Line by Line - Verse 39, Line 11

Without these powers, the spirits soon would fail;
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~

The strength of the spirit prevents its being used up.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~

The gods, lacking divinity, would vanish
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~

Without Tao,
our spirits would fade away.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~

This is another one of those lines which speaks to the underlying essence of our existence. No one knows what that essence is; all we think we know is that it exists because we and this world exist.

Some people posit existence itself proves that there is a creator. As I have written numerous times before, I'm not willing to go that far. Since we have no genuine clue what truly makes up the essence of life, we don't have enough information to determine if existence needs a creator or not.

To view the Index page for this series to see what you may have missed or would like to read again, go here.