Tao is hard to explain – Reason 2
Tao is so elusive, it led Lao Tzu to say, “The Tao that can be mentioned is not the eternal Tao.”
What is Tao Te Ching about and why is Tao is so hard to explain?
There are many reasons for Laozi to say so, and here’s reason 2 — from my perspective.
It has to do with space.
Tao is too big for us to know.
Although the universe is gigantic, it behaves in an incredibly perfect manner. Earth orbits around the Sun in minute precision. So do other planets around their suns.
How is this possible! There is an underlying force that regulates the working of the entire universe. It’s silent, almighty and ever present. Nobody knows what it really is and Lao Tzu named it Tao.
If the universe is big, Tao is bigger, at least in terms of power or it’d not have been able to keep the universe in order.
We know the universe is big. But, how big?
To many of us, the biggest thing in this world is none other than Earth itself. Nothing is bigger than the blue planet that we call it home.
Earth is indeed big. But do you know that it’s in fact only a very small planet. The planet Jupiter, for example, is more than 1000 times bigger. Not to mention the Sun, which is more than a million times bigger than Earth.
So the Sun is big. But do you know there’re 200 billion stars like the Sun in the Milky Way, and many of them are a lot bigger than the Sun.
So the Milky Way is big. But do you know that the Milky Way is only one of the 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
New discoveries surface every now and then. The recent one identified the biggest galactic superstructure in the universe to be Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall. If you were to travel at the speed of light, it will take you 10 billion years to travel from one end to the other end of the structure. In terms of miles, its 6 plus 22 zeros.
Can you imagine how big it is, and how big the universe can be.
And yet … Tao is even bigger.
If we don’t really know the universe because it’s too big, can we truly know what Tao is?
“The Tao that can be mentioned is not the eternal Tao,” says Lao Tzu.
Read also: Reason 1 – Tao is too old to know
