The Chinese mind is too philosophical to fashion a supreme being in its likeness.
The higher aspirations of Christ and Buddha, the world’s great reformers, have nothing to do with the cold, practical philosophy of Confucius, who does not have the depth of feeling and the spiritual striving of his contemporary, Lao Tzu.
From Lao Tzu down to Hiuen-Tsang, their literature is replete with allusions to the fair island of Shambhala (now an oasis of incomparable beauty) and the Wisdom of the trans-Himalayan Adepts.
The Emptiness of Lao Tzu is the Absoluteness of the Buddhist, a state of perfect Uncreated Unconsciousness — a Presence which ever was, is, and will be forever.
Lao Tzu mentions only five of the seven principles of man, and omits to include the highest (Atma) and the lowest (which is no principle but the cadaver).
Analogy is the guiding law, the reliable Ariadne’s thread that can lead us through the otherwise inextricable paths of Nature.
The “seven jewels” of the Japanese Yamaboosis, the mystics of the Lao Tzu sect, and the ascetic monks of Kyoto allude to the correspondence of the seven principles of man with our planetary chain of seven rounds.
The Moral Doctrines of Lao Tzu:
1. Tao in Its Transcendental Aspect, and in Its Physical Manifestation.
2. Tao as a Moral Principle, or “Virtue.”
3. The Doctrine of Inaction.
4. Lowliness and Humility.
5. Government.
6. War.
7. Paradoxes.
8. Miscellaneous.
9. Lao Tzu on Himself.