The Transmuted Tao: A Contemporary Philosopher Revisits The Spiritual Classic

The Tao Te Ching is the greatest guiding treatise for living by divine, natural providence, born of an inherent spiritual wisdom lost by a human race that has buried that wisdom beneath the pretenses of knowledge, power, covetousness and control. Taoism predates all the major religions, and promulgates ideas and principles which those religions pretend to be their own. Indeed, those from later faiths shall here, if reading with open heart and mind, find the roots of their own faith. The Way of the Tao Te Ching is as the sacred seed buried in the soil, forever regenerating the existence trodden upon and taken for granted by a human race that now dishonors nature, believing that it has the right to dominate it.

All the great religions followed in Lao Tzu's footsteps, tracing a path which The Old Philosopher himself speaks of coming from eons long past; a trail as ancient as humankind itself, which The Old Philosopher knew of himself to be but a traveler of. I have, here, set upon the path myself, being a long-running student of spirituality. As part of my practice I'm enriched by performing 'active reading exercises' in order to improve my understanding of my reading, in which I gather the insights and principles of the original text and word them as they make the most sense to me, and hopefully to other readers as well.

I do this not, in this case, as a foolish attempt to 'one-up' the master metaphysician, but, again, to expand upon my own understanding, hopefully do a service to modern readers, and as a means to more actively consider and pay homage to his wisdom. I do this also to honor that fact that sacred wisdom is both ineffable and, at the same time, by the same nature, may be limitlessly expressed and reworded, like a glorious white light shining through an infinitely-faceted prism.