Change Your Thoughts - Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao

by Wayne W. Dyer

Take pride in refusing to take credit for the achievements of others.

18th Verse When the greatness of the Tao is present, action arises from one’s own heart. When the greatness of the Tao is absent, action comes from the rules of “kindness and justice.” If you need rules to be kind and just, if you act virtuous, this is a sure sign that virtue is absent. Thus we see the great hypocrisy. When kinship falls into discord, piety and rites of devotion arise. When the country falls into chaos, official loyalists will appear; patriotism is born.

You are not saintly (a good person) because an organization says so, but rather because you stay connected to the divinity of your origination. You are not intelligent because of a transcript; you are intelligence itself, which needs no external confirmation. You are not moral because you obey the laws; you are morality itself because you are the same as what you came from.

Live without attachment by being generous.

Let go of evaluating yourself on the basis of how much you’ve accumulated and what is in your financial portfolio.

is all perfect. God’s love is everywhere and forgets no one. I trust in this force to guide me, and I am not allowing ego to enter now. Notice

Take time to “let go and let God,” every single day.

I am letting go and letting God. I am a glorious infant nursing at the great all-providing Mother’s breast.

Quantum physics teaches that particles emerge from an invisible and formless energy field. So all creation, including your own, is a function of motion: from formless energy to form, from spirit to body, from the nameless Tao to a named object.

Right now make a simple decision to move your index finger. Now wiggle your toes. Next, lift your arm. Finally, ask yourself, What is it that allows me to make these movements? In other words, what is it that allows you to see shapes and colors? What force behind your eyes invisibly signals you to process the sky as blue or a tree as tall? What is the formless energy that tweaks a vibration somewhere in your ear to give rise to sound?

Have an unquenchable thirst for the intangible and enigmatic force that supports all life.

suggest that you simply take a moment or two several times a day to say aloud, “Thank You, God, for everything.”

fact, just a moment ago I said 21st Verse these very words: “Thank You, God, for allowing these words to appear, supposedly from my pen. I know that the Source of everything, including these words, is the elusive and intangible Tao.”

22nd Verse The flexible are preserved unbroken. The bent become straight. The empty are filled. The exhausted become renewed. The poor are enriched. The rich are confounded. Therefore the sage embraces the one. Because he doesn’t display himself, people can see his light. Because he has nothing to prove, people can trust his words. Because he doesn’t know who he is, people recognize themselves in him. Because he has no goal in mind, everything he does succeeds. The old saying that the flexible are preserved unbroken is surely right! If you have truly attained wholeness, everything will flock to you.

Change the way you see the storms of your life.

24th Verse If you stand on tiptoe, you cannot stand firmly. If you take long steps, you cannot walk far. Showing off does not reveal enlightenment. Boasting will not produce accomplishment. He who is self-righteous is not respected. He who brags will not endure. All these ways of acting are odious, distasteful. They are superfluous excesses. They are like a pain in the stomach, a tumor in the body. When walking the path of the Tao, this is the very stuff that must be uprooted, thrown out, and left behind.

Change your life by consciously choosing to be in a state of gratitude.

Change your life by examining your urge to boast and be self-righteous.

25th Verse There was something formless and perfect before the universe was born. It is serene. Empty. Solitary. Unchanging. Infinite. Eternally present. It is the Mother of the universe. For lack of a better name, I call it the Tao. I call it great. Great is boundless; boundless is eternally flowing; ever flowing, it is constantly returning. Therefore, the Way is great, heaven is great, earth is great, people are great. Thus, to know humanity, understand earth. To know earth, understand heaven. To know heaven, understand the Way. To know the Way, understand the great within yourself.

Vow to seek a calm inner response to the circumstances of your life.

“I forgive you. I surround you with love and light, and I do the same for myself.”

Trust in yourself.

Don’t judge yourself or others.

Lao-tzu speaks of are the love, kindness, and beauty that defined your essence before you were formed into a particle and then a human being. In other words, living virtuously has nothing to do with obeying laws, being a good citizen, or fulfilling some externally inspired idea of who you’re meant to become.

Entertain the exact opposite of what you’ve been conditioned to believe.

Replace all negativity with love.

Force creates a counterforce, and this exchange goes on and on until an all-out war is in progress. Once war has begun, decimation and famine result because the land cannot produce crops.

when you create war in your personal life, it produces a dearth of love, kindness, and joy, which leaves you and everyone around you stripped of Divine Motherhood.

Eliminate verbal and/or physical force in all situations.

Refuse to participate in violent actions in any way.

31st Verse Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them. Therefore, followers of the Tao never use them. Arms serve evil. They are the tools of those who oppose wise rule. Use them only as a last resort. For peace and quiet are dearest to the decent man’s heart, and to him even a victory is no cause for rejoicing. He who thinks triumph beautiful is one with a will to kill, and one with a will to kill shall never prevail upon the world. It is a good sign when man’s higher nature comes forward. A bad sign when his lower nature comes forward. With the slaughter of multitudes, we have grief and sorrow. Every victory is a funeral; when you win a war, you celebrate by mourning.

33rd Verse One who understands others has knowledge; one who understands himself has wisdom. Mastering others requires force; mastering the self needs strength. If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. One who gives himself to his position surely lives long. One who gives himself to the Tao surely lives forever.

Living Self-Mastery

Focus on understanding yourself instead of blaming others.

I am responsible for what I see. I chose the feelings I experience . .

Discontinue deciding what anyone else should or shouldn’t be doing. Avoid thoughts and activities that involve telling people who are perfectly capable of making their own choices what to do. In your family, remember that you do not own anyone. The poet Kahlil Gibran reminds you: Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you . . .

Notice the eternal bliss that’s always with you—even when the delicacies are out of sight!

He who feels punctured Must once have been a bubble, He who feels unarmed Must have carried arms, He who feels deprived Must have had privilege . . .

Strive to know oneness by seeking awareness of opposites.

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Practice gratitude and contentment every day.

Let’s take apart the very name of this era—information—to explain what I mean. When you stay “in-form” (in your body and the material world), you’re rewarded with information. But move beyond form (transform to spirit) and you’ll receive inspiration. Thus, information is not always knowledge, and knowledge is not always wisdom. Wisdom connects you to your heart in your waking moments; it is the Tao at work.

Begin the process of trusting your heart.

In the following excerpt from the Koran, the great prophet Mohammed tells the followers of Islam to practice compassionate action. You can use his teaching to make a daily difference during your own life: Behave beneficently toward the neighbor that is a kinsman and the neighbor that is a stranger and the companion by your side. He who behaves ill toward his neighbor is not a believer, nor can ever be one. One who eats his fill while his neighbor is hungry by his side is not a believer.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead addressed this idea in the following observation: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Those who know do not talk. Those who talk do not know”)

Gather as much virtue as you possibly can.

William Shakespeare described this more than 2,000 years after Lao-tzu’s passing in his play The Third Part of Henry the Sixth: My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not deck’d with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen. My crown is call’d content; A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

I deserve and anticipate receiving only Divine love. This is what I attract.

I send loving, kind thoughts to all and trust that this love will help them see the folly of their hatred.