— TaoTuning is both an art and a science. It requires understanding, patience, and practice. We need to understand the component steps. We need to adopt the correct attitude: be in the right place. We need to be on our wave. We need to be listening to the inner law of our being which means we need to have quietened the noise of the restless ego. We need to be strong, resolute, and firm. We need to know precisely where we are going. And finally, but probably most importantly we need to be patient!
To put all this together we need to return to the beginning: to our original question of the meaning of life – why we are here. Any philosophy of life must help us to answer this question – it must create order and make sense of the world. It must assist in the development of a more intelligent and pragmatic worldview. It is our hypothesis that the current religions do not do this, that they actually mislead us into an erroneous and destructive worldview that is limited and past its use-by date. The old religions no longer serve humanity, and the current perilous state of the planet can be directly attributed to these outmoded concepts that have not kept pace with humanity’s evolution.
The world we live in today is diametrically opposed and completely different to that of yesteryear: the tremendous advances in technology - smartphones, the world wide web, social media, disruptive technology, self-driving cars, air travel, and so on have delivered us into a completely different world. Yet our predominant metaphysical worldview has not changed!
We thus live in a fundamentally disassociated and divided psychological state that is breeding anxiety, confusion, and mayhem. We desperately need a new philosophy of life that is in keeping with this new world that we live in and we have argued that the ancient concepts of Taoism provide a more accurate philosophy or worldview than traditional Western religion. To be clear, we are not advocating a complete acceptance of Taoism but merely postulating that it presents a better starting point than any other philosophy to create this much-needed new spirituality.
Taoism is not the answer, but it does provide a firm footing or foundation upon which we can build a new worldview or philosophy of life that is more mature, intelligent, and relevant to today. There is still much work to be done.
Fritjof Capra in his masterful work, The Tao of Physics, makes this same point of the correlation and convergence between the discoveries of modern science, particularly quantum physics, and the teachings of Taoism. Capra explains that the word physics comes from the Greek word, physis, meaning the observation of or seeing the essential nature of all things. Thus, physics is the study of the nature of reality.
Western humanity has lost this ability to enter into direct and immediate contact with reality precisely because he/she is locked within the egoic shell of separation. The overriding distinguishing feature of this intuitive perception is the appreciation of the Oneness of creation! Nuclear physics has proven that we cannot separate the observer from the observed and that, ultimately, the universe is an extremely complex interconnected, and dynamic whole that can only be understood from the perspective of continuous flow and change and where we simply cannot measure or observe any part without understanding its connection to the whole.
Just as we all now live within the interconnectivity of the World Wide Web, so too, the nature of reality is an interconnected whole of cosmic processes and patterns of probability: the cosmic dance of life! There are no discrete absolutes. There are no indivisible pieces. There is no fundamental structure. Moreover, all observation is intimately linked to that process of observation – there is no objective, outside, clinical, and therefore accurate scientific method! All we can do is arrive at approximations of patterns, and probabilities of occurrences.
The mystic does not seek to divorce himself or herself from reality. On the contrary, the goal is to BeCome One with that reality in deep and direct meditation, where all separation ceases and the observer and the observed are fused in another of these yin/yang continuums called the Infinity of Being. We are a part of and one with the universe. There is no egoic shell of separation. The thinking rational mind ceases to exist and there is only the immediate here and now. No other. No past and no future. Time and space collapse into the Unified Field.
The ultimate goal of meditation and all mysticism is this union with the beloved, the Logos, the universe, the creator, God, or the Tao. Call it what you will it does not matter. At that point there are no words, for the left brain of logic and language ceases to exist. One enters the holistic world of the intuition of immediate perception and integrated understanding. One has only to read the works of Krishnamurti and other mystics to glean the rapture of this reality.
Taoism, along with many other ancient worldviews, eloquently describes this new world of quantum physics where there is no absolute reality but rather the dialectic dance of dualism. This represents a quantum shift in thinking: a new paradigm where the relationship between the part and the whole fundamentally changes to one of process rather than structure. The I Ching or Book of Changes, which is the fundamental text of Taoism and is over 5,000 years old, still represents the most accurate depiction of this process and is totally congruent with the most modern of scientific discoveries.
Quantum physics tells us that we live within a world of processes, of probability patterns, of waves of energy. We live within a sea of consciousness. We have been looking in the wrong direction seeking the certainty of a structure that simply does not exist. It is time to turn around and accept the error of our past thinking and adopt a new worldview based on this new understanding. Not one based on mythology or mysticism, but one based on the actuality of the scientific method.
The beauty of this worldview is that it totally validates the zone of flow and peak experience.
— On the personal level, each and every being has a personal law which guides it from within. This is the biological plan: that inherent wisdom passed down through the ages that we inherit at birth and gives us access to the codes of life. This personal law is unique for all of us and describes who we are. To know and to follow this personal law is clarity and the path to a successful life.
We return to the notion that at our core we are not inherently bad or fatally flawed but divinely good. We have received from mother nature, from the biological plan, from the 4.6-billion-year evolutionary process, an intrinsic ability to know what is right for us. We just need to be able to tune into and listen to our divine inner nature.
Man has received from heaven a nature innately good, to guide him in all his movements. By devotion to this divine spirit within, the self attains an unsullied innocence that leads it to do ‘right’ with an instinctive sureness, with a sense of certainty, with that power of conviction that bespeaks authenticity and authority.
However, humanity no longer has the absolute instinctive certainty of ‘the wild’. We must develop our own individual ability to listen to and obey the dictates of our own inner knowing and to choose what is right for us consciously. This is the whole point of being human – this is the destination and fulfillment of the evolutionary journey.
Yet, not everything instinctive is nature in this higher sense of the word, but only that which is right and in accord with the will of heaven. Without this quality of rightness, an unreflecting, instinctive way of action brings only misfortune.
Thus, the plot thickens. We no longer have automatic access to the biological codes as in the wild or the Garden of Eden. We must exercise free will choice, yet we cannot just act instinctively and without thinking, plus, we now have the distracting forces of self-doubt and fear robbing us of inner clarity and causing confusion. The ten thousand years of the ‘fall of man’ cultural encoding and social conditioning all create confusion and bewilderment.
For it is vital to realize once again, here, that the cultural encoding mechanism tells us on a daily basis and from every quarter – from parenting to religion, from social media to mass media, that we cannot trust ourselves; that we are inherently wrong, flawed, fallible and failing and that we need the injunctions of religion, society, and civilization to ‘save’ us from our bestial natures. In other words, if we do listen to our inner selves we will be wrong. If we do act from inner impulse, we will be destructive. If we are true to ourselves, then we will be rejected by others.
Nowhere are we encouraged to believe in ourselves, to obey the dictates of our inner being, to listen to the still quiet voice of God that resides within, to have faith in our free will choice decision-making ability and to decide for and by ourselves, free from external influence and persuasion.
With the incessant noise and din of the pressure and pace of modern living and with the perpetual broadcasts of mass media and social media conformity, how can we possibly find the silence to listen to our inner beings? Added to that is the destructive pernicious influence of the negative ego deliberately trying to lead us astray. Is it any wonder clarity is such an elusive thing?
For to achieve clarity one must be still! One must silence the ‘yammering’ of the negative ego’s left brain and enter into that state of inner quietude. One must be composed, serious and reverent if one wishes to acquire that clarity of mind needed for coming to terms with the confusion of external daily reality and its innumerable impressions. One must be content and at peace with oneself. The negative ego is never at peace with itself but is always comparing.
This is why all the great mystery schools and all religious training involve some aspect of the practice of contemplation and meditation. Without the ability to concentrate one cannot focus and achieve clarity. We must be free from the din and confusion, the turmoil of outer life in order to be free to access the peace and tranquility of inner silence, bringing order out of chaos.
For it is only in this state of inner composure that we silence the dominance of the negative ego and allow the spirit to speak through the intuition. It is through this process and this process only that we can go back to a correct functioning of the healthy state of consciousness where the ego is the servant and the spirit is the master.
It is only through the discipline of concentration that we enter the meditative state whereby the lower, noisy, beta brainwaves of the rational thinking bio-computer make way for the higher, more subtle, alpha brainwaves of intuitive awareness.
It is a personal choice! And in many ways, it is our only choice: to listen to the ego with its constant demands for attention and gratification or to listen to the Tao with its call to do what is right.
— One must take the time to get to know oneself. One must set aside time for peace and solitude with no mass media noise, no electronic screens, and no significant other present. One must befriend oneself in order to know oneself.
This is Clarity. This is how we ‘know’ what is right for us: free from doubt, free from fear, free from the influence of the negative ego, and free to follow courageously, decisively our own inner being.
