“Spirits of the dead receiving It (Tao) become divine; the very gods themselves owe their divinity to its influence; and by It both heaven and earth were produced”.[46]
There were floating traditions in China in Lao Tze’s time regarding men who had lived for hundreds of years. One was “the patriarch Phăng”, who is referred to by Confucius[47] as “our old Phăng”. It was told that “at the end of the Shang Dynasty (1123 B.C.) he was more than 767 years old, and still in unabated vigour”. We read that during his lifetime he lost forty-nine wives and fifty-four sons; and that, after living for about 1500 years, he died and left two sons, Wu and I, who “gave their names to the Wu-i or Bu-i Hills, from which we get our Bohea tea”.[48]
Kwang Tze refers to Phăng. But instead of telling that he had discovered and partaken of the elixir of life, as he must have done in the original story, he says that he “got It (the Tao), and lived on from the time of the lord Yu to that of the five chiefs”.[49]
Others who got It (the Tao) in like manner were, according to Kwang Tze, the prehistoric Shih-wei who “adjusted heaven and earth”, Fu-hsi who “by It penetrated to the mystery of the maternity of the primary matter”, the sage Hwang-Ti who “by It ascended the cloudy sky”, Fu Yueh, chief minister of Wu-ting (1324–1264 B.C.), who got It and after death mounted to the Eastern portion of the Milky Way, where, riding on Sagittarius and [[320]]Scorpio, he took his place among the stars. Various spirits “imbibed” It likewise and owed their power and attributes to It (the Tao).[50]
Kwang Tze tells that a man once addressed a Taoist sage, saying, “You are old, sir, while your complexion is like that of a child; how is it so?”
The reply was, “I have become acquainted with the Tao”.[51]
Here the Tao is undoubtedly regarded as the elixir of life—as “soul substance” that renews youth and promotes longevity. It was not, however, a thing to eat and drink—the “plant of life” or “the water of life”—but an influence obtained like the spiritual power, the “merit”, accumulated by the Brahmanic hermits of India who practised “yogi”. As the mystery of creation was repeated at birth when a new soul came into existence, so did the Tao create new life when the devotee reached the desired state of complete and unquestioning submission to its workings.
There were some Taoists who, like the Brahmanic hermits, sought refuge in solitary places and endeavoured to promote longevity by management of the breath, adopting what Mr. Balfour has called a “system of mystic and recondite calisthenics”. As we have seen, Lao Tze makes reference to “breathing exercises”, but apparently certain of his followers regarded the performance of these exercises as the sum and substance of his teachings, whereas they were but an aid towards attaining the state of mind which prepared the Taoist for submission to the Tao. Kwang Tze found it necessary to condemn the practices of those “scholars” who, instead of pursuing “the path of self cultivation”, endeavoured to accumulate “the breath of life” so that they might live as long as the [[321]]patriarch Phăng. In his chapter, “Ingrained Ideas”, he writes:
“Blowing and breathing with open mouth; inhaling and exhaling the breath; expelling the old breath and taking in new; passing their time like the (dormant) bear, and stretching and twisting (the neck) like a bird; all this simply shows the desire for longevity”.[52]
The genuine devotees “enjoy their ease without resorting to the rivers and seas”, they “attain to longevity without the management (of the breath)”, they “forget all things and yet possess all things by cultivating the qualities of placidity, indifference, silence, quietude, absolute vacancy and non-action”. These qualities “are the substance of the Tao and its characteristics”.[53]