Tao - the Way

We are doing the World Religions course in Institute this summer. I took it once before at BYU right after i got home from my mission. It's amazing how you think that you got so much out of something and then 6 years later find that your life and experience puts the learning on a whole other level and perspective. Guess that's why he just keeps teaching us the same thing, huh?

This week we were talking about the Tao. I had read it twice for different classes at BYU and am just now remembering some of it. At the time I read it I was impressed with its simplicity and kernels of truth. I was also impressed with how it affected those in Lao Tzu's society. But this time it was different. Here was a man, inspired by the Spirit but without the complete knowledge of who God is and what Christ had done for us, and yet he grasped some of the truths that are most difficult for us in Western society. We like everything to have rules - there are well-defined limits and parameters for everything that we do. We continually seek out new laws and theories, ways to predict the unknown. In fact, in class, one of the questions after we talked about the Tao was what kind of parameters were set around how people were supposed to live their lives.

If you have not read the Tao, it focuses on the Way. Tao means the way. But it is not a list of actions or commandments. Rather it is a way of being, something that comes from the nature within us. The problem, it teaches, is that we too often flail and struggle against that nature. It compares the Way to water. When we submit ourselves to it it carries us and we float downstream, changing and adapting to the hills and valleys of the landscape. When we flail against the current we may sink. Our natural reaction to this type of idea is that floating denotes weakness and that we must have some goal, that we can't just "go with the flow". But how many times do we end up chasing our own purposes? How many times have I flailed thinking that some action is better than nothing? How many times have I begun to focus on action rather than becoming? The way, Christ, is about BEING - the actions that lead us to Him are different for each person. And so many times it cannot follow the path that we have laid out for ourselves. We will have the moments when we are asked to simply allow ourselves to float and be taken by the way, by Christ, to where we should be. And yet so many times I want an action that will lead me to Him, rather than simply allowing myself to BE as He is.

I know this is why the Lord commands us things such as "Be still and know that I am God", instructs us that "Peace I leave with you, my peace give I unto you, not as the world giveth" and "Be ye therefore perfect". This is not so I judge myself as to how perfect I am, but so that I will be still, hear and understand how to BE as Christ. I just hope I can focus on allowing the way to be part of me.