The Tao Te Ching for Astrologers – Verses 45 & 46

Hey everyone, this is Acyuta-bhava from Nightlight Astrology. And today, we are going to continue our series on the Tao Te Ching for Astrologers by looking at verses 45 and 46 of the Tao Te Ching and looking at these verses in light of our study of astrology, which is what we do every week on Wednesday, working our way two verses at a time through this classic spiritual text. So that is our goal for today. You don't have to have seen any of the previous episodes in this series to get something out of it. So but you can always they're not like sequential that you could watch any of them and really get something good out of it.

So all right, well, before we get into it, please don't forget to like and subscribe, share a comment, and click the notification bell for updates when you subscribe so that you know when I go live, you can always find a transcript of any of these daily talks on the website, nightlightastrology.com, where I'm going to go to right now, in order to promote my upcoming course Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic. So the new class, Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic year, my year one program, begins November 12. We meet on Saturdays, two to three hours each 30 classes on the year. In between units, there are breakout study sessions led by my staff. You can check out this video on the page to hear what some of my recent alumni have had to say about their experience. There is an interactive group forum discussion with tutors that are staffed; we staffed the forum so that you can have all of your questions answered; there's a lot of bonus material, optional reading and listening outside of class that you can do, and you can follow along at your own pace or attend live an optional certification exam at the end if you want to get our certification. And we also have need-based tuition assistance. So the early bird payment saves you $500 off. You can always stretch out the payment over 12 months if you want to choose the payment plan. And if you're hurting financially for any reason, but you want to study astrology, check out the need-based tuition option, which is also available. We are going to be putting a deadline on the need-based tuition. Because what we're trying to avoid is having a rush of a ton of applications at the last minute because they take a little bit longer to process than a normal application. So we just asked if you want to join the class and use need-based tuition. Sign up early so we can get you in and get you all set up. All right, well, that's what I have there.

Let's go into our verses for today, which are verses 45 and 46. So I'm going to put them up on the screen so that we can take a look at them together. Verse 45, I'll read through each verse once, come back, and the second time we'll pause and reflect as we go.

Verse 45
The Great Perfection seems imperfect
yet this world it creates is never impaired
The Great Fullness seems empty
yet this world it creates is never lacking
Great truth seems false
Great skill seems clumsy
Great eloquence seems like babble
Keep moving and you’ll miss the cold
Keep silent and you’ll beat the heat
Be tranquil like the rain of spring
Be pure like the sheen of silk
Then the Great Perfection will be perfect
and the Great Fullness will be full

It's a very mysterious and beautiful verse.

Verse 46
When Tao is present in the empire
men follow their own nature and riding horses
work the fields
When Tao is absent from the empire men go astray and war horses breed on sacred ground
There is no greater loss than losing Tao
No greater curse than desire
No greater tragedy than discontentment
No greater fault than selfishness
Contentment alone is enough.
Indeed, the bliss of eternity can be found in your contentment.

Let's go back up and read verse 45 again.
The Great Perfection seems imperfect
yet this world it creates is never impaired
The Great Fullness seems empty
yet this world it creates is never lacking
Great truth seems false
Great skill seems clumsy
Great eloquence seems like babble
Keep moving and you’ll miss the cold
Keep silent and you’ll beat the heat
Be tranquil like the rain of spring
Be pure like the sheen of silk
Then the Great Perfection will be perfect
and the Great Fullness will be full

So beautiful. I have a lot of thoughts about this one that I think relate to our study of astrology. They certainly are teachings in this there are teachings in this verse that I see reflected in my astrological practice and what it brings into my life. So, first of all, the great perfection seems imperfect, yet this world that creates is never impaired. There's a phenomenon in astrology, and a lot of people will know what I'm talking about if you're when you're listening to this. But it often happens through hindsight. It happens less frequently, at least for me, in the actual moment. But let's say, for example, that I am going through something.

For example, I'll give you an example. I think it'll help. Recently, I was feeling really, really stuck. Just with something in my, you know, my personal life, I guess you could say, my spiritual practice, and I was just feeling really stuck. And at first, I was just feeling like my spiritual practice isn't working. You know, it's not doing what it ought to do. And I was frustrated. Maybe, I don't know; later in the day, in the evening or something like that, I started reflecting on the fact that Saturn is square to Uranus in the sky. As I'm making this particular video, Saturn is squaring Uranus in the fall of 2022 for one last time. And all of a sudden, I got this feeling. Because I was, as I was reflecting on the archetype of Saturn Uranus, being stuck is a divine experience. It exists. It is. And therefore, it is sacred. And it was funny how, in that moment, it was as though I became patient, maybe is the word or accepting or curious, I'm not sure with my experience of feeling stuck. It's not that I felt unstuck all of a sudden; it's that suddenly there was a rightness to the stuckness. There was a sense of it being the right time to be stuck, you know. And I just thought with astrology with that perspective; even imperfect things are perfect. The great perfection seems imperfect, yet this world that creates is never impaired.

Now, the great fullness seems empty, yet this world of creates is never lacking the same idea. What seems empty is never really empty. Although it is by all accounts and appearances. The great perfection seems imperfect, although, by our accounting by our measurements, it probably appears or is measurably imperfect in some way. But we don't know enough. We don't know enough to be as freaked out as we are. You know, we just don't have enough information to be judging things as imperfect or impaired. And that's what this verse is really teaching us. And to me, as an astrologer. When I reflect on the transits day in and day out, month in and month out. I'm always being granted that perspective. Eventually, like I said, usually it's in hindsight, it's not always during the moment, like later that evening, for example, and that small case of feeling really stuck and then being like, well, Saturn square Uranus, and it's the right time to be stuck, I guess.

But we often experience this kind of awareness in hindsight, but it's through that recollection that we eventually start to cultivate that same awareness within the moment. We start to experience things archetypally, and the soul is satisfied. It's satisfying to the soul to experience anything that we're experiencing with a sense of appreciation for its archetypal or imaginal nature; soon as you see a God, it's pretty satisfying. So that the thing is, I'm stuck, but I'm stuck with a god, or I'm stuck and look a god, you know, and that is satisfying. We somehow realize that this world is never impaired. This world is never lacking.

Great Truth seems false. Great skill seems clumsy, great eloquence seems like babble. That's really beautiful. Keep moving and you'll miss the cold. Keep silent and you'll beat the heat. I like this last part, be tranquil like the rain of spring, be pure like the sheen of silk, then the great perfection will be perfect in the great fullness will be full.

See. That's such a beautiful teaching because it's as though the great perfection is always the great perfection, but your experience of it will be perfect if you cultivate this relationship with or awareness of Tao, which is this unspeakable presence, intelligence, beauty, and truth. It's not a calculus that we use to arrive at Tao. It's a relational, participatory, you know, curiosity. It's staying stubbornly curious and interested and appreciative, not in some unicorn way. It has to surprise us constantly for it to be real. The great perfection will be perfect, and the gratefulness will be full. So astrology is helping us go from a perspective that's always vacillating between empty and full, I'm happy, and then I'm not happy. It's perfect. And then it's imperfect to seeing this great perfection. If we're tranquil like the rain of spring, if we're pure, like the sheen of silk, the great perfection will be perfect. And the great fullness will be full as though our consciousness will allow us to perceive that which is that would otherwise not be seen, mostly because of our own judgments. The planets are just a cosmic reflection of the moving Tao. Well, number 46.

When Tao is present in the empire, men follow their own nature and riding horses to work the fields. When dad was absent from the Empire, men go astray and workhorses breed on sacred ground. People always come into readings, right? I see clients around, and they always come into reading, saying, I just want to know how to be aligned with my birth chart. And you know, and I get where the question is coming from. But it's always such a tricky question to answer because it's not really that we're trying to be aligned with our charts. As much as it is that the charts are just describing the landscape within which we live and move and developing a relationship with the chart as a path of understanding, a path of reflection, a path of contemplation of your own life and of the environment of your own life. Leads to a feeling of your life being perfect and sacred. It doesn't; it's not about Well, I gotta get something right in my chart. And so, am I aligned or not aligned? The fact that you're in a reading thinking about your chart at all is just it's just, you know, if it's cricket, get like meta, it's just a soul that sitting there saying, Who am I? And how can I relate with what's around me and the fact that you're even asking that is a sign of sincerity and devotion to life and to your soul and unlikely to other people that are in the environment with you.

That says more probably than anything any astrologer could say about do this because of your Jupiter. And this is, to me, what it means to live an astrological life; that an astrological life is one lived in a kind of reflective or contemplative mood like a moving prayer; your life becomes this prayerful consideration of your own experiences in light of these archetypes. And it's very satisfying. It is really satisfying. And when you do that, it's hard to feel out of your own nature. When there's a lot of trying to get things right, that's when it seems like we stray from being in touch with Tao or what I would just call God or divinity.

There's no greater loss than losing Tao, no greater curse than desire, no greater tragedy than discontentment, no greater fault, and selfishness. So implied being the implication being that we lose Tao when we get caught up in desires, discontentment, and selfishness, not just one of them, but all three in a kind of cocktail. Well, the planets constantly teach me that I don't really know what I want or what I need. And they teach me that I don't really know what's coming, even though I can see outlines of it in the sky. And so that when that promise thing arrives, it both is and is not what I was expecting. And that teaches me how to be free, freer, relatively free of desires, the burning desires, discontentment, and self-centeredness because I'm not the only player on the chessboard, you know. And I'm not the only my will is not the measure of all things, and I don't even really know what I want or what I need or and even though I know astrology, I don't really know what's going to happen. And if I stay in those spaces, then the planets feel like these unspeakably kind companions.

Contentment alone is enough. Indeed, the bliss of eternity can be found in your contentment. Contentment alone is enough. Almost every single ancient astrological text that takes the time to speak about the philosophical reasons for doing astrology speaks about contentment that if we're studying the planets and incorporating the observation of their patterns and movements as omens of the gods in our lives and if we're incorporating that on a day to day level, that the byproduct is contentment. We start to feel an accepting, peaceful engagement with our lives. So sometimes, people paint the picture of ancient astrology, like it's very it's stoic. Just accept your hard fate. That's not really what stoicism is about, as much as it is. Stoicism is very similar to Taoism in many respects. It's so much more about moving with the currents of experience. And the only way to move with them and experience the richness of life itself is to go along with a kind of acceptance. But it's not the same as being like just accept your fate. No, like some kind of stoic. Pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, you know, political party or something.

Anyway, hope you guys found this interesting today. It's your weekly dose of spiritual astrology content, and yeah, don't forget to like and subscribe, throw a comment in and share your own reflections on these verses or astrology and the Tao. I'd love to hear from you guys. And yeah, we will see you again tomorrow. All right, take it easy, everyone. Bye.