Thomas Hübl:
There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene, empty, solitary, unchanging, infinite and eternally present. It is the matter of the universe, and for lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. It flows through all things inside and outside and returns to the origin of all things. The Tao is great, the universe is great, earth is great. Man/ woman is great. These are the four great powers, man slash woman follows the earth. Earth follows the universe. The universe follows the Tao, and the Tao follows only itself. So man follows earth, and Earth follows the universe.
And the universe follows the Tao. And the Tao follows only itself. That’s how the Tao introduces us to an inner order. And sometimes in the spiritual practice or in some spiritual circles, we’re reluctant to acknowledge an inner order of things. I call this sometimes the divine law, like the law of life that preserves the transmission of light from one generation to the next, a karma free transmission. And if we heard that law, which is in mundane ways represented as human rights, the right to be, right to become, and the right to belong. So being, becoming belonging, if we honored it and we support that in every human being, then we’re serving that in our order if we restrict it or hurt it. So then we create karma and that creates pain. And that’s the story of suffering.
Man follows Earth is we are part of the planet. We’re not separate particles, although often we do behave like that. But we’re not separate particles. My body is the planet. My body is the substance of the planet. And actually our bodies are very old. They’re not just 30, 40, 50, 60 years old or older. They’re hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years old. And we carry that wisdom inside. And so aligning with the principles of nature and following that line from human beings to earth, to the universe, to the Tao, and that the Tao gives birth to everything, it nourishes everything inside and outside, which means the universe hasn’t just been born and now it’s left to its own devices. The universe has been born and the Tao expresses itself, which means it’s transcendent and imminent and that power lives in us. So every day through deeper inner connection, contemplation, meditation, prayer, we can actually connect to the force of the Tao to the power of the Tao within us and through the insight and the nourishment and the love that the Tao expresses through us moment to moment, to moment to moment.
So it’s actually a power that has agency through us in life and many of the spiritual traditions learn to practice how to connect and how to also harvest and express the power of our life and live in alignment with human being follows earth follows universe and follows the Tao, which means there is a kind of an inner order to life. And we can learn through contemplation, through increasing our sensitivity, through inner listening, in and outer listening, in and outer mindfulness, and deeper contemplative practices to receive, to be in tune with that order. And that realigns our life and helps us to live more in harmony with the forces that is in order or creation unleashes as our lives.
And so for today, it’s maybe good to look what are the ways, how you reconnect yourself, especially in times that are volatile, in times that are more disturbing, maybe where news are reporting about a war and other atrocities that happen and climate change and many other things that are potentially upsetting. So how do I realign and within a world that is partly out of balance, how do I come back to living a life that is more informed by the inner balance? So we’re not just coming back to an inner balance, we are coming back to that which informs our inner balance. And the verse 25 of the Tao Te Ching speaks to that in a beautiful way as to other traditions. And so that’s the inspiration for today.
