The Tao Te Ching for Astrologers – Verses 49 & 50

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we are going to be continuing our exploration of the Tao Te Ching and looking at it in light of our study and practice of astrology. So today, we're going to be looking at verses 49 and 50. We are over halfway through the Tao Te Ching now. There are 81 total verses. We're doing two per week; you don't have to have seen any of the previous verses in this series. And generally speaking, Wednesdays are the day of the week in which I try to share something, some kind of content that helps us to reflect on why we're doing astrology, what's the what is what are some of our underlying spiritual motivations. It's helpful to remind ourselves of that so that we're digesting astrological information, you know, alongside of our vegetables, so to speak so. So that's why we do this.

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Well, let's go and take a look at today's verses. So I'm going to read through them twice each. And on the second time around, we'll pause between each verse and offer some reflections in light of our study of astrology. This is one of my favorite spiritual texts of all time; I could recommend spending time with it each day. It's a great thing to just pick up, read a couple of the verses at the beginning of the day, sit with them, and maybe read them again in the evening. And they are just full of timeless wisdom that is just applicable for every stage and stage of life. Every age and every kind of person under the sun can benefit from the wisdom of these texts. So on that note,

Verse 49
The Sage has no fixed heart of his own
Those who look at him see their own hearts
Those who are good he treats with goodness
Those who are bad he also treats with goodness because the nature of his being is good
Those who are truthful he treats with truth
Those who are not truthful he also treats with truth because the nature of his being is truthful
The Sage lives in harmony with all below Heaven
He sees everything as his own self
He loves everyone as his own child
All people are drawn to him every eye and ear is turned toward him

Verse 50
Again and again
Men come in with birth and go out with death
One in three are followers of life
One in three are followers of death
And those just passing from life to death also number one in three
But they all die in the end
Why is this so?
Because they clutch to life and cling to this passing world
I hear that one who lives by his own truth is not like this
He walks without making footprints in this world
Going about, he does not fear the rhinoceros or tiger
Entering a battlefield, he does not fear sharp weapons
For in him the rhino can find no place to pitch its horn
The tiger no place to fix its claw
The soldier no place to thrust his blade
Why is this so?
Because he dwells in that place where death cannot enter

These are beautiful verses.
Let's go back and read 49 and then we'll pause and reflect on it.

Verse 49
The Sage has no fixed heart of his own
Those who look at him see their own hearts
Those who are good he treats with goodness
Those who are bad he also treats with goodness because the nature of his being is good
Those who are truthful he treats with truth
Those who are not truthful he also treats with truth because the nature of his being is truthful
The Sage lives in harmony with all below Heaven
He sees everything as his own self
He loves everyone as his own child
All people are drawn to him every eye and ear is turned toward him

I want to make a kind of radical statement and say that, well, this could be describing the qualities or characteristics of, say, a saintly or sagely person. I think that it also says something about the nature of the Oracle itself, the Oracle of the sky that we commune with every day as students of astrology. Let's, let me just unpack that for you a little bit.

The sage has no fixed heart of his own, those who look at them see their own hearts. The sky has often been described as a divine mirror, a mirror that reflects back to us our own nature. So this verse starts off in my mind with a description of exactly what makes the Oracle sage-like. The astrology as a practice, astrology as a star gazing divinatory exercise. I'm looking up, and I'm looking for the will or way of the gods in my everyday life. And just getting their commentary, their humor, and seeing their dance reflected in my own dance. As a body, the gods have a sage-like quality. When we look at the heavens, we look and see our own nature in our own hearts. And it's so affirming to feel seen. And this is the quality or characteristics of a sage. But I think it's the same quality of the Oracle itself as astrologers that we look to and why we keep coming back to it.

Those who are good, he treats with goodness, those who are bad, he also treats with goodness because the nature of his being is good. If there is one thing I have heard, all students of all schools of astrology and all astrologers say across all disciplines, as long as I can remember, it is that when you look at your life through the lens of astrology, you start to see this sense that you get this sense that it's all good. That doesn't mean that it's all literally good in a good versus bad, pleasant versus unpleasant kind of way. So bigger, broader, a deeper sense of good. It is what it is. And it is good. There's a sense when you look at the heavens, and you look at your life reflected in the heavens every day, that everything that's happening that we see reflected in the astrological planets and their aspects is not happening to us. But for us. It's so cliched; I know it sounds cheesy. For some people, it might even sound sort of trite. But it's true. That when you spend time stargazing with this symbolic language, you start, you get this sense that there's this impartial beauty and goodness and truth behind every last astrological transit. When you see all the ups and downs of your life reflected in this language, you can't help but say, Well, it's good. It's beautiful. And it's true that those qualities somehow keep rising to the surface even if you're going through a dark night of the soul. With astrology in your life, I just see people, again and again, coming back to that place. It's got a place here in this cosmos.

So, good, beautiful, and true. We're also for ancient Greek philosophers who were the progenitors of this star science. They were the actual substance of reality, goodness, truth, and beauty. So when we see something in the sky that reflects back our own nature, and that inherently treats everything with goodness, truth, and beauty because its own nature is goodness, truth, and beauty. That's pretty special. It's pretty special that we can actually have a relationship with something like that. This divine, mysterious intelligence that is astrology.

The sage lives in harmony with all below heaven. He sees everything as his own self, loves everyone as his own child, all people are drawn to him every eye and ear is turned toward him. Now again, these are characteristics probably have some great teachers and saints than different traditions all around the world. But at the same time, it's fair to say that these descriptions are also astrological; I think it's easy to make that connection. The sage lives in harmony with all below heaven. He sees everything as his own self and loves everyone as his own child, all people are drawn to him, every eye and ears turned toward him. Why? Because he embodies the law of heaven. That's something that the Tao Te Ching and I Ching say everywhere about sages, that they are an embodiment of heavenly law.

Now, when we think of the word law, we think of something punitive, strict, limiting, confining, and antithetical to freedom, participation, and mystery. But for Taoists, law is the mysterious intelligence of the universe of creation that keeps carrying everything along coherently. It is the sense that there is unity, and intelligence, and beauty behind everything and truth, even the darkness. And a sage is someone who embodies that realization, and of course, people are attracted to that, but so does astrology. When you spend time with astrology, the sky itself becomes your sage.

Verse 50
Again and again, men come in with birth and go out with death. One in three are followers of life, one in three are followers of death, and those just passing from life to death also number one in three, but they all die in the end. Why is this so? Because they clutch to life and cling to this passing world. This is a beautiful description and one that ancient astrologers would have loved. People come in with birth; hey, that's what we're all about. We look at the moment of birth, and we look at the Divinity story or miraculous significance of that moment. We interpret and intuit the meaning of signs and omens at the time of birth in order to understand something of this nature of life. But when you think about people who are into astrology, you generally have a couple of people.

You have one. The type of people, and I include myself in these, are things that we can all fall into. Even if we think we're above them, it's easy to fall back into them. One are people who are attached to life in terms of outcomes that they want, expect or hope for, things that they hope to gain or acquire, experience experiences that they wish for to satisfy something. Followers of life. One and three are followers of death. Another type of client that I get every single day and the kind of fear I can drop into myself is, Will something bad happen? I'm looking at astrology out of a sense of cosmic or existential, like dread or anxiety. And so I look to the heavens because I'm a follower of death; I live my life in fear. There are people who live with desire; there are people who live with fear. And to be honest, most of us are a combination of both. And then there are those who are just passing from life to death almost passively, like, I just, I'm here, whatever, but not really participating, not enacting anything. There was a verse; I don't know if somewhere, I think it was in the book of Revelation, where John of Patmos was saying Laodicea, you're neither hot nor cold. And therefore spit you out, was interesting about the city of Laodicea. Because I saw it when I was in Turkey, is that it sits in a valley between a hot spring and a cold spring that flows down into the valley. And so in the aquifers or the city well, or whatever it was, the water was lukewarm. And it was a distinct thing that John was therefore referencing in that saying about Laodicea, spiritually.

But this verse is kind of similar in the sense that it's saying there are people who follow life, and there are people who follow death. There's In other words; there are people who live with great passion and desire. There are people who live with great fear and anxiety. And then there are people who are just sort of passively moving along. You know, now, we're not talking about the middle path. We're talking about. I'm just passing through, and I'm kind of lukewarm about everything. So these are different descriptions of the journey of life. And he says, but all of those different types of people die in the end. Why? Why does everyone who comes into this world die? And it's an interesting distinction because he's not saying, Well, if you do something, then you'll you won't ever leave your body, or you won't ever physically die. But he is saying that these types of people are not; he's implying that they're not real. Living because they clutch to life and cling to this passing world, even kind of lazy passivity is a kind of judgment or decision we've made about the nature of this world and what kind of effort we should put into it.

He goes on to say. I hear that one who lives by his own truth is not like this; he walks without making footprints in this world. Going about, he does not fear the rhinoceros or tiger entering a battlefield; he doesn't fear sharp weapons. For in Him, the rhino can find no place to pitch its horn, the tiger no place to fix its claw, a soldier, no place to thrust his blade. Why is this so? Because he dwells in that place where death cannot enter. You see, even though the physical body dies, there's always been a sense in all great spiritual traditions all around our planet that immortality is a kind of consciousness that we can live right now. It's not something to be thought about as a prize to win after death or as an ascension to be made up a ladder into some transcendental world. I mean, fine, maybe there are transcendental worlds, you know, maybe you can go to them too.

But I love that what this wisdom is essentially telling us is that a sage-like person, or one who's living in some kind of conscious relationship with this mysterious Tao, walks their own path in the world. They don't make footprints; they don't cling to life. The tiger and the rhinoceros can't find a way to sink their horn or claw into them. The soldier can't find a place to stab them. Because they're not attached, but not being attached, they're also living a life.

Yoga describes basically the same kind of consciousness. Now to me, astrologers were describing the same thing to, for example, a verse that I've quoted many times before from Firmicus Maternus, where he says that, for people studying astrology, in their study of fate and fortune, and seeing the ups and downs of life, they make their soul confident, so that their soul is not tossed around by misfortune or fortune, and that they live a life free. So yeah, that state is the exact reason that ancient astrologers said we ought to study astrology in the first place. If you listen to the grab series that we do, all the stories that we tell, in those stories, we have this. There's this tremendous sense, with astrology in your life, that everything is both exactly what the event is and all the ways we describe it. And then it's as though it's also this beautiful, impressionistic piece of art. And when we're shifting what we're doing by studying astrology is shifting our consciousness into a state of appreciation. So that every day while we live the life which is fun, you know, it's adventurous, it's terrifying, and it's beautiful, and it's all sorts of things. But as we're doing it, we can also simultaneously have an experience of it as romantically imaginatively, artistically fulfilling, as well as true and beautiful and good. The kind of true and beautiful and good that is why we need a word like now, some it's a quality of experience that transcends the limits and words we try to put around it, you know, as soon as we do so.

All right, well, I hope that this has been a useful meditation for you; today's midweek break to reflect on why we're here doing astrology. As always, I appreciate it when you like and subscribe, and share a few comments in the comment section. Don't forget new classes are starting soon. I would love to study astrology with some of you. You know, this class is focused very deeply on how to be intuitive and artistic with the traditional tools and techniques of ancient astrology while also looking at the underlying spiritual and philosophical roots of the tradition and also just figuring out what it means to create a divinity every moment, a moment where something is speaking, every session, every reading is so much more than just learning how to perform a bunch of techniques. It has to do with tuning into the moment itself and being like midwives for spiritual symbolism to speak out of the chart. We spend a lot of time talking about that in the program. Anyway, enough out of me; I hope you guys are having a great day. Take it easy, everyone. Bye.