Author Description

The Tao Te Ching (pronounced, basically - The Dao De Jing) is an Ancient Spiritual Guidebook to Life written, as legend has it, by the Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu. Scholars believe it is more likely to be an accumulation of writings from many authors over a large stretch of time. According to the legend, Lao Tzu was a very old yet youthful man who had found and aligned himself with what he simply called the "Way." He was kind of an Abraham, Jesus or Mohammed of his time, though he lived a regular life and did not take up a ministry, as western religions would understand it. He did have students that wanted to learn what he knew, but he did not "preach" as westerners would understand. This may be why his followers are not as insistent that his way is the only way as so many religions are. Many of his followers use his methods and study other religions as well, finding no contradiction. Lao Tzu believed that until you were ready, his words would make no sense. Instead of insistently beating his message into you, he waited until you were ready and then guided you along the path. In Western terms, he didn't "throw his pearls to the swine." This is opposed to the ways of so many other religions that not only believe it is ok for them to pressure you heavily into converting to their beliefs, but their duty. In fact, in the past, many religions often converted others violently, at the tip of the spear and sword, so to speak. Many religions still do this today- some literally, some figuratively. At the insistence of one of his students, Lao Tzu evidently recorded, as best he could, the path to this Elusive Goal - the Great Mystery, the Way, the Mystery of mysteries. Buddhists would call what he described as Nirvana; Christians would describe it as Heaven. Because he was attempting to describe the "Indescribable," trying to help us to get a grasp on the "Ungraspable" and "Unknowable," his guidebook, like the "Way" ITself, is elusive. There are eighty-one chapters in his orig