation, is the realization or the “Individuation” (to employ a Jungian psychological term) of all the latent potential possibilities inherent in the universe. Those opening lines of Chapter One of the Tao Te Ching, also help to shed light on the realization that the phenomenon of “God,” as an archetypal image, can be “named” (“talked about”); but not so “God Almighty” as an archetype of “the Eternal Name.” Both the Eternal Tao and the “Eyeh-Asher-Eyeh” can only be visualized “through a glass darkly “ and hence remain as Eternal Mysteries, “the Door of all essence.” more »