The Tao Te Ching for Astrologers – Verses 53 & 54

Hey everyone, this is Adam Elenbaas from Nightlight Astrology, and today we are continuing our series on the Tao Te Ching for astrologers. We are looking at verses 53 and 54 of the Tao Te Ching. You do not have to have seen any of the previous episodes to jump in and get something out of this. We're reading this series; we're reading two verses at a time in this series and reflecting on those verses in light of our study and practice of astrology. So this is great for people who kind of want to just sit back and go like, why am I doing this? What is this giving to my life? And when you refresh on that, in my opinion, it does nothing but serve, you know, the next couple of days worth of content you take in if you're someone who watches astrology regularly or even semi-regularly, it's good to just put into context, the astrology that you're taking in, why am I doing this? What did the ancient mystics who came up with this say about why we do this? And so we're doing that, but we're doing it as we reflect on the philosophy of the Tao Te Ching, which is one of the great texts of the world, spiritual texts of the world, and one of the texts that also often plays a role in the way that I create my content. 

So yeah, well, before we get into it, I want to point you to a few things that are going on starting on November 5, 2022; a couple of my teachers, Loka and Vidarbha, are starting their next class on the Bhagavad Gita. And if this is another spiritual text that I absolutely love that I think you will like too, it is called Unlocking the Mysteries of the Bhagavad Gita. And you can find more; you can learn more about it at Bhaktiwise.com. I'm going to take you there right now. So you can just check it out. I am promoting this for them because I love them very dearly and have studied the Bhagavad Gita with them and find it to be a really accessible approach for people regardless of what your interest level is in yoga. You don't have to be like someone who wants to get all gung ho about yoga. As many of you guys know, I sort of backed away from being more formally committed to the world of bhakti yoga, a religious tradition that I was a part of. But I still love the Bhagavad Gita. And I just feel like this class is really good for people who maybe have heard about the spiritual texts but haven't ever had a good, like, accessible introduction to it. And it's by donation, so I feel like you can't go wrong checking it out. They're great teachers, great guides for having an experience with the Bhagavad Gita and learning a little bit more about bhakti, which I believe you can incorporate into your life and everyday ways, regardless of how serious you get with it, which is basically what I'm doing now. So, at any rate, I hope you guys will check that out. 

The other thing that I want to direct your attention to is the start of my next astrology course, which is called Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic, and it begins on November 12. So you can learn more about it on the website, nightlightastrology.com, click on the Courses page, go down to the first-year course, scroll down to learn more about it, and hear what alumni have been saying; if you haven't checked out this alumni video, it's pretty cool to see what the alumni sat down. And we had a discussion this last summer about the course and what people were doing with it. The course is ideal for people who want an approach to astrology that they can take and use, whether it's for yourself and friends or just as a part of your daily life, to take in astrology and to have some understanding of it.

Or if you are someone who wants to go next level and maybe practice for others, or if you don't know, that's fine, too. But take the course and check it out; you'll learn a lot about astrology. And you'll be able to understand so much more of what you're taking in. And you'll be able to read things and have your own form your own opinions about things as well, which is amazing. It's like, you know, pulling a cosmic GPS into your car with you and knowing how to read it and know what you're looking at. That's really nice, because even if you like experts, you know, are professionals to make content and read charts and things like that, like having your own relationship to astrology, is something I highly recommend for everybody. So anyway, there are 30 classes on the year. There's an interactive group forum discussion, where I have a staff of people that are there to take care of you and answer questions throughout the year about any of the content we're studying or looking at. There are breakout study sessions where you can have more tutoring help, you can ask me questions throughout the year, and all of the recordings are kept for you. So if you can't make it live, the whole class can be taken remotely. And you can follow along with the recordings at your own pace. Or you can attend the live webinars either way. At the bottom of the page, you'll find information about registration. There is an early bird payment; you save a lot of money when you do that. So I highly recommend it. There's a payment plan if you want to spread it out over 12 monthly payments; a lot of people take advantage of that. 

And then, finally, the thing that I'm always sort of most eager to share with people is the need-based tuition. I've had a lot of people being like, well, I just don't know if I qualify. I feel guilty asking, do not feel guilty asking; that's why it's there. If you are having a hard time, you're not just like Well, it'd be nice to pay less I have the money; I couldn't pay more. I just don't want to. Well, then that's it's not for you, you know, but anyone else where it's like I want to take it, but money is a bit of a problem. It's really tight. I've got a lot of bills. I'm spread thin, you know, I've got student debt, whatever the case might be. If you want to take the program but it's just out of your reach. You need a little bit of help for whatever reason, tell us your situation. Use the tuition assistance applicant, And we'd be glad to help you out. 

All right, well, today we're continuing on with the Tao Te Ching verses 53 and 54. I'm going to read both verses, and then we're going to reflect on them in light of our study of Astrology. I'm going to read through them twice, the first time just to read in the second time to reflect.

Verse 53

If I had the least bit of wisdom I could follow the path of Tao quite well

My only fear would be trying to go my own way

The Great Path is simple and direct yet people love

to take the side routes

See how magnificent the courts have become

The women are dressed in colorful gowns

The men carry well-crafted swords

Food and drink overflow

Wealth and finery abound

Yet in the shadow of all this splendor the fields grow barren

the granaries are all but empty

I say this pomp at the expense of others is like the boasting

of thieves after a looting

Surely it is contrary to Tao

Surely it cuts against the grain of the whole empire

Verse 54 

Truth, once established, can never be uprooted

Goodness, once imbibed, can never be stripped away

A sacrifice to a higher cause is never lost

An offering to an ancestor never goes to waste

When a person embodies Tao his heart becomes true

When a family embodies Tao it thrives

When a village embodies Tao it is protected

When a country embodies Tao it prospers

When the world embodies Tao it reveals its perfection

Tao is everywhere it has become everything

To truly see it, see it as it is

In a person, see it as a person

In a family, see it as a family

In a country, see it as a country

In the world, see it as the world

How have I come to know all this?

Tao has shown me – Tao as all this!

  

Let's read 53 again,

If I had the least bit of wisdom I could follow the path of Tao quite well

My only fear would be trying to go my own way

The Great Path is simple and direct yet people love

to take the side routes

When I think of that, I think of the fact that the planets were called wanderers; the word planetes in Greek means wander. And it had the connotation, though there were different meanings of the word. One of them was anything that could lead you off wandering. And in some ways, I follow the path of the stars in my everyday life because it's not about getting something right. It's not that I follow the stars because, well, if I don't follow them, I'll get something wrong. And I have to follow them so that I get something right. 

But rather, when I follow them, it's constantly just keeping me back into my center. Following the planets helps me to live the life that I know I'm here to live, to just be in it and accept it. The planets are always reminding me that the great path is simple and direct, meaning I don't have to go off trying to become all of these things, perfect all of these things, or achieve different kinds of things spiritually; I just have to live the life that I'm here to live. Try to be a little reflective of myself, about myself in my life as I go along. And the planets are always helping me do that. They're helping me remember that I'm on exactly the path that I need to be on. And I can make it so complicated. 

And one of the features of the planets in ancient astrology is that the grahas grab us, or they indicate that we've grasped something; the planets are wanderers, reflecting our own wanderings, or they are the means by which we live a life; we navigate life by the stars. 

See how magnificent the courts have become

The women are dressed in colorful gowns

The men carry well-crafted swords

Food and drink overflow

Wealth and finery abound

Yet in the shadow of all this splendor the fields grow barren

the granaries are all but empty

I say this pomp at the expense of others is like the boasting

of thieves after a looting

Surely it is contrary to Tao

Surely it cuts against the grain of the whole empire

Here, we switched to an insight about abundance and the difference between real abundance and something that's false. And this is set right next to something, a portion of the verse that talks about taking the simple path that is direct and honest and, in some ways, no more complicated than just being yourself and living the life that you are destined and here to live, as you know just as well as you can. And this idea of trying to accumulate things and side paths and distractions and is then sort of compared or juxtaposed with the idea of people who have a lot or achieve a lot or think that they are living the life. But it's all happening at the expense of other people. Surely it's contrary to Tao to have all of these things while the rest of the kingdom is barren and empty.

That's interesting. Some people might read into that and say, like, all this is some kind of socialist agenda, or they, you know, they might kind of try to make it political. But I don't think it's meant to be a political statement, as much as it is just a statement about living. When we live in alignment with the life that we're here to live, it's harder to think that my own accomplishments and my own, you know, grasping at things and trying to accumulate as much as I can. It's harder to do that when you're following the Tao. Because you get the sense that the only real accomplishment in life, the only real wealth or abundance, is the abundance that comes from living your simple, authentic self. And isn't there something about when we seek like tons of glamour? Isn't there something about that betrays an underlying, you know, sense of emptiness? I'm not good enough, just the way that I am. I have to pursue all of these things. And then, of course, the byproduct is that it just generally happens at someone else's expense. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the planets are encouraging us to find the most wealth in our everyday experiences. Why else would they reflect our everyday experiences so perfectly and beautifully?

Verse 54

Truth, once established, can never be uprooted

Goodness, once imbibed, can never be stripped away

A sacrifice to a higher cause is never lost

An offering to an ancestor never goes to waste

When a person embodies Tao his heart becomes true

When a family embodies Tao it thrives

When a village embodies Tao it is protected

When a country embodies Tao it prospers

When the world embodies Tao it reveals its perfection

Tao is everywhere it has become everything

To truly see it, see it as it is

In a person, see it as a person

In a family, see it as a family

In a country, see it as a country

In the world, see it as the world

How have I come to know all this?

Tao has shown me – Tao as all this!

This is another beautiful verse, and it's such an astrological verse again, at least for me. If you want to see, first of all, I love that this verse just says that once you understand something of the nature of truth that can never be taken away from you or uprooted, you'll always come back to it. Once you've tasted something that's really good, and you understand it, and it's in your heart, it can never be really stripped away. You can always come back to it. And that's helpful for me in one of the ways that I think about the planets; if I have a rough day with a transit, it's like, well, I learned, and I can come back and try again with another, another transit tomorrow. Life is the practice of being ourselves. I thought that was a great phrase that I heard recently from someone who was giving a talk about being human. And it resonated very deeply with me after also after I had done a talk on the water bearer in an Aquarius.

Anyway, it goes on this verse to talk about how when we embody this divine wisdom that's really at the heart of astrology; it makes everything thrive. And by embodying it, I don't think that means that we become perfect or we become spiritually good, or something like that. It's sort of like if you've ever been around someone who's just really, you know, really enjoying the process of living their life and tasting it, the bitter, the sweet, the joy, the pain, and you know, they; they like the life that they're living. And there's, they have a sense and inherent faith in the appropriateness of the life that they're living. Aren't those people just contagious to be around? 

Tao is everywhere has become everything; to truly see it, see it as it is. And then this list, in a person see it as a person, in a family in a country in the world see it as those things, Tao, as all this. Well, that is precisely what I get from the planets. When I track the planets and pay attention to their movements, their aspects, and their archetypal combinations, in and out of my everyday life, I feel like I can; I'm just seeing the gods; I'm seeing these as some ancient philosophers put it. Archetypes are thoughts in the mind of God. It is as though the patterns of life, the people, the creatures, the experiences, when you have astrology in your life, you are now seeing the reflections of the divine in here, right here. It's at hand; it's right before us. And how beautiful is it that we can see that we can experience it? And so that verse tells us if you want to see it, truly see it, in a person, see it as a person. It's not like, well, the person, and then they have to get in touch with the Spiritual thing that's elsewhere. Observe a person, observe a family, a village, a city, a country, observe nature, observe your friendships, observe your lovers. Observe yourself. Observe life. And if you do it for two seconds, you'll have this recognition like these people are, especially in the light of astrology, right? If you can see, like, again, my daughter has a fever. I've been telling the story recently because it was so mind-blowing to me. My daughter had a fever; Mars was opposing her sun; I was sitting there and going; this is incredible because I'm worried about her. Mars represents fear. I'm worried about her. She has a fever. Mars represents fevers and heat.

 

You know, this fever is divine. And it's that in addition to me being afraid, so I'm living a life that includes these experiences, and these experiences are the embodiment of Tao. And astrology is something that allows us to see that and embrace that saying yes, to our lives, which you know, to me is, that's why I do it. That's why I may, and that's why I pause midweek to make this video and just ramble on a bit about, you know, why we're doing astrology, and hopefully, it just reconfigures us because as we're listening to transits every week, we're listening to them as we are in the mix of our lives. You know, and, and those transits are often reflecting things that we're going through. And it's not easy to step back from and say, look, the fever is the gods and divinity, you know, because you're just scared, or you're just worried dad, or you're just someone who's trying to figure out if they like their job or not, or if their boss is okay. Or if they're going to, you know, this relationship will last or whatever it is. It's enough to deal with that, right? And the astrology is always there, kind of helping us move through things, get a sense of what's going on, and validate our experiences. It's also good to just step back and go like, yeah, and it's every single experience that we have is divine. And that's why this whole science was shaped so that we wouldn't forget it. 

All right, well, anyway, that's what I've got for today. If you don't mind, like and subscribe, and share a few comments. That helps the channel to grow. You can always find a written transcript of any of my daily talks on my website, nightlightastrology.com, where you can also find my new class, Ancient Astrology for the Modern Mystic starts on November 12. I'd love to have you in class. If you have any questions about the class at all, email us info at nightlightastrology.com. Be sure to check out the need-based tuition as well, which is welcome to anyone who could use the help. We are glad to try to make that available so that if you want to study astrology, you're in more of a financial crunch at the moment. We can try to make that possible. Alright, that's what I've got for today. And take it easy, everyone. Bye.