Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life

us to live a Tao-centered existence,rather than an ego-centered one. I’ve titled this brief essay “Living a GodRealized Life” because this is what I believe he’sasking you to do throughout the 81 passages, and particularly here in number 70. “My words have an ancestor; my deeds havea lord,” he says, and then immediately follows with the thought that the people just don’t get it, so they clearly “have noknowledge of me.” Lao-tzu’s ancestor is the Tao, and the lord of his deeds is that very same nameless Source. He seems tobe musing, I think like God thinks; I speak as God, the creator of the universe, would speak; and therefore I act in accordance with these God-realized principles.

I urge you to do the same, which is oh-so easy if you just surrender and allow this life-sustaining Tao energy to guide you. Stop fighting, eschew violent thoughtsand deeds, and give up trying to control others or the world. Stay humble; don’t interfere; respect your creative genius,as well as that of others; and, above all, return to your invisible Source and shed your troublesome ego while you’re stillalive and incarnated as one of the 10,000 things. If you do all of this, you will naturally live a long life in joyful, nonjudgmentalpeace.

Think of how the great spiritual masters have been portrayed by artists throughout the centuries: Lao-tzu wears a simple robe,Jesus is outfitted in plain clothes and sandals, Saint Francis sports almost tattered rags, Buddha looks like a peasant witha walking stick, and Mohammed is depicted as a simple man. Then look at the how the followers of the greatest spiritual teachers have been portrayed—living in the lap of luxury, opulence, and conspicuous consumptionin golden palaces. The great sages dress plainly even though they conceal the most precious commodity within themselves.

And just what is this great treasure hidden within these masters? Verse 67 explained that it is God realization in the formof the three treasures: mercy, frugality, and humility. You don’t need gold-embroidered costumes and temples strewn with riches—bothof which were the result of the sweat of countless servants and slaves—to house these treasures. Dressing plainly keeps thesage in harmony with the simplicity of this message.

This is what I hear Lao-tzu saying between the lines of this 70th verse, expressing the bewilderment that he feels as so fewpeople seem to grasp his beautifully simple message:

Know the Tao Te Ching.

Change your mind about being one of the vast majority who doesn’t understand or practice the teachings of the Tao Te Ching. Lao-tzu tells you that there’s so little to do—all you need to remember is that your holiness is a piece of the Tao. According to A Course in Miracles, “Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind.”

Declare yourself to be one of those who possesses this knowledge, and be willing to practice God realization every day.

See God everywhere.

Make it your daily practice to seek the invisible force of God in everything you see and hear. In the 14th century, Meister Eckhart offered some advice on how to put this 70th verse of the Tao Te Ching into daily life: “What is the test that you have indeed undergone this holy birth? Listen carefully; if this birth has truly taken place within you, then every single creature points you toward God.” He further advised: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was ‘Thank You,’ that would suffice.”

Practice saying Thank You, God, for everything. This is the way to God realization.

Do the Tao Now

Plan a day to be like the sage who dresses plainly, without jewelry, makeup, or fancy clothes. In fact, head out for the day in a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. Wherever you go, stay in this “plain” mode and notice how irrelevant the attention paid to dress and looks seems. Tune in to your feelings as you go about your business unconcerned about how others view your appearance.

71st Verse

Knowing ignorance is strength.

Ignoring knowledge is sickness.

Only when we are sick of our sickness

shall we cease to be sick.

The sage is not sick but is sick of sickness;

this is the secret of health.

Living

Without Sickness

There’s quite a paradox present in this passage, which has been expressed throughout my many readings of the Tao Te Ching as variations on “only when your sickness becomes sick will your sickness disappear.” Lao-tzu seems to be saying that one must actually become ill in order to avoid illness.

Once again I’ve thought long and hard about this short verse. I’ve played with these words over and over in order to grasp their essential meaning for you, and for myself as well. Finally, I’ve meditated with Lao-tzu’s image before me, asking what he meant by this puzzling 71st verse. His answer is what I based the rest of this chapter on.

First of all, what does the word sickness imply? For me, it means that something in the body or mind is out of balance with the well-being from which it originated—that is, it’s not in agreement with the Tao. Conditions such as fevers, aches, wheezing, sniffling, breathlessness, coughing, unusual fatigue, and fainting are indications of the presence of illness; and the equivalent of such symptoms in our thinking could be fear, anxiety, anger, hatred, worry, guilt, stress, impatience, and so on. These are signals that our thoughts are out of balance with our Source, which is pure love, kindness, patience, contentment, and all of the other expressions of Tao-centeredness that appear in these 81 essays on the Tao Te Ching.

The sage in this verse has looked long and hard at illness, and has come to realize that it represents a physical manifestation of non-Tao thinking.