The Tao Te Ching for Astrologers – Verses 51 & 52

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we are continuing our series on the Tao Te Ching for astrologers by looking at verses 51 and 52. We've been going two verses at a time through this classic spiritual text called the Tao Te Ching. And I have the Tarcher Cornerstone edition, translated by Jonathan Star; if you want to pick up a copy and follow along with the text that I'm using, we're breaking it down two verses at a time and sort of asking ourselves, what, if anything, does this beautiful text have to do with astrology, and I think there are many really interesting parallels between the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching and the philosophy of ancient astrology. So we've been sort of looking at that it's a midweek pause to reflect on why we're here, why we're doing this, come back to our spiritual center a little bit. So yeah, so we'll be looking today versus 51 and 52. Excited to get into it. I read them two verses at a time. And I reread them a second time, and then after each one kind of reflect on the verse in light of our study of astrology.

Before we get into that, I want to take you over to my website to show you my upcoming class, which begins on November 12, which is called Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic. You can learn more about it on my website, which is nightlightastrology.com. Again, click on the Courses page, and go to the first-year course. And as you scroll down, you can learn more about the program and everything that is included here; what some students have had to say, the class starts on Saturday, November 12, meets two to three hours at a time on Saturdays, and everything is recorded. So if you can't make it live, you can always follow along remotely from start to finish. We have 30 classes during the year, plus breakout study sessions led by my tutoring staff; there's also a discussion forum that is staffed with tutors who will answer your questions within a day. You can email me anytime as well throughout the year with questions; you get lifetime access to all the recordings. We also have guest teachers that come in outside of the 30 classes. So it is just a really well-supported and well-developed program. I love this class. And I love teaching it; it is what I am most passionate about. I love seeing clients love making content. But this class is what I love teaching because it really gives you the tools to take astrology and make it a meaningful part of your life for the rest of your life and read charts for people if you want to.

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And so for people, you know, tell us your situation, you're a single parent, both you and your spouse are, you know, working all the time, and you're on a tight fixed income, we get that or if you're receiving disability or your only part-time employed COVID knocked you you know for a loop or whatever the case might be, tell us your situation. And we'd be glad to try to hook you up and make sure that the desire to study astrology is accessible. So that is a big part of our mission at Nightlight. We've been offering that program for 13 years. And literally, you know, hundreds and hundreds of students have come through our program because of it. So it's something that we're really proud of. And we're glad to make sure that no one's ever priced out of learning to learning to practice astrology or learning more about the birth chart and that kind of thing.

All right. The other thing I want to promote just really briefly is two of my teachers, Loka and Vidarbha, are offering a course which you can find on their website Bhaktiwise.com. These are two of my friends who are in the bhakti yoga tradition. Although I am not formally involved with the tradition anymore, I think that they teach wonderful classes on the Bhagavad Gita and would highly recommend you check it out. Because of them. I myself now have so many valuable tools and have, you know, just taken my spiritual life so deeply, and I remain very good friends with them. So check it out.

They have an upcoming class that begins on November 5 called unlocking the mysteries of the Bhagavad Gita. It's donation based, you know, it's a 12-week course. So it's pretty quick. It's a nice deep discussion-based exploration of the Bhagavad Gita. If you've never explored that ancient spiritual text on our spiritual text study day of the week, I can only say I highly recommend it. I hope you'll check it out. All right, well, let's get into it now today, checking out verses 51 and 52. There's a lot to be learned from these verses. I'm going to actually put them up on the screen here so that you can read along if you'd like to.

Verse 51
Tao gives all things life
Te gives them fulfillment
Nature is what shapes them
Living is what brings them to completion
Every creature honors Tao and worships Te not by force but through its own living
and breathing
Though Tao gives life to all things
Te is what cultivates them
Te is that magic power which raises and rears them completes and prepares them
comforts and protects them
To create without owning
To give without expecting
To fill without claiming
This is the profound expression of Tao
The highest perfection of Te

Verse 52
That which created the universe is the Mother of the world
By knowing the Mother one knows her children
By knowing her children one comes to know her
Such is their unity that one does not exist without the other
Fully embrace your life and you will share in the glory of creation
The Mother herself will be your guardian
And all her creation will be your guide
Stay with the Mother, shut the mouth, close the gates and you are never in trouble
Abandon the Mother, open the mouth, be busy with other and you are beyond all
hope of rescue
Seeing your own smallness is called insight
Honoring your own tenderness is called strength

These are beautiful verses, and by the way, I may not be pronouncing Te correctly as I understand its Te, but if I'm if someone does know and I'm mispronouncing that, just let me know. I do apologize if I am. I thought I thought to look it up beforehand because I was like, only as I was reading it that I realized like, oh, you know, like, I this is how I've always said it, but perhaps it's pronounced a different way. And so I should have thought to look into it beforehand. So let's reread it, though.

Verse51
Tao gives all things life
Te gives them fulfillment
Nature is what shapes them
Living is what brings them to completion
Every creature honors Tao and worships Te not by force but through its own living
and breathing
Though Tao gives life to all things
Te is what cultivates them
Te is that magic power which raises and rears them completes and prepares them
comforts and protects them
To create without owning
To give without expecting
To fill without claiming
This is the profound expression of Tao
The highest perfection of Te

I'm going to read for you just a little excerpt about what Te means. So Te refers to Tao energy are the qualities or nature received by every living being or thing from now. And here's another one. Te is the essence of Tao, active in everything. Yeah, it's really beautiful. It is often translated as virtue Te is, but it also has to do with the inherent essence of something. So with that in mind, what I love about this is that you're getting into, and I think there are some parallels with our study of astrology too, that are really interesting. Let's read through it a little bit again,

Tao gives all things life. Te gives them fulfillment; it is as though in platonic philosophy, we have the one in the many, or you have the idea of that which is unchanging, you have being itself, and then you have things that come to be and pass away. And so it's sort of like saying that there is a universal energy that gives rise to and supports every living thing. But then there's also something very specific and essential to say an acorn and its process of becoming an oak tree. It's a beautiful idea that the oak tree and its essence and its nature is supported in the great oneness of all things by Tao, but there's also something very specific and differentiated about Each living being and the inherent virtue or essence that gives them their shape and fulfills them in nature.

So here's what I find interesting about that, in ancient astrology, coming from the platonic school, you have the idea that the heavens as a whole display the same duality. You have the primary motion of the sky. It brings everything diurnal or primary motion of the sky that brings everything around from rising to culminating to setting in 24 hours of a day; everything rotates in one great circle. And that great circle is something like Tao. It's the binding unity of all life. It's like the force; you can think about it like that, too.

Whereas the secondary motion of the planets and the planets as a collective all move in the opposite direction, they move from the west toward the east, whereas the diurnal motion carries everything from rising in the east to setting in the west, the planets very gradually against the backdrop of the Zodiac out in space or moving from our perspective from the west toward the east very gradually and very slowly compared to that diurnal motion. But as a collection, even though they all have various speeds and different idiosyncratic qualities from their luminosity and their distance from the Sun and their synodic cycles, with the Sun and so forth, that as a collection, they all demonstrate Te in a sense, they all demonstrate that there are things in this world that come to be in passing away the many as compared to the one you might say, or the idea that, that there are processes that each have their own integral and essential virtue or nature. And the planets reflect that diversity and that essential virtue in the way that they travel through the Zodiac and mixing and mingling their significations. They give us insight into the nature of how things are shaped and how they develop. And so, the sky contains the same duality of Tao Te Ching; you could say there are different kinds of dualities that are present throughout the Tao Te Ching. And this is just one of them.

But I would say that the duality of motion in the sky is very closely related to this that our lives. If you study astrology and you study the various seasons of your life, you can just get the sense reflected in it that the universe is like one giant, mighty beautiful river flowing along. But at the same time, there are all sorts like; there's biodiversity, there's all sorts of living things within it. And each one of them also has its own unique nature that's being fulfilled and played out through these, through this grand current, that the grand current also goes down and diversifies itself through the many different life forms and many different paths that all different aspects of creation have. So I think that I personally believe that a lot of these insights probably came and one of the reasons that you may see them universally represented around the world, in different religious and spiritual traditions, is because we're all looking at the same sky. And we're all observing similar patterns in nature and things like that.

So anyway, I think that this is a beautiful verse, though; Tao gives life to all things. Te is what cultivates them. The similar idea was that, you know, the one with the one and the many are the primary and secondary motion; there's one thing that creates everything. And yet, within, there's also great diversity. And within that diversity, there's something integral or essential, and that is you. And that is me. And that is the difference of our life paths and how, you know, we all have a code like a soul's code that's being activated like an inherent essence that's meant to play out, and isn't astrology at the end of the day about tapping into that unique essence, that is our life, while also being able to reflect on the greater unity that that life shares in. And that's just the natural thing that happens if you pay attention to astrology over time.

I like the ending of this verse; to create without owning, to give without expecting to fill without claiming this is the profound action of Tao, the highest expression of Te. And I would read that as saying, you know, for me, what does astrology give me? It gives me the sense that there's nothing more important than the present moment and just being alive and in it. And clinging and grasping. It's almost always going to get us in trouble. And there's something about astrology that's always reinforcing that to me because it's always putting me up against my hopes, expectations, desires, fears, and anxieties, and then I just have to wait and see how it plays out and live in the moment. And it always, even though I can see the future reflected in the upcoming transits of the planets, I'm never anywhere but the present. And, you know, at some point when that future event comes to pass in time, and I realized what it was compared to what I thought it was going to be, like, even if I think I know what's going to happen and it does end up happening, I will not have known how I would experience it. And so there's the sense of letting go, that's natural, even if you know the future letting go is still the, you know, the premium experience, you know, just being with it. Anyway, let's go to,

Verse 52
That which creates the universe is the Mother of the world by knowing the mother one knows her children by knowing her children; one comes to know her, such as their unity, that one does not exist without the other. See, now we're talking about the universe and the Mother, which is a similar dichotomy. Fully embrace your life, and you will share in the glory of creation; the Mother herself will be your guardian, and all creation will be your guide. Stay with the Mother, shut the mouth, close the gates, and you're never in trouble. Abandon the Mother, open the mouth, be busy with others, and you're beyond all hope of rescue. Seeing your own smallness is called insight; honoring your own tenderness is called strength. And the last part might seem a little severe. But hopefully, I think we can soften it a little bit if it comes across that way. First of all, that which creates the universe is the Mother of the world. By knowing the Mother, one knows her children; by knowing her children, one comes to know her. So you're seeing a dichotomy between the creator and the created again, this time in terms of Mother and children.

I think that's very beautiful, that it's not purely a father, you know, that the creator and created are being shown as Mother and children as well. So, in this sense, if you look at the world and you just observe the world, then you're coming to know the creator of the world. If you look at the Mother's children, you come to know the Mother, what a beautiful metaphor that is. And that's what the planets give us. I mean, that's why I do those grabbed episodes. And I've said this before, in previous episodes of this series. The grabbed episodes help us to see and observe the very divine intelligence that is running through my life, as well as yours, my stories, as well as yours. And there's a great sense of intimacy that we can start to have with our own nature and our own experiences when we allow for that.

Fully embrace your life, and you'll share in the glory of creation; the Mother herself will be your guardian, and all creation will be your guide. This is, though, when we start to embrace the life that we're living in, see the fingerprints of Tao on it, then, or the Mother on it, then we get to share in the nature of divinity; it's not separate, it's not somewhere far away that we have to get through, get to with all kinds of austerity, it's something we can share in by simply being present and embracing of ourselves in our lives. And then, when we do so, the Mother is our caretaker, the universe itself, our guardian, isn't that beautiful?

Such a reassuring thing to say. Now this one again, now it gets a little it feels a little harsh, but it's a stay with the Mother shut the mouth, close the gates, and you're never in trouble. Abandon the Mother, open the mouth, be busy with others in your own view, beyond all hope of rescue. I will say that the Tao Te Ching does not like the idea of being frivolous or gossipy. What this is a reference to is not the idea that you should never talk or that you should, you know, simply be austere and close your eyes and all gates to the body. And someone might read it like that and say like, just shut yourself up, be austere, stay focused on the Tao, and you'll never get in trouble.

I don't think that's what it is saying. I think this has more to do with if you stay with the Mother if you stay with the feeling of being connected to the Divine because you're looking around and realizing that if you want to know the Mother, look at the children's same thing. You're looking around the world, and you're seeing reflected in your experiences in life and yourself and others, the same kind of divine presence.

And if you stay there, then you're good. But if you go off, making judgments and getting into the realm of ego, arrogance, and all this kind of thing, it's as though you're going to be in trouble. Because you've lost touch with that presence that keeps you safe and sort of protected, I think it's fair, like, let me just give you an example. Sometimes when you know my wife and I will go out for dinner or something, we'll get to talking about things, and I will feel myself veering off into judgment, and sort of like gossipy small talk and just being shitty, you know, and I mean, I think hopefully I'm not alone in doing that. I think we probably all do that. I don't do it very often, compared to when I was younger, as I've hopefully learned a lot, you know, about how to keep my peace, you know, and just kind of stay present, I guess.

But when that happens, I can always feel that I'm getting out over my skis, and I'm forgetting that what keeps me really happy when I'm tempted to say talk shit about someone is to be like, you know, they're one of my Mother's children, so to speak. And if I can just remember that even for two seconds. And I don't mean to say that I remember that in some kind of phony spirituality. It's just like I pause. I just try to catch myself and be more generous in my heart or mind about what who I'm thinking of or what I'm about to say that it's much better for me and things go better. If I'm like that, if I don't, then it breeds more of that. And before I knew it, I'm out over my skis, and I take a tumble at some point, I say something crappy to someone and have to apologize, or you know what I mean?

Seeing our own smallness is called insight; honoring our own tenderness is called strength. Now, by smallness, we don't mean lessness. We just mean we're little grains of sand in the scope of eternity. And when we realize that, that's called insight. To me, the planets constantly remind me of that because if I see my life playing out in the reflection of these, you know, stars of the gods, as ancient astrologers put it, then it's pretty, I mean, it's pretty profound. And it also really makes me realize, like, I'm, I'm just a small part of the grand symphony, not any less important. But you know, I'm not like the world's biggest deal here. I'm just a person; I'm just a human. Now, the last part is really cool, too; honoring your own tenderness is called strength.

When we honor who we are, when we are deeply honoring our own humaneness, our own life, we remember the previous part of this verse that embrace your life. If we honor our tenderness, our vulnerability, our smallness, and our humaneness, and just, you know, embrace it, and honor that that's a tender, small place, that is when we find our relevance, that's when we find quote, unquote, sovereignty or strength. And I think that's beautiful. Just don't be anything more or less than what you are, that you're small but wonderful, you know, in the grand scope, in the grand scheme of things, small but wonderful, you know, the same thing with a rock or a pebble.

And that's why one of the reasons why, you know, I think that it's wonderful to teach my kids one of the ways I've been teaching my kid's astrology is to say, well, this, did you know that this color is the moon's color, you know, like, that. So there's actually one more part of this verse that I forgot to read. Let's read the last part of it because it's really beautiful.

Verse 52 ends with
The Sun in all its glory reveals a passing world
Only the inner light illuminates eternity
Only that light can guide us back home
Have faith
Follow your own shining
Be aware of your own awareness
On the darkest nights you will not stumble
On the brightest days you will not blink
This is called "The Practice of Eternal Light"

And honestly, I don't think I was listening to someone speak recently who I really appreciated. And she was saying there's too much talk in spiritual communities about having a practice. That's a good one. That's like it was a good catchy little talk that she did. And the reason I appreciated it is because I think that for a lot of people, the practice, and she said this in her video, too, was just, it's just being human, just being yourself. It's enough of a practice to just be your authentic self. That is enough. And life presents itself with every opportunity to practice being yourself. Do you know what I mean? Everyday 24/7. And being in that space of just who you are, and how do you respond? And how do you respond with integrity rooted in your own honesty, and not in an aggrandized way, like, I'm just being so fantastically me, you know, you know, but how do we let our own inner light simply guide the path that we're walking?

For some people, that may involve practices, but for a lot of us, the practice is following your own shining. And to me, the way that astrology participates in that is, by way of just every day, there's something to reflect on. My daughter recently got sick, and Mars was opposing the Sun in her birth chart, and I was just reflecting while I was sitting next to her, and she had a fever, you know, and we were taking care of her. And I was sitting next to her saying, you know, it's because I have this in my life that I'm able to, like this right now is the astrology I was thinking about this, I wondered what might happen to my daughter, and now here it is happening. How do I respond? How do I be myself as a dad in this moment?

You know, I love astrology because it's always like, there's the sense of preparing for the practice of being yourself, you know? And isn't that what this means? Have faith and follow your own shining, so we all have a sun sign, after all. Anyway, that's what I've got for today. I hope that this was useful. And if you guys don't mind, like and subscribe if you enjoyed it, leave a comment in the comment section. It helps the channel to grow my transcript of any of my daily talks on the website nightlightastrology.com. Don't forget the new class, Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic begins on November 12. I'd love to see you in class; check out the need-based tuition if it might help you. Alright, take it easy, everyone bye.