THE SAYINGS OF LAO TZŬ [1906]

Lionel Giles (1875 - 1958) was a Victorian scholar, translator and the son of British diplomat and sinologist, Herbert Giles. Lionel Giles served as assistant curator at the British Museum and Keeper of the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books. Lionel Giles is most notable for his 1910 translation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Analects of Confucius.

Lionel Giles used the Wade-Giles Romanization method of translation, pioneered by his father, Herbert Giles. Like many Victorian-era sinologists, he was primarily interested in Chinese literature, which Victorians approached as a branch of classics. Victorian sinologists contributed greatly to problems of textual transmission of the classics.

THE SAYINGS OF LAO TZŬ [1906]
“The real value of the Tao Tê Ching lies not in such puerilities, but in its wealth of suggestive hints and pregnant phrases, each containing a world of thought in itself and capable of expansion into volumes.”

Practise inaction, occupy yourself with doing nothing.
Desire not to desire, and you will not value things difficult to obtain.

Learn not to learn, and you will revert to a condition which mankind in general has lost.
Leave all things to take their natural course, and do not interfere.

AMONG mankind, the recognition of beauty as such implies the idea of ugliness, and the recognition of good implies the idea of evil. There is the same mutual relation between existence and non-existence in the matter of creation; between difficulty and ease in the matter of accomplishing; between long and short in the matter of form; between high and low in the matter of elevation; between treble and bass in the matter of musical pitch; between before and after in the matter of priority.

The truest sayings are paradoxical.

Knowledge in harmony is called constant. Constant knowledge is called wisdom. * Increase of life is called felicity. The mind directing the body is called strength. (There must always be a due harmony between mind and body, neither of them being allowed to outstrip the other. Under such circumstances, the mental powers will be constant, invariable, always equally ready for use when called upon. And such a mental condition is what Lao Tzŭ here calls "wisdom")

Emma Curtis Hopkins quoted from the Tao.
The messages of the Tao, ACIM, the Vedas and Zend Avesta are similar.

Stephen Mitchell (b. 1943) is a poet, translator, scholar, anthologist and translator who has focused on drawing forth the central spiritual themes from much of the world's scripture. He is married to author Byron Katie. [http://www.thework.com/index.php]

. . . wishes are like magnifying glasses they enlarge and focus an intention that is already inside us." ~ Stephen Mitchell

He has adapted classics from languages he doesn't know, including Chinese (Tao Te Ching, The Second Book of the Tao), Sanskrit (Bhagavad Gita), and Akkadian or ancient Babylonian (Gilgamesh). His books link together ideas from Zen Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity.

• Tao Te Ching, HarperCollins, 1988, hardcover ISBN 0-06-016001-2, paperback ISBN 0-06-016001-2, ISBN paperback P.S. edition 0-06-114266-2, pocket edition ISBN 0-06-081245-1, illustrated edition ISBN 0-71-121278-3
• The Second Book of the Tao, Penguin Press, 2009, ISBN 1-59-420203-2
• Gilgamesh: A New English Version, Free Press, 2004, ISBN 0-74-326169-0
• Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation, Harmony Books, 2002, ISBN 0-60-981034-0
• Real Power: Business Lessons from the Tao Te Ching (with James A. Autry), Riverhead Books, 1998, ISBN 1-57-322089-2

Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, or Book of the Way, is the classic manual on the art of living, and one of the wonders of the world. In eighty-one brief chapters, the Tao Te Ching looks at the basic predicament of being alive and gives advice that imparts balance and perspective, a serene and generous spirit. This book is about wisdom in action. It teaches how to work for the good with the effortless skill that comes from being in accord with the Tao (the basic principle of the universe) and applies equally to good government and sexual love; to child rearing, business, and ecology.

Stephen Mitchell’s bestselling version has been widely acclaimed as a gift to contemporary culture. http://www.stephenmitchellbooks.com/transAdapt/taoTeChing.html

Less and less do you need to force things,
until finally you arrive at non-action.
When nothing is done,
nothing is left undone.

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.


Laozi (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ; Wade–Giles: Lao Tzu; also Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tzu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Lao Zi, Laocius, and other variations) was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, and best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching.

THE MESSAGE OF NEW THOUGHT

by ABEL LEIGHTON ALLEN
Published 1914.

Excerpts

New Thought is largely a restatement of old thought, vitalized with new life and meaning from the discoveries of modern psychology and the latest deductions of science. The reader must bear in mind, however, that the Old Thought was suppressed in the Western Hemisphere for nearly two thousand years; for the first time it is sending its illuminating rays to gladden the Western world.
* * * * * *Everything vibrates and oscillates through the broad stretches of infinity. Since motion produces change, everything in Nature is passing through perpetual change.
* * * * * *The adherents of New Thought worship the omnipresent God, the indwelling God, in whom we live, move, and have our being. They do not conceive of God as distant or separated from man, but as a universal Spirit permeating all Nature, finding its highest expression in man.
* * * * * *With most of us the Christ within is asleep in the ship, and only as the winds and waves of life beat therein, threatening us with shipwreck and destruction, do we find courage to wake the Gentle Master to still the raging tempests.
* * * * * *It has been said that he that knows but one Bible, knows none. There is perhaps much truth in the statement. The Vedas and Zend Avesta contain many truths later found in the Hebrew Bible. How many who accept the Bible literally and as the inspired word of God, ever read those ancient Bibles?

[... it was said in the Vedas thousands of years ago that if any two people would unite in their psychic forces, the could conquer the world! That is the reason Jesus told us -- "If any two of you shall agree as touching anything they shall ask, it will be done unto them. ... ~ "The God in You" ~ Robert Collier ~ 1937]* * * * * *New Thought is in harmony with the latest utterances of science and philosophy, regarding the unity of life, that it pervades and animates all nature and all created beings. Only as we recognize this fact can we find a rational and substantial basis for the brotherhood of man.
* * * * * *
The real secret of man's power, then, is to create proper ideals or thought forms, and thus control the subconscious divinity within him. As thought controls the subconscious, the great reservoir of intelligent forces, so man directs his own welfare and destiny. The key, then, to man's power is to think constructively, think positively, create ideals of health, of cheerfulness, of happiness, and of accomplishment. When he has learned this secret, he has become master over things and circumstances. At last we come back to the great truth, as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.
* * * * * *
The experiments referred to, by which thoughts were transformed into visible forms, were conducted by Dr. Charles W. Littlefield. He asserts that he created mental images in solutions of inorganic compounds placed upon photographic slides, and the forms thereby created were successfully photographed and the photographs exhibited for inspection. Dr. Littlefield, in giving the results of his experimentation, says: "In the chemical analysis of all living things we find two classes of compounds, the organic and the inorganic. The former class is represented by albumen, sugar, starch, and oil, while the latter is represented by the compounds of soda, lime, magnesia, iron, potash, and silicon, as made up by the union of these with sulphur, phosphorus, chryoline, fluorine, and oxygen, making twelve mineral compounds, commonly known as tissue salts.
* * * * * *New Thought is not a religion of yesterday, or a philosophy for tomorrow but for today. It is a religion of life and for man's use. Its purpose is to teach man how to live now, and to find the highest and best in life. Our yesterdays are gone, our today is here. "Yesterday is only a dream, tomorrow is only a vision." We cannot control the past, but we can perform the duties of today. Today will be the past tomorrow, we can only make it glorious by acting well today.
* * * * * *
The great lesson for man to learn is that such negative thoughts as malice, envy, and hatred do not injure or affect the person against whom they are sent, so much as the one who gives them wings and sends them forth. Giving and receiving is the work of life. What we give, that we receive. This law holds good in all we give; whether we send forth thoughts to another or to our own subjective minds, they come back, either as benedictions or otherwise, according to the character of the thoughts sent forth.

* * * * * *The principles enunciated in New Thought have never been tried in the solution of the social and economic problems that constantly confront society. After all the centuries of theological teaching, the world is still divided by contentions and disagreements. Men are still separated by antagonisms and dissensions, each individual and class seeking to take advantage of the other. Selfishness still dominates man. Man's hand is still raised against his fellow-man. If it is not individual against individual, it is organization against organization, class against class. Labor is arrayed in fierce warfare against capital, and capital against labor. Labor is in antagonism also with itself. Public servants are still dishonest. The briber still plies his trade. The grafter is abroad in the land.
It is lamentable that these conditions should exist in this twentieth century. There must be a cause. There is a cause for every effect. Conditions can only be changed as the cause is changed. True reform is centered at the cause.
* * * * * *We live in the great present, the eternal now, the grandest epoch in all the ages. Our ideals must be great, to harmonize with the ; great present. We cannot live the full life by taking our standards from the past. We must feel the thrill of the present, to develop the best within us.
* * * * * *
Let us remember that we may create, that we may build, that we may be a positive force in the world, that we may lift the burden from some struggling life, that we may radiate joy and kindness, gratitude and love from our lives, that we may leave the world a little brighter and mankind a little better than we found them.


"Our lives are songs;
God writes the words.
And we set them to music at leisure;
And the song is sad, or the song is glad
As we choose to fashion the measure."
"We must write the song,
Whatever the words,
Whatever the rhyme or meter,
And if it be sad, we must make it glad,
And if sweet, we must make it sweeter."