The Tao is universal. Its words “are to be hung like bells in our hearts and rung by the motions we make as we move through our daily lives.” Here Tolbert McCarroll presents it in a unique version. For the contemporary audience, he offers concepts that bridge the Tao to Western mystics, and his language includes both the male and the female experience.

Who wrote The Tao? Long ago, some Chinese followers of The Tao put onto bamboo strips the learnings of their life. Here, these people are called the “Old Ones.” Perhaps there was a wise one called “Lao Tzu’ who made this collection and tied the strips together. No one knows. The result is usually referred to as The Tao (path or way) Te (virtue) Ching (sacred book). It is said that there are almost as many editions of The Tao as of the Bible and Bhagavad Gita. Naturally, some similar phrases will appear in various editions.

All of the many versions of The Tao are different and all are the same. None are accurate and none are false. Ancient Chinese writing was not limited by the desire for preciseness. It more resembled a series of pictures. The people who would learn the message must swim in the characters and in the spaces around them. What is not written is equal in importance to what is written. Nothing can be seen by examining a page of the book, unless at the same moment we examine our own hearts.

Tolbert McCarroll

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