If you open yourself to the Tao, you and Tao become one
Many people are overwhelmed by wisdom of Lao Tzu — and the power of Tao — which jumps out at them when reading Tao Te Ching the book of the ancient sage. But that seems to be all, as they usually would do nothing further than reading.
This is a pity, as you cannot really benefit from Lao Tzu by just reading. It’s like swimming. You can read about how exciting swimming is as a sport, but you will not benefit from it by reading alone.
You have to put what you read into practice. You have to make Tao a way of life, rather than just snapshots of reading.
It is, nevertheless, not easy. Tao is such an elusive concept it is very hard to define. Even Lao Tzu had to begin Tao Te Ching by saying, “The Tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao”.
If you cannot define it, how are you going to make it a way of life?
In fact, you can. Living Tao is not a process of learning. It is a process of experiencing. Definition is useful, but not essential. It’s not unlike love. A baby in the cuddle of her mother’s arm does not need to know what love is to bathe in the greatness of her mother’s love.
Tao is everywhere in and around you, if you are ready to feel it.
In order to feel its existence, first — learn to accept.
While Tao resides in everything, if you try to look for it with your desire to see and a predetermined idea to explain, it eludes you.
Accept what is. Accept the being.
When you see a beautiful flower, appreciate and be one with it even you have seen it many times before. When you meet a person, forget what you’ve thought about him. Just feel his vibration. When you hear a comment, even if it is an insult, just accept it as a block of message emerging in your mind — and read it.
You free yourself from your own constraints and would see the current beneath what you see and what you hear. You also get to experience the invisible and the inaudible current of Tao in the process.
With that, you are on your way to do as infinity Tao directs.
If you open yourself to the Tao,
you and Tao become one.
If you open yourself to Virtue,
then you can become virtuous.
If you open yourself to loss,
then you will become lost.– Tao Te Ching quotes, Verse 23
Thank Jacob Bøtter for the picture.
