Tao is Great,
The Heaven is great,
The Earth is great,
The King is also great.
These are the Great Four in the universe,
And the King is one of them.
Man models himself after the Earth;
The Earth models itself after Heaven;
The Heaven models itself after Tao;
Tao models itself after Nature
Has anyone considered the possibility that Lao tzu was not a complete anarchist? That perhaps he saw that the king himself was indeed apart of humanity's nature? Consider the lines in this way :The king models himself after his people. His people model themselves after the earth, The earth models itself after heaven, the heavens model themselves after the tao, the tao models itself after nature.
In this way one can see that the King is at the lowest level of the way and to keep himself in power he must model himself after what gives him power: the people. Failure to model themselves after the people will result in unbalance or even death. The people being not as well off as the king must model themselves off of the land and earth in order to retain power. Failure to do so will cause an unbalance, infertile soil, famines, and unwisely allocated natural resources. The earth models itself after heaven. Failure to do so might cause unpredictable climate changes or a loss of harmony and an extreme exposure of sun light to certain geographical points if the earth does abide by the ways of the sun and moon. The heaven models itself after the tao. Failure to do so would result in a loss of life, in other words if the heavens did not abide by the path of least resistance then it would be incredibly difficult for life to flourish. Finally the tao must model itself after nature, failure to do so would result in stagnation. A completely non-resistant "way of everything" would result in the weakest forms of life, maybe even none at all! It is in this way the tao must abide by nature to complement complete passivity with struggle. The tao is the path of least resistance, however it is not the path of no resistance. Resistance is completely necessary to the tao, however the extreme of either resistance of passivity is unbalanced. I hope this helps.
