Laozi
孔德之容，唯道是從。 道之為物，唯恍唯惚。 忽兮恍兮，其中有象； 恍兮忽兮，其中有物。 窈兮冥兮，其中有精； 其精甚真，其中有信。 自古及今，其名不去， 以閱衆甫。吾何以知 衆甫之狀哉？以此。
James Legge
The grandest forms of active force From Tao come, their only source. Who can of Tao the nature tell? Our sight it flies, our touch as well. Eluding sight, eluding touch, The forms of things all in it crouch; Eluding touch, eluding sight, There are their semblances, all right. Profound it is, dark and obscure; Things’ essences all there endure. Those essences the truth enfold Of what, when seen, shall then be told. Now it is so; ‘twas so of old. Its name—what passes not away; So, in their beautiful array, Things form and never know decay.
How know I that it is so with all the beauties of existing things? By this (nature of the Tao).
Victor H. Mair
The appearance of grand integrity is that it follows the Way alone. The Way objectified is blurred and nebulous. How nebulous and blurred! Yet within it there are images. How blurred and nebulous! Yet within it there are objects. How cavernous and dark! Yet within it there is an essence. Its essence is quite real; Within it there are tokens. From the present back to the past, Its name has been imperishable. Through it we conform to the father of the masses. How do I know what the father of the masses is like? Through this.
C. Spurgeon Medhurst
The comprehensiveness of supreme energy is its conformity to the Tao. [^1]
The Tao considered as an entity is impalpable, indefinite. Indefinite, impalpable, within are conceptions. Impalpable, indefinite, within are shapes. [^2] Profound, obscure, within is the essence. This essence being supremely real, within is sincerity.
From the beginning until now it has not changed, [^3] and thus it has watched all the essentials. How do I know it has been thus with all principles? By what has just been said.
As the gospels, filled with the presence of the Master, preserve no notes of the disciples’ sermons, so the true mystic sees God alone in the universe. Is not the spiritual the home of the physical? Is not conformity to the Tao the comprehensiveness of the Energy which is supreme? “In Him we live and move and have our being.” “It is His fullness that filleth all in all.” “And by Him all things consist.” “But the Lord is in his holy temple: be silent before him all the earth.”
[^1] See ch. 38.
[^2] “The cosmos is all-formed—not having forms external to itself, but changing them itself within itself. Since, then, cosmos is made to be all-formed, what may its maker bet For that, on the one hand, He should not be void of all form; and, on the other hand, if He’s all-formed, He will be like the cosmos. Whereas, again, has He a single form, He will thereby be less than cosmos. What, then, say we He is?—that we may not bring our sermon into doubt; for naught that mind conceives of God is doubtful. He, then, hath one idea, which is His own alone, which doth not fall beneath the sight, being bodiless, and (yet) by means of bodies manifesteth all (ideas). And marvel not that there’s a bodiless idea.” The mind to Hermes, by G. R. S. Mead, in The Theosophical Review, vol. xxxiii., p. 52.
[^3] Lit.—“Its Name has not departed.” Noumenally the Tao is eternal and unchanging; phenomenally It has a beginning and consequently an end.
Ursula K. Le Guin
The greatest power is the gift of following the Way alone. How the Way does things is hard to grasp, elusive. Elusive, yes, hard to grasp, yet there are thoughts in it. Hard to grasp, yes, elusive, yet there are things in it. Hard to make out, yes, and obscure, yet there is spirit in it, veritable spirit. There is certainty in it. From long, long ago till now it has kept its name. So it saw the beginning of everything. How do I know anything about the beginning? By this.
Note UKLG: Mysticism rises from and returns to the irreducible, unsayable reality of “this.” “This” is the Way. This is the way.