DOES THE TAO TE CHING AND GOD CONSCIOUSNESS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER? (Or are they complete strangers to each other?)

GOD OR TAO?

 

This is the bigger-than-big question, isn't it? Along the lines of "to be or not to be" and other chestnuts strewn about by the various seekers traipsing along the path to enlightenment.

The Tao is one of the grand old deep wells of ancient wisdom that people still come to in search of some sort of insight into the endless existential quandry of "why? why? why?" 

So...what is the final word on God and The Tao?

This may strike you as similar to some of the ideas expressed in the Veda. 

The Veda has references to ideas about something called the absolute and the relative. The absolute is without attributes and is unchanging. The relative is ALWAYS changing and is permeated by the absolute.

You can discern the presence of the absolute within the relative because of this attribute of the relative ALWAYS changing. Here is the contradiction of the relative.

And here is the contradiction of the absolute --- how can something that has no attributes have no attributes? Merely mentioning that something has no attributes descibes an attribute of that which has no attributes.

You can see the game of hide and seek being played out in the Tao te Ching. Here is an example:

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 7

Heaven and Earth last for ever.
Why do Heaven and Earth last for ever?
They are unborn,
So ever living.
The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.
He is detached, thus at one with all.
Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu - chapter 1

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
The named is the mother of ten thousand things.
Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
     this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery.

Source: 

(translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

Yes, and that's great...but what does it all mean, and why should you care?

Well, technically...if you are a Veda person or a Tao type person, you really shouldn't care...at all, about anything. You are supposed to be FREE from desire, and when you reach this state of being, then you will be able to see the mystery.

What is the mystery? Well, that's simple! The mystery is the source of the mystery. And this is (of course!) The Absolute.

The basic idea is that The Absolute A.K.A. The Tao is/are impossible to know in the normal sense of knowing something. They existed before existence existed...they are older than old and bigger than big...smaller than small.

And they came before God.

So does the Tao deal have any gods?

Yes!

First of all, we need fancy words, and here they are:

apophatic theology

"Apophatic", Ancient Greek: ἀπόφασις (noun); from ἀπόφημι apophēmi, meaning 'to deny'. 

From Online Etymology Dictionary:

apophatic (adj.) "involving a mention of something one feigns to deny; involving knowledge obtained by negation."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophatic_theology#Etymology_and_definition

TAOISM IS SUPPOSEDLY APOPHATIC.
CAN GODISM ALSO BE APOPHATIC?

Godism is a term I have coined to describe the obsession people can get into when it comes to all the God stuff...the pursuit of God...getting to know God, and so on.

The apophatic angle of getting into the Tao and all things Taoistic is also found in all the other religions, too.

Basically, what this all means is that you can "know" God by knowing  God, the Divine, by negation. 

Huh?

This means you talk about God only in terms of what may not be said about the perfect goodness that is God.

HUH?

Okay, clarification needed? 

God by negation is NOT described as being, say, Pure Love. No, no, no. Maybe instead you do your apophatic dance by saying God is not hate.

So you get to describe God by saying what God is not...not what God is, but what God is not. Clear?

You are instructed to tell your soul to reject all concepts and imaginations of God and enter the ‘darkness that is beyond understanding’, to become ‘wholly united with the Ineffable’ 

SOURCE: Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite

You can easily replace the word God for Tao and the apophactic deal is exactly the same process.

But the Tao is not God, and yet the Taoist deal has lots of different gods.

There are a whole bunch of deities in the Taoist deal. One of the really big ones is the guy who supposedly penned the Tao te Ching...Lau Tzu.

There are two main groupings of gods inside the religion called Taoism.

The Highest Gods In Taoism Live in Celestial Paradise

The first group of gods are beings who were formed from celestial energies released at the start of creation. They govern all the deities in a descending order that is complex and similar to other bureauocracies. These gods do not accept offerings of food or alcohol --- they are not into sacrifices. You can ONLY contact them via a human Taoist priest...and that only in writting.

The Humans Who Become Gods:
Ascending into Heaven In Broad Daylight

The second group of gods used to be ordinary mortal human beings who have become gods by learning really deep shit, through the use of something called alchemy, and purifying their mortal imperfections. Thus they transform themselves into gods. 

Here is a link to some more details:

>>> THE THREE PURE ONES <<<

All This Begs the Question:
Is the Tao Masquerading as God?

Is Tao just another word for nothing left to lose? Is Tao just another word for God? And is God just another word for Tao?

And from all the above comes another curiosity: Can you experience the consciousness of the Tao?

This would mean that the Tao is something you can experience. Perhaps it also means that the Tao is conscious. Perhaps the Tao is aware of itself?

Is There Something Called Tao Consciousness?

Yes. There is. But it isn't what most of us would even come close to understanding because most of us have NEVER bothered to experience that which cannot be experienced.

Besides this conundrum, how can you get "there" when there is no "there" to get to? And after all that, what method can you possibly use when the method is wrapped up in that which is ALMOST impossible to do?

After all, how can we experience something that is a non-thing that goes something like this: 

"Clarifying their eyes, they do not look; quieting their ears, they do not listen. Closing their mouths, they do not speak; letting their minds be, they do not think. Abandoning intellectualism, they return to utter simplicity; resting their vital spirit, they detach from knowledge. Therefore they have no likes or dislikes. This is called the great attainment."

Source ---> Lao-tzu, Wen-Tzu: Understanding the Mysteries, trans. Thomas Cleary (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1992), 35.

I don't know about you, but I definitely have some very active likes and dislikes. There is lots of stuff I enjoy...and also lots of stuff I do NOT enjoy...at all.

Is Tao Consciousness also God Consciousness?

I don't know.

I think that ultimately God and Tao are the same thing. But I am babbling about the impersonal God, the God of the absolute. Tao is the absolute version of the same thing...that which is without attributes.

God Consciousness is a way to have two-way, conscious, telepathic communication with the personal consciousness of God. It is a private and personal connection. It takes the form of receiving thoughts from God in your mind and having a two-way conversation on the level of thoughts you experience in your own mind.

>>> GET SOME GOD CONSCIOUSNESS RIGHT NOW <<<

It may sound delusional to you. I don't know. Whatever it is, it sure is super cool.

Can we do the same thing with Tao? I will give it a go and let you know what happens.

What came before Tao? 

Ah, here is where it gets really deep. 

If the Tao is emptiness, what came before emptiness? What is the source of that which has nothing inside of it? Where does the source of source come from?

If there is Tao, if there is God...where did it come from?

There is a reference in the Tao te Ching, in chapter 15, to the existence of Taoist masters BEFORE Lao Tzu was supposedly alive and wrote the contents of chapter 15.

Here is a snippet from chapter 15:

"...The ancient masters were subtle, mysterious, profound, responsive.
The depth of their knowledge is unfathomable...."

SOURCE: (translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

https://www.wussu.com/laotzu/laotzu15.html

By the way, one of the best translations of the Tao te Ching I've come across is the one by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English. Here is a link to their translation. You can find the entire Tao te Ching, one chapter at a time.

>>> TAKE ME TO THE TAO, NOW! <<<

> GET THE eBOOK FROM AMAZON <