The Law is for All

Chapter II * Verse 21 105 But there is one other solution, as I have endeavoured to shew. We may accept (what after all it is absurd to accuse and oppose) the essential character of existence. We cannot extirpate or even alter in the minutest degree either the matter or manner of any element of the Universe, where each item is equally inherent and important, each consubstantial and coherent, each aequipollent, independent, and interdependent. We may thus acquiesce in the fact that it is apodeictically1 implicit in the Absolute to apprehend itself by self-expression as Positive and Negative in the first place, and to combine these primary opposites in an infinite variety of finite forms. 1 [Certainly or demonstrably.] We may thus cease either (1) to seek the Absolute in any of its images, knowing that we must abstract every one of their quali­ ties from every one of these equally if we would unveil it; or (2) to reject all images of the Absolute, knowing that attainment thereof would be the signal for the manifestation of that part of its nature which necessarily formulates itself in a new universe of images. Realizing that these two courses (the materialist’s and the mys­ tic’s) are equally fatuous, we may engage in either or both of two other plans of action, based on assent to actuality. We may (1) ascertain our own particular properties as partial projections of the Absolute; we may allow every image presented to us to be of equally intrinsic and essential entity with ourselves, and its presentation to us a phenomenon necessary in Nature; and we may adjust our apprehension to the actuality that every event is an item in the account which we render to ourselves of our own estate. We dare not desire to omit any single entry, lest the balance be upset. We may react with elasticity and indifference to each occurrence, intent only on the idea that the total, intelligently appreciated, constitutes a perfect knowledge not indeed of the Absolute but of that part thereof which is ourselves. We thus adjust one imperfection accurately to another, and remain con­ tented in the appreciation of the righteousness of the relation. This path, the “Way of the Tao,” is perfectly proper to all men. It does not attempt either to transcend or to tamper with Truth; it is loyal to its own laws, and therefore no less perfect