Allow Your Light to Fill the Darkness
A Primer to Living the Light within Us According to the Tao
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
In the theater of our life, we allow the rules to be set by ego, and the drama takes place on a stage that we have set. For the most part the production is written, directed, and performed by us. All decisions are ours to make. It is up to us to determine how the roles played by others in our life will affect us. Both acceptance and responding within the goodness of the Tao allow us to move forward, but too much of the time during our performance on stage we feel the need to exercise control through the things we say and do. A much-used strategy employed by ego is to seek knowledge and to use it to our advantage. Opportunistic maneuvering of knowledge and connections is used to influence others and to acquire money, power, and relationships; it has little or no redeeming value when all we hope for is personal gain. Our attachment to the outcome seems to be all that matters. Our thinking drives this underlying intention. When we don’t allow ego to lead the way but instead approach life from our center and acknowledge that we do not know, our intentions are more likely to be heart-centered and focused on caring. In addition, without influence from the ego, our thinking is more apt to be ethical, upstanding, and principled. Thought evokes feelings, and feelings facilitate the flow of Universal Energy of a corresponding frequency. Heartfelt intentions that convey goodness prompt the Tao to be dedicated to responding with goodness. If we do not resist our fear-based feelings about things present, past, or future and we consciously give ourselves permission to experience the associated pain and discomfort in any part of our body, we can then more easily release the feeling of psychological pain because we have experienced it, and we have survived. Our resistance no longer keeps the pain alive. When we realize that we do not know how we should live but we decide to live from the intention of being and doing good, our feelings and behavior come from the energy center of our heart and soul, and we open ourselves to guidance from the Tao. This allows for and promotes growth and healing. At their root, our intentions are sustained by the thoughts that we allow ourselves to hold in our consciousness. Our sustained creation of a consummate picture in our mind of the circumstance we wish to manifest allows us to feel the sheer, undiluted emotions that are inherent to the experience. Organization can be important, but we should not become attached to our step-by-step plans. Relax and release from the outcome. Our intentions, enveloped in and coalesced with the Energy of the Universe create our experiences. Do not assume that ego, through knowledge and manipulation, can successfully plan the events needed to bring fruition to our desires. It may happen but instead we should realize that it is not in anyone’s control, including our own. Our ego works from the false assumption that systematic intervention is the only and best way to control outcomes. Learning from the past and making knowledgeable decisions as a result is the path to take when it aligns with the goodness of the Tao. Clinging to our desired outcome by worrying and watching for any indication that may prompt us to intercede leaves us in constant anticipation of failure. Too often, when we think we have the knowledge and personal ability to reach our goals on our own, we fail. Realization that all we can do is prepare the way by taking the right steps releases us from the burden and sets our frame of mind to the level of knowing that the outcome is already here. We then vibrate at the same level as the anticipated outcome. Moreover, we can now feel the emotions that will be experienced when our intentions are realized. Accepting that on our own we do not know what to do allows us to be tuned in and aware, so the all-encompassing Energy of our Universe, the Tao, can help guide our decisions. We must also realize that during this time the Tao continues to take its cues from our innermost feelings and intentions that originate in our seemingly never-ending thoughts. This happens with or without our awareness. Everything is energy and energy is everything. Our body’s energy system responds immediately with each change of focus in our awareness. If we rely solely on our knowledge to solve problems, plan our lives, and so on, and in addition we fret about the uncertainty of our plan of action to deliver the outcome to which we have become attached, our stressful thoughts will reflect our anxiety-ridden nature and override our wishes. The predominant feelings that germinate in the fertile medium of our awareness communicate with the Universe and through this interconnection attract the things we spend much of our time thinking about, including what we do not want. We should feel good about the knowledge we have acquired. We also need to feel good about applying this knowledge in heartfelt, honest, and meaningful ways. However, following this we need to relax. We are energy; the Universe is energy; we are part of the Universe. Stay relaxed and trust; the Universe knows; therefore, we know. The answer lies in the Energy of the Universe, the Tao, which is available to us. When we have conditioned our thoughts to focus on the present while maintaining wholesome intentions, feelings spring up in our awareness, bloom, extend their radiant consciousness into the Universe, and attract corresponding circumstances into our lives. The universe responds to whatever is at the hub of our intentions, and the feelings within the nucleus of our resolve extend into the periphery of our decision-making, thus attracting the essence of our thoughts into our lives. Awareness of the connection between our intentions and our lives provides direction to our choices. Our continuing consciousness of the intention that fuels our feelings and emotions allows us first to recognize and then to accept responsibility for our choices as well as choose the new direction that the intention powering our choices may need to take. Opportunity always rests with our choice, and choice is, always was, and will remain ours.
Select Format
Book Details
About the Book
How do we recognize error in our thinking? How can we enjoy the spiritual benefits of practicing our religion while not condemning the religion of others? These questions are addressed in the eighty-one commentaries included in this book. These commentaries refer to, but are independent of, the illuminating and compelling essay collection about Lao-tzu’s Tao Te Ching, as voiced in Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer.
Living “right,” according to the Tao, anticipates that we have both the understanding needed to make right choices and the knowledge to recognize the types of behavior that are important for us to change. However, of equal or greater significance to these skills are the feelings that drive our internal motivation at our center. Many of us need to learn the life lessons that keep popping up as issues in our lives. They keep resurfacing until we finally recognize the lessons and actually learn them. We know we have really been learning our lessons when we notice that our intentions are genuinely beginning to change.
We have absolutely no concept of how the connections we feel and know to be real actually come about, between ourselves and others, between us and the happenings of life, or between us and God. We often describe these feelings or experiences as resulting from some type of energy, but what might that really mean? Reflecting this unexplainable, invisible, but vital connection on the written page through symbolism provides our minds with a crutch to assist understanding and recall. Although the illustrations as drawn may have little or no basis in the facts, the understanding of the concepts that develop through their use helps us apply the “gems” that Lao-tzu speaks of in the Tao, to our lives.
About the Author
With a modest upbringing and supportive parents, Daniel Frank completed his teacher training at the age of eighteen and started his nonstop forty-two-year teaching career the following year. He acquired his BA and BEd while working full time. In January of 1978, his interests led him to a course offered at the local secondary school based on the book How Should We Then Live? by Francis A. Schaeffer, a “theologian and philosopher … [with] forty years of intensive study of humanism and Christian truths.” It stirred something within him to search for more answers to the question asked by the title of Schaeffer’s book. Although many of the authors he has read to date have contributed to the view of God he holds today, Dr. Wayne W. Dyer tops the list.