Axiom of the Tao

Chapter 14 – Tao Te Ching

Look at it, it cannot be seen
It is called colorless
Listen to it, it cannot be heard
It is called noiseless
Reach for it, it cannot be held
It is called formless
These three cannot be completely unraveled
So they are combined in to one

Above it, not bright
Below it, not dark
Continuing endlessly, cannot be named
It returns back into nothingness
Thus it is called the form of the formless
The image of the imageless
This is called enigmatic
Confront it, its front cannot be seen
Follow it, its back cannot be seen

Wield the Tao of the ancients
To manage the existence of today
One can know the ancient beginning
It is called the Tao Axiom  

~  Lao Tzu  (as translated by Derek Lin)

 

In my previous post, Axiom: Self-evident Truth, I talked about the meaning of the word Axiom, and I talked about how truths change over time, as human knowledge and awareness grows and develops.  Since we all co-create the reality we find ourselves immersed in, that which appears within our collective minds as the currently accepted axiom of truth will shape what we experience at the moment of reality that we pass through in time.

This means that, for example, if we all decide that the Moon Axiom embodies the story of the moon goddess, Hằng Nga, then it would be the truth because we have made it so, and in doing so, we have used our minds to explain the world around us in a figurative fashion.  Once our understanding grows, our Moon Axiom shifts into a whole new dimension and we are again, able to explain the workings of the world around us, this time, in a more informed and more literal sense.

I have no doubt that once we have attained frequent and easy space flight, when trips to the moon are as common as a flight to Denver International Airport, we will have even more insights into the Moon Axiom, furthering the truths which will allow for a much clearer understanding of the future model of our Moon Axiom.  We will yet again, be able to shift into another paradigm of understanding whereby our future selves will laugh at our current understanding of the Moon Axiom, just as we laugh at the previous generations’ understanding of the Moon Axiom.

Stay with me here.

I am belaboring this concept because I want to point out that this is a holographic way of looking at axioms.  Remember in my previous post, Holographic Nature of Our Existence, when I talked about the features that holograms exhibit?  Well, one of the important features of a hologram is that it can be broken into small pieces but it will still show the entire image, albeit a bit grainier and less clear than if the whole holographic plate is used to create the hologram.  Likewise, the more pieces of truth we gather about the moon, the clearer the Moon Axiom will appear to us, but missing a few pieces here and there is not going to make the moon unrecognizable.  Granted, it will show a grainy image of the moon in the perspective of the piece that is currently being viewed, but the fundamentals will be there.

Wait a minute, you may think.  That doesn’t sound right.  How does a fairy tale about Hằng Nga have any resemblance to the dusty spherical satellite that revolves around Earth?  Of course, the answer is, it doesn’t.  What it does have though, is the beginnings of a method of explanation about a nightly-occurring phenomenon that is cartoony and in primary colors because that is how one teaches young children to view the world.

We don’t start kindergartners off with complex formulas for the dimensions and distance of the moon in regards to the Earth and the Sun.  We start them off with metaphors and easy to grasp stories to develop their natural state of curiosity and creativity.  We start with basic shapes, accessible cartoon-like characters, and simple language to explain simple concepts.  As the child progresses in development, the stories get more complex, the images more realistic, the mathematics more advanced.  The absolute blacks and whites become more defined, a multitude of shades of grey become visible, allowing for a more complex, less distorted image to be revealed.

Alongside this more complex and clearer picture, the student eventually comes to the crashing realization that the fairy tales that have been told throughout the ages are only there to move the student along to a higher level of understanding.  The happily-ever-after ending so often parodied quite possibly may not end in that happy, happy, joy, joy fashion.  There may be a darker side to the bright and shining truth, nay, there MUST be a darker side that exists, as surely as the Tao has a yin and a yang, because that is how the universe exists.

I drew an analogy between the Moon Axiom and the Tao Axiom so that I could make a parallel that would be meaningful to the Tao Axiom and what it could possibly mean to the ancients who apparently knew what the Tao Axiom actually was.  So let me pull those questions I had asked earlier back out into the open so that we can digest it further.

What does Tao Axiom mean?
Tao Axiom means the Self-evident Truth about the Tao.

Is the Tao of the ancients the same as the Tao of the modern-day Taobabes?
Obviously not, since the Ancients operate on a different level of truth that the modern-day Taobabes (or anybody else, for that matter) have not yet reached.  The ancients had more pieces of the Tao hologram plate than we do.  Peering through a tiny shard shows us a fuzzy image of the whole.  Add to that our relative youth and inexperience and we are barely seeing amorphous cartoon blobs of primary colors moving about to try to attract our attention and to get our eyes to learn how to focus properly.

Can we really wield the Tao of the ancients?
Sure!  Once we grow out of childhood and into our godhood, we will be able to wield the Tao of the ancients.  It is our birthright, but as with all birthrights, we have to learn how to wield it and also earn the right to do so before it can be entrusted into our care.  How can an entire universe be turned over to ones such as we if we cannot even maintain the little romper room that is Earth?  Our little planet was not called The Planet of the Children for no reason.  We still have much to learn about our own treatment towards one another, and we still have to figure out how to keep Earth from convulsing in our toxicity.

Were the ancients’ scientific knowledge so vast that they didn’t even bother to have to go through the proof work of the Tao Axiom?
Yes.  And even if they wanted to, how could they possibly describe 248 dimensions of reality to those who have barely begun to explore the basics of electromagnetic, gravity, and time?  The proof work could only be explained once the scientific and spiritual knowledge of the student has reached a level that would be adequate to grasp the material.  Good news is—we are rapidly reaching that point where knowledge begins to burst forth in rapid successions, each growing from previous knowledge, gaining speed and traction as other points of knowledge converge and exponentially expand.  With the oncoming tide of quantum computing, we will crawl out from under the Stone, Bronze, Iron, and Steel age, to rise into the Diamond Age where we can manipulate atoms at will, and in the process, truly wield the Tao of the ancients.