here is the formula
for discovery
of the original self

see yourself as a great river
identify with the fountainhead in the mountains
identify with the watercourse across the land
identify with the emptying into the great sea

this is receptive

rest peacefully within the shape of
an empty vessel
blanketing your bodymind with stillness

tranquil sitting
balances the naturally expressive
with the naturally receptive

see the great river within you
see the great river beneath you
see the great river above you
see yourself as a small within the great river

the great and the small have no meaning
on their own
because they are the same thing

they wish to serve each other

bring them together
as the river connects the mountain spring
to the vast ocean

and the original self
will appear

—Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching; An authentic Taoist translation. translated by John Bright-Fey

With an opening line like, “here is the formula,” you’d expect Chapter Sixty-One to announce its intention loudly and clearly. Instead, we are given cryptic instructions as to achieve a mysterious end—the discovery of the original self.

What is meant by “original?” We know it is unlikely to mean authentic or genuine, as these translations have been used elsewhere. Therefore, we must be discussing some other facet of the self. This rounds us back around to our question, “What is meant by, ‘original?’” Answer: something in its initial state before being altered, developed, or modified; something primordial from which there are no steps backward without undoing the thing in itself. In this sense, “original” can be synonymous with “fundamental.” So, then, what do we mean when we talk about our original, fundamental selves?

In Jungian psychology there is a concept known as pre-consciousness. This is the state of a being prior to the manifestation of its potential consciousness as differentiated with its unconscious elements. Our original selves are like this pre-consciousness. It is who we are when we are a unified being rather than a being divided—it is who we are when our unconsciousness has been integrated into our consciousness. Jung liked this to the medieval European alchemists’ conception of the transmutation of the Lapis (i.e. the Philosopher’s Stone). From the primordial essence—from chaotic nothingness—emerged the four elements which are combined again to create the Rotundum, an unrefined Lapis precursor. This Rotundum was differentiated again and then recombined / reconstituted into a higher form that was the Lapis. Jung argued our psyches were much like this, a thing broken down, remade, and the broken and remade again in a process he called Individuation.

It may very well be that this “original self” of which Lao-tzu speaks is the reconstituted self composed of our consciousness and our integrated, unconscious Self archetypes. The symbols which would validate this interpretation are present. Namely, the river.

A river is many things: it is water, a symbol of the unconscious aspects of the mind; it is a thing contained, unlike the ocean whose vastness seems to be the one who contains rather than the other way around; it is also a thing that changes, whose course is never exactly the same year after year; and it is a source of life, in itself and to those landed beings which surround it. From the fountainhead, it bursts forth from the earth; it spreads out across the terrain, nourishes life, and then into the deep it returns.

That is us, and that is why to identify with the river is to be receptive—because we are beings who are born, live, and die again and again. I do not mean to suggest that we are reincarnated, though surely that is what many peoples of eastern religions have and continue to believe. I will leave such claims to them. Instead, I merely mean to point out that who we each are as individuals is not the same person over the course of our lives. We change, like the river. We remake ourselves by letting who we used to be go and by accepting our new selves so that the course of life may keep on flowing.

We accomplish this through moments of introspection, turning our vision inward, sitting still, and listening. Not thinking. For it is quietude which balances our impulse to express with the receptivity necessary for self-transformation. After all, did not silence precede the differentiation of sound and no-sound? That is where we are going, where consciousness submerges itself in unconscious waters, where the river is above and below, within and without. Here, we realize that we are not separate from our unconscious, animal selves. Each is incomplete without the other half, and neither is independent of the needs and wellbeing of the other. To see this connection is to see the original self—a you individuated—a unified self.

Lao-tzu. “Chapter Sixty-One”. Tao Te Ching; An Authentic Taoist Translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2014. p.118