26 | The Middle Way
We will conclude this study with a few final comments on the 'Middle Way'. Earlier on we explained that this is the same as the 'Way of Heaven', and so is depicted in the form of a vertical axis envisaged in an ascending direction. However, we must now add that this only applies in the case of a being who has reached the centre of the human state and strives to raise himself from there to the higher states, but has not yet achieved complete realisation. On the other hand, once this being has identified himself with the axis by following its direction and 'ascending' to the 'pinnacle of Heaven', what he has effectively done as far as he himself is concerned is to make the centre of the human state from which he started coincide with the centre of the whole being. In other words, for such a being the terrestrial pole and the celestial pole are one. This, after all, is only logical, because he has finally arrived at the principial state which is prior to the separation of Heaven and Earth (if in such a case it is still permitted to use a word which evokes temporal symbolism). Once this has been achieved there is strictly speaking no axis left. It is as if this being 're-absorbed' the axis to the extent that he identified himself with it, until it was reduced to a single point; but needless to say, this single point contains in itself all the possibilities not just of one particular state but of the totality of all the states, both manifest and non-manifest. Only for other beings does the axis remain as it was: nothing has changed in their state, and they have stayed in the realm of human possibilities. The idea of a 're-descent' that we spoke of earlier is therefore only really valid for them; it should not be difficult to appreciate that this apparent 're-descent', while admittedly a reality at its own level, will not have the slightest effect on 'transcendent man' himself.
The centre of the total being is the 'Holy Palace' which is spoken of in the Hebrew Kabbalah, and which we have discussed
elsewhere. [1] Continuing with our use of spatial symbolism, we could say it is the 'seventh direction', which is not itself a specific direction but contains all directions principially. In terms of another symbolism it is also the 'seventh ray' of the Sun, which passes through the centre of the Sun itself. Truly speaking it is that centre, and can only really be depicted in the form of a single point. And also, it is the true 'Middle Way' when understood in an absolute sense, because this centre and this centre alone is the 'Middle' in every possible way. When we talk here of 'every possible way' we are referring not just to all the different meanings that a word is capable of conveying, but-once again-to the symbolism of space and spatial directions. In fact the centres of the different states of existence are only the 'Middle' by participation and, as it were, by reflection, and consequently only incompletely. If we turn again to the geometrical schema of the three axes of coordinates which determine space, we can say that such a centre is indeed the 'Middle' in relation to two of these axes, but not in relation to the third. It is the 'Middle' in relation to the two horizontal axes that define the plane of which it is the centre; but not in relation to the vertical axis through which it receives this participation in the total centre.
In the 'Middle Way' as we have just defined it, there is 'neither right nor left, neither forward nor backward, neither above nor below'. It should not be hard to appreciate why, for a being that has not yet reached the universal centre, only the first two of these three pairs of complementary terms can cease to exist. Once a being has arrived at the centre of its own state of manifestation, it is beyond all the contingent oppositions that derive from the alternation of yin and yang; [2] from then on there is no longer any
'right or left'. Also, temporal succession will have disappeared, transmuted into simultaneity at the central and 'primordial' point of the human state of humanity; [3] and the same will naturally apply to any other mode of succession if it is a question of conditions in another state of existence. This-as we explained when discussing 'triple time'-means there is no longer any 'forward or backward'. However, 'above and below' will always continue to exist in relation to such a point, and even along the entire course of the vertical axis; and this is why that axis itself is only the 'Middle Way' in a purely relative sense.
For there to be 'neither above nor below' any longer, what is required is that the point where the being is located must effectively be identified with the centre of all the states. From this point the 'universal spherical vortex' which we have described elsewhere [4] extends indefinitely in every direction. This is the 'Way' along which the modifications of all things flow outwards. But as to the vortex itself, in reality it is only the unfolding of the possibilities of the central point; and this means that principially it must be regarded as being contained in its entirety in that central point, [5] because from the principial point of view (which is not a specific or a 'distinctive' point of view) it is the centre which is everything.
This is what Lao Tzu meant when he said that 'the way which is a way (which can be travelled) is not the (absolute) Way', [6] because for the being who has become effectively established at the total, universal centre, it is this unique point and this point alone that is the true 'Way'-apart from which there is nothing.