Chapter One
Today we begin a translation of the Tao by Tolbert McCarroll.
Tolbert McCarroll, better known as “Brother Toby” has lived by Meister Eckhart’s adage that what a person acquires in contemplation should be spent in compassion. He is a highly respected spiritual guide for people on many paths and journeys. An award-winning author of nine books, including NOTES FROM THE SONG OF LIFE and CHILDSONG, MONKSONG, he is a founding member of the Starcross Community, a small lay community in the monastic tradition. A former attorney for humanitarian causes, he still frequently ventures forth in response to children in need. The adoptive father of six children, he has established homes for children oppressed by the AIDS pandemic in California, Romania, Uganda and South Africa. He lives at Starcross in Sonoma County, California, where he writes and helps grow olives.
Chapter One
The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The name is the mother of the ten thousand things.
Send your desires away and you will see the mystery.
Be filled with desire
and you will see only the manifestation.
As these two come forth they differ in name.
Yet at their source they are the same.
This source is called a mystery.
Darkness within darkness,
the gateway to all mystery.
