How is the logos different from the Way in the Tao Te Ching?

[Christina]

I agree. The basis for understanding the Tao Te Ching is a starting premise that there is the Absolute (we have to pick a word but the concept is quite unimaginable to us), the Source, thus Oneness. The Tao is the behavior of the physical laws that coalesce matter and energy into All Things in the universe and directs their evolution. The Way represents a world view where subject-object does not frame one's thinking, thus one's perception of the world.

[Victoria]

I concur with that too.

[Brad]

I find the concept of "oneness" to be very alien. I can't get my head around it. I tried to read the Tao Te Ching as humbly and openly as I could make myself do and it just didn't take.

I get the concepts for the most part, but they don't fit any experience of the world that I have had and can draw on. They feel empty, abstract and unreal to me.

[Jamal]

Daoism is reallly an offshoo of chinese alchemy. The reason why is because indian yoga and chinese taoism(really chinese yoga) are offshoots of alchemy(whether chinese or indian alchemy).

Yoga is a spiritual form of alchemy so they would speak about oneness, you might understand it intuitively sometimes even logically, but you experience might not match it. In alchemy you learn to experience those things physically. Everything is one but all things are given different roles so that all beings(whether plants, animals, minerals, humans or all things in between) experience the physical realm. Hence in taoism 1 becomes 2, two becomes 3, 3 becomes 5 and 5 becomes 99. The lower the plane the greater the illusion of separation.

[Jdcomments]

Logos is a reflection of Greek rationalism- the belief in reason as the defining factor in the world.

The Way is anti-rational- it is mystical and incomprehensible by reason.

They seem to me to be polar opposites in their modeling of the Universe and our ability to understand it. The logos leads to science. The Way leads to mysticism.

[Fateh]

Brad wrote: "I find the concept of "oneness" to be very alien. I can't get my head around it. I tried to read the Tao Te Ching as humbly and openly as I could make myself do and it just didn't take.

I get the..."

Yes, that abstract and uncomfortable feel IS the initial experience on Oneness in my experience. It's supposed to be like that... To take you into a new place of awareness. Imagine, sorta, if you were putting on new glasses, and needed a while for your eyes to adjust to a new prescription. As you read, the words of the book begin to work on your consciousness in the same way. Uncomfortable IS the feeling and the sign that something is working. You're not "supposed" to wrap your head around Oneness and Infinity—that would be too limiting of Infinity. To me, another word for this sensation is humility.

[withdrawn]

I shall wade in here with a few comments of agreement and disagreement with what has been said by various commenters above.

First I will disagree with Jamal's comment that Taoism is an offshoot of Chinese alchemy. Whereas some Taoist religious groups have been associated with alchemy, there appears to be no evidence that this was ever mainstream within either religious Taoism nor within philosophical Taoism. Further, it might be noted that the earliest references to Chinese alchemy appear mid-second century BCE. The latest posited date for the putting together of the Tao Te Ch'ing is mid-third century BCE while others argue for the mid-fourth century BCE.

I would also disagree with Jdcomments on the distinction between rational vs anti-rational in reference to Logos and Tao. The meaning of the Greek word Logos has changed often. Its most known meanings are those of Aristotle, the Stoics, and in the Biblical Book of John. Aristotle's sense is closest to the one mentioned. Aristotle does not use it to mean 'reason' but to refer to 'reasoned arguments', usually between those seeking truth. (Philosophers). The Stoics used the word more in the sense of prime mover, first principle or, perhaps, divine principle. John took up the term 'Logos' from Greek translations of the so-called Old Testament. John uses it in the sense of 'divine spirit' referring to God or the Holy Spirit. My point is that the term has been all over the place. It has been much discussed in Christian theology and I do not think it can easily be defined simply as 'the belief in reason as the defining factor in the world'. For many Christians, it is the moving spirit of God. A quite mystical concept.

To suggest that 'The Way leads to mysticism' is also, I believe, equally erroneous. As Christina says above, "The Tao is the behavior of the physical laws that coalesce matter and energy into All Things in the universe and directs their evolution. The Way represents a world view where subject-object does not frame one's thinking, thus one's perception of the world." This sounds a lot like a description of modern physics. There are many who see Tao in that way. While long practiced in China and abroad as a religion, there are many who read the Tao Te Ching so as to find a different world view: a world view without subject-object distinctions, without spirit-matter distinctions, without mind-body distinctions. Interestingly, numerous psychologists and neuro-scientists are taking up these concepts as they look to find an understanding of how we think, how we experience the world and ourselves.

As with all world views, there are things we have trouble conceptualizing verbally. The concept of the Tao and the 81 parts of the Tao Te Ching are, mostly (there have been many interpolations over the centuries), an attempt to put forth this world view and to instruct how to live within it.

This is not a world view which runs counter to our modern scientific world. If you can understand the concept of the universe unfolding, expanding, with things constantly coming and going and changing, you have the basic concepts. But just as we have trouble conceiving of what existed prior to the Big Bang or what happens as the universe continues to expand, so you can only grasp part of the world view of the Tao.

In my early teens I used to lie on my back at night in a cemetery (It was a great place to see the stars.) I tried to imagine the concepts of eternity and infinity then. The stars seemed infinite but I could not rationalize that. The beginning and ending of the universe were there somewhere but my understanding could not explain that. I could, however, feel the unity of it all. Time and space flowed by uninterrupted by me or anyone else. Now I call this flow the Tao. I have no better word.

This world view is definitely not mystical for me. I fully suspect that there are physicists out there who do or will come to a rational understanding of all of this through mathematics. I do not have that ability so I continue to read about the Tao. I want to feel the oneness of time and space as I did when I was thirteen years old in the cemetery.