Comment by Keith Saylor on 9th mo. 15, 2015 at 9:29am

Howard. I have not read "A Course in Miracles" however I am familiar with the "Tao To Ching." I carry a copy everywhere with me within a copy of the bible. 

When they lose their sense of awe,
people turn to religion.
When they no longer trust themselves,
they begin to depend upon authority.

Therefore the Master steps back
so that people won't be confused.
He teaches without a teaching,
so that people will have nothing to learn.

Blessings

Comment by Jim Wilson on 9th mo. 16, 2015 at 1:11pm

Good Morning:

It is interesting that Howard and Keith have touched on the Tao Te Ching.  I have been working on an annotated edition of 'A Guide to True Peace'.  This includes commentary at certain points.  At one point I attempt to discuss the passive state that the Quietists attempt to cultivate in their relationship to God, or the Divine Presence.  It was a difficult concept at the time it was introduced by the Quietists and Quakers (the 1600's) and I suspect it is more difficult today in a culture that is so centered on activism.

So I brought in the Tao Te Ching into the commentary and the Taoist concept of 'wu wei'.  Literally 'wu wei' means 'nothing doing', but paradoxically it doesn't mean doing nothing.  It means doing nothing on the basis of the limited self or ego.  I think Barclay's description of the passive relationship to the light and the Continental Quietists view of passiveness, and the Taoist understanding of 'wu wei' are remarkably resonant.  Chapter Two of the Tao Te Ching puts it this way:

Therefore the wise go about doing nothing, teaching no-talking,

The ten thousand things rise and fall without cease,

Creating, yet not possessing,

Working, yet not taking credit.

Work is done, then forgotten.

Therefore it lasts forever.

(Feng & English translation)

In the 'Guide' they use an extended metaphor to describe this state: that of a ship at sea whose movement and activity are propelled by the wind filling the sails.  In such a state, only slight adjustments at the helm are needed, now and then, to stay on course.  But as a whole, the ship is passive to the wind and because it is passive it moves with grace and elegance.  I find that image nourishing and at times I can even dwell in that sense of the Wind of God filling the sails of my life.

Best wishes,

Jim

Comment by Howard Brod on 9th mo. 16, 2015 at 2:21pm

Thanks Jim for these wonderful insights!

If readers here find value in the mystical thread of Quakerism, you will certainly find much inspiration from the Tao Te Ching.  We often use passages from it as a springboard to deep spiritual sharing at my meeting's Circle of Friends that precedes worship each Sunday.  It is as powerful as the parables and words of Jesus - which we also often use as a springboard.  I can't help but wonder if Jesus had access somehow to this spiritual work which was about 500 years old when he was on Earth.  He was such a mystic himself - I feel certain he would have found power in the words of Lao-tzu.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 9th mo. 16, 2015 at 7:21pm

Hello Jim. Thank you for sharing these thoughts. I am stunned by the beautiful metaphor you shared. I've found myself (like you) just settling into it; living the truth of it in a poetic fashion so that the words interpenetrate, transfigure, and pierce the prism of life refracting the Light into glorious hues of color and there happens a riding along and within the eternal and peaceful Drift. 

Blessings.

Comment by Keith Saylor on 9th mo. 17, 2015 at 10:41pm

Diane. The words you wrote ...

" The hard part is seeing those who depend on those outward things struggling with all the turmoil and uncertainty."

... have stayed with me over these passed few days. I've been just sitting with them unable to gain a sense of why the impression they made has not waned or why I having such a difficult time grasping the shape of the impression.

I hope you do not mind that I try to work through it here with you?  You see, it is easy for me to bring to memory a time or times in my life when my conscious and conscience were largely dependent of outward things and the turmoil and uncertainty of that dependency. It also happens that even though I now know heaven or eternal life, it sometimes happens that that Presence within become overshadowed by layers of outwards things pressing right up against me and a darkness threatens moments of overshadowing. 

It has not been my experience that outward things lead or guide to the Light. In my experience, they literally hinder a sustaining manifestation of the inward Light illuminating the conscious and guiding the conscience. The moment I turned from the outward things of religion is the moment the Light began to manifest within and I glimpsed eternal life and heaven. 

Since then, outward religions institutions, ideologies, theologies, practices, traditions, etc. had less and less value. With that said, I very much value entering into worship with others. However, I place no value in the outward structures many build as "places of worship." These places of worship nurture and nourish turmoil and uncertainty. I do not seek a place of worship because I do not seek turmoil and uncertainty. There are so many people striving to form worship in various places and to "create community" and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over the forms they create to gird up their spiritual lives merely shadow and stifle the spiritual nature already right there within them if they only shed their outward dependencies. People create committees and seek outwardly learned people to help them build community and a place of worship through which they can "see" heaven and in the very act of building outward forms they blind themselves. I do not seek community because community is anywhere and everywhere I AM in the immediacy of the inward Light. I do not seek a place of worship because I AM in worship, generally speaking, at all moments and in all places and gather with others in the Name itself without regard for outward churches or meetings. 

Why is it that people spend hours and hours and hours arguing over and discussing what people must do to create community and build a church when "church" and "community" is a result of a conscious anchored in and a conscience informed by the inward Light? The origin of "church" and "community" is not in the outward mind and actions of men and women who create turmoil and uncertainty through dependency upon outward institutions fashioned in and through the abstract rationalizations.

The moment men and women create religious institutions with outward rules and practices is the moment they create the very things they wish to transcend ... turmoil and uncertainty. 

Comment by Diane Benton on 9th mo. 18, 2015 at 10:31am

Keith I don’t at all mind working through it here.  It allows others the opportunity to speak.

 

What you’ve said pretty closely matches what I’ve discovered.  What turned us from those outward things and gave us that first glimpse of eternal life?  I certainly can’t take credit for doing anything to cause it to happen.

 

Because I know common unity already exists and includes all, I have a connection, through Spirit, with all.  Some I live in closer communion with than others and I feel their pain and confusion more acutely.  I, also, feel Spirit reaching out to them and longing for them to know the Light in their conscience. 

 

My challenge is staying sensitive to that and, at the same time, not letting it turn me away from the Light in my conscience.  Again, I am totally dependent on Spirit to accomplish that in me.  How did I come to know that the only way I can participate in leading others into opening to the Light in their conscience is by being yielded to the Light in mine?  How is it that it’s happened to me and not yet to others?

Comment by Keith Saylor on 9th mo. 18, 2015 at 11:50am

Thank you for this Diane. Yes, that moment when our burden, our outward stuff, was neatly folded and laid on the turf at our feet ... and we turned and walked away, taking an inward posture wherein we adhere to that Presence itself that happens to us; sustaining us in a new life independent from outward stuff because the inward Light itself re-places the outward burdens of mirrored or refracted human being. No longer living a refracted Life, we see the pure un-refracted light within all human beings and we see that which unites us all, however, many of us only see and identify with the refracted light, through the prism of the bodily nature.  We cannot find unity in refracted light; only in the pure un-refracted Light itself. It is when the pure inward Light itself is no longer refracted by the bodily or worldly nature that we see heaven all around us and embrace and hold the Light in each human being and greet them in the Name.

Thank you again ... for your beautiful and encouraging thoughts. I am holding your words in the Light as I go through this day.

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