"The Toa that can be told is not the eternal Toa.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The Toa is both named and nameless.
As nameless it is the origin of all things;
as named it is the Mother of 10,000 things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery;
ever desiring, one sees only the manifestations.
And the mystery itself is the doorway
to all understanding."
What is so amazing to me is how obvious all these observations were to Loa Tzu. Truly he must have been enlightened. In this first verse he lays the foundations for all the following verses, that is, God is both material and spiritual. When referring to the Toa that can be told or named he is referring to the Physicality of The Toa or if you prefer, God. This is the God that we see. I guess we need to take a few steps back at this point to look at what that actually means.
The God that we see, refers to everything in the physical world, or what Loa Tzu refers to as the "10,000 things". God is not only the creator of this vast wonderful universe/multiverse, he is the universe. In many religions God is portrayed as a spiritual being sitting up in the sky somewhere. But when we start to search for God we inevitably find Him everywhere. Everything we view as "physical or solid or material" came from a state of non-being or nothingness. That is to say from Spirit. God did indeed create everything, and it was created from what we consider nothingness from a worldly view. It actually comes down to understanding that everything of physical form was created out of spiritual energy or Love. When we hear the saying "God is Love" how many of us actually take it literally? I digress. Even in the field of Quantum Physics it is understood that being, or physical particles come from non-being or energy. Alternatively we could say that everything on this plane comes from the spiritual plane. This is the key to manifestation. But I digress again.
So now that we understand the "Toa that can be named" we can understand that it is not eternal, as all things of being or material form will eventually become non being again sooner or later or, they will die. But it is still God as everything and everybody is a part of the Wholeness of Him.
Now that we know all of this it is clear that the "nameless Toa" is the Spirit. And being Spirit, is the creating force behind all that we see. It is therefore obvious that Spirit or the nameless Toa is where the true importance lies. For from this place of supposed non being, we are born.
Now we venture on to the final two sentences. What Loa Tzu is trying to convey is that if you truly want to know the truth, you must not hunt for it but allow it to present itself to you. This is another foundation of the Toa teaching. The "Wu Wei" that epitomizes the way of God. The non-action or non-doing. As it says in the Bible, God created the earth and then allowed it to be. He stepped back in non-action, he allowed. I think we can all remember an incident were we lost or forgot something, the more or harder we tried to find it the more it eluded us. Yet once we finally gave up (allowed), it presented itself. Sometimes in remarkable ways. This is a perfect example and again the saying "Let go and let God" bears repeating here. So to sum it up, the "mystery" is the awe of Gods creative Spirit. The spirit realm, and trying to see it will only lead you to see what it has produced, the material realm (manifestations) here and now. Now I think the last sentence becomes obvious, but if not, here it goes in plain ole' english. God, Spirit, the Toa is the truth, the way and the life!
Hopefully this brings you to a place of deeper understanding. I welcome all questions, answers and comments. If you can add light to the way for others please do so. We are all here to learn.
Until next time, thank you.
Namaste
