Dyer Dao

Wayne Dyer recently wrote a book on the Tao Te Ching after spending a year exploring each verse. He lived on Maui without possessions. The book is called “Change your Thoughts, Change your Life, Living the Wisdom of the Tao.” He also wrote a book “Living the Wisdom of the Tao” that a friend of mine reads from at the beginning of meetings.

Back in June, Oprah interviewed Wayne for her Soul series on XM Radio. I finally got a chance to watch the interview.

In it, Wayne said the ego stands for ‘edge God out’.  He said that the ego is an idea or collection of ideas that has 6 components:
– I am what I have – if we lose our stuff we lose our identity
– I am what I do [one of the first things people may ask you]
– I am what others think of me / my reputation
– I’m separate from everyone else [allowing judgment, making wrong, competing]
– I’m separate from what’s missing in my life (you are already connected to it, you just need to align yourself with it)
– I’m separate from God

Together, these are what I describe as the first illusion.

I might add the influence of the past and future:
– I am what I’ve been or had
– I will be what I will have / I will be different when…

This is really core stuff around our experience of and relationship with the world. If you can imagine taking these ideas out of your life…

The site above also has a book excerpt. “Many of the scholars who have written about the Tao Te Ching over the centuries consider this 25th verse to be one of the most significant lessons in the entire manuscript. In my research, all the translations of this passage actually include the word great to describe it.“

Living from Greatness

25th Verse [of 81]

There was something formless and perfect
before the universe was born.
It is serene. Empty.
Solitary. Unchanging.
Infinite. Eternally present.
It is the Mother of the universe.
For lack of a better name,
I call it the Tao.
I call it great.
Great is boundless;
boundless is eternally flowing;
ever flowing, it is constantly returning.
Therefore, the Way [Tao] is great,
heaven is great,
earth is great,
people are great.
Thus, to know humanity,
understand earth.
To know earth,
understand heaven.
To know heaven,
understand the Way [Tao].
To know the Way,
understand the great within yourself.

He mentions he has not lost his ego, yet.

Last Updated on April 27, 2018 by Davidya