The following Insight for Meditation is taken
from 365 Tao Daily Meditations, by Deng Ming-Dao, 1992, page 326.
from 365 Tao Daily Meditations, by Deng Ming-Dao, 1992, page 326.
MYSTICISM
All mystical traditions are one.
They are the seed of all religions.
---The Tao
They are the seed of all religions.
---The Tao
Tao. Zen. Tantra. Yoga. Kabbalah. Sufi. Mystic Christianity, Shamanism. And so many more secretly treasured by their adherents. These all share the same mystical sense of communion with the divine. Meditation is not something peculiar to one culture.
All cultures know a mystical core that emphasizes continuing refinement, meditation, and unification with the greater cosmos. I call that greater order Tao. They call it by different names. What does it matter what people call it? When they discovered what was holy, they uttered different sounds according to their history and culture, but they all discovered the same thing. There is only one divine source in life.
For generations, mystics of all traditions have plunged into Tao. When they meet on the unutterable levels, they know without words that they have reached the same core of spirituality. No matter where in the world you are, there are traditions with the purity to lead you to Tao.
All cultures know a mystical core that emphasizes continuing refinement, meditation, and unification with the greater cosmos. I call that greater order Tao. They call it by different names. What does it matter what people call it? When they discovered what was holy, they uttered different sounds according to their history and culture, but they all discovered the same thing. There is only one divine source in life.
For generations, mystics of all traditions have plunged into Tao. When they meet on the unutterable levels, they know without words that they have reached the same core of spirituality. No matter where in the world you are, there are traditions with the purity to lead you to Tao.
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Commentary by Tom Stanks:
The above discourse on the TAO could serve as a frontispiece for what this website intends: communion with the divine or union with all that is. What I see the TAO saying is that no matter how religions and traditions dress up the different approaches, the core remains the same.
What often keeps us from mystic experiences is the mind's anxiousness to exert control over its processes and outcomes. Such control has garnered marvelous results in the material world. The ego's mastery in one domain militates against its becoming a servant in another realm, such as that of the spiritual.
The reading says that there are traditions everywhere "with the purity to lead you to TAO," but it also "emphasizes continuing refinement, meditation, and unification." In other words, you must sift through the path or tradition you choose and find what is pure in it. With the goal of mystical experience in mind, you cannot minimize the necessity of interior transformation to achieve it.
---December 1, 2014
Commentary by Tom Stanks:
The above discourse on the TAO could serve as a frontispiece for what this website intends: communion with the divine or union with all that is. What I see the TAO saying is that no matter how religions and traditions dress up the different approaches, the core remains the same.
What often keeps us from mystic experiences is the mind's anxiousness to exert control over its processes and outcomes. Such control has garnered marvelous results in the material world. The ego's mastery in one domain militates against its becoming a servant in another realm, such as that of the spiritual.
The reading says that there are traditions everywhere "with the purity to lead you to TAO," but it also "emphasizes continuing refinement, meditation, and unification." In other words, you must sift through the path or tradition you choose and find what is pure in it. With the goal of mystical experience in mind, you cannot minimize the necessity of interior transformation to achieve it.
---December 1, 2014