Your Partnership With Tao

You and Tao are in a partnership. For most of us, only one of the partners is aware of that partnership. The more aware you become of Tao and your partnership with it, the stronger the partnership becomes. Once Tao becomes aware that you are aware of it, which is instantaneously, life will be different, much different—better, much better. You will be aware of and in two-way communication with All-That-Is.

In a previous piece I talked about living an authentic life in harmony with Tao and explained that the ancient sages spoke of “Tao” as the creator of and spiritual essence of All-That-Is as well as the path of living in harmony with the universe, the “way” that leads to enlightenment. Tao is fully present, fully aware of you and your thoughts. It takes a bit of getting used to Tao being constantly aware of you, and it may seem strange at first that your thoughts are not private, that you are being led on a path. But after a while you’ll be grateful for it.

Maintaining Your Awareness of Tao

Consciousness is in your brain, your mind, your body. Because that is true, you are the transmission-and-receiving station for communication with Tao. Where do you think your new ideas come from? We are all operating on the same wavelength of consciousness, Tao’s consciousness. Can you recall times that you were thinking of someone and the phone rang and it was that person calling you? Or times when you were going to say something and the person you were with said it, or vice versa? We’ve all had those experiences.

There is no lag time in the transmission of information between you and Tao. As the elder mentor of Jonathan Livingston Seagull (in Richard Bach’s classic by the same name) tells his young apprentice: “Perfect speed, my son, is being there.”

Once you come to realize that your awareness and knowledge are part of Tao’s consciousness, your awareness of being tapped into Tao’s consciousness will develop more rapidly. Maintaining that awareness will naturally result in an increased ability to maintain it for longer and more frequent periods of time.

Tao Is in Communication with You

You don’t need an intermediary to talk with Tao or whomever you perceive as your deity. Many English-speaking people use the word God to describe what I call Tao. It doesn’t matter what names people of Earth use for their God. Everyone is talking about the same thing: the spiritual essence of our created existence. You can use Tao as a name for God, use another name, or create your own name.

Tao is fully present—always. Have a conversation with your God whenever you decide: Dear God, I would like to talk with you more intimately and call you by name. I hope you will like it if I call you Tao or Dear One (or any name you choose).

As you become more aware of Tao, Tao will reveal more of itself to you. And when you have understood more of Tao and how the world that Tao created works, you will then be able to perceive by intuition a proper course of action that will keep you aligned with Tao’s intention.

Knowing Tao’s intention for you, and conforming to it, will empower you to achieve goals that are beyond the reach of the uninitiated, the unaware, the unknowing and will make it possible for you to live in harmony with the great intention, the great awareness, the great consciousness that created you and our universe.

Tao has always been, and still is, in communication with you. You are not now and never have been alone. The difference now is you’ll know it. You will live in the certainty that you are part of an aware, conscious universe and that Tao is intimately aware of you and has your best interests at heart. For you and Tao are one.

Adapted from That Was Zen, This Is Tao: Living Your Way to Enlightenment by Chris Prentiss. Learn more about the book.