Welcome ZIggy and thanks for joining us, the few and far between.

I first read the Tao in the 70's when I began meditating. I didn't understand it cerebrally (is that a word?), but it resonated somewhere. I imagine you are having a similar experience.

Then much later in the 90's, my husband Rick introduced me to someone I was really going to like who was helping him with his bluegrass song book--that was Carl. Rick said I was going to like him and his family because they were Santa Cruz hippies who were into Eastern philosophy, like I was. He was right.

More recently, I retired and heard about this web site Carl and his son Luke put together and started reading, reading, reading. I had lots of questions and asked them, both here and in emails to Carl. Carl is just amazing and really blew my mind. He has been studying the Tao for 30 years or so and has such a unique and intriguing view of everything.

I hope you keep coming back . Don't be afraid to ask questions....Carl is very kind, nonjudgmental and loves responding to us....as long as we stay few and far between I'm guessing.

Again, welcome.

For what its worth, here's my story, coming from another 21-year-old (well, 20.96-year-old, to be exact...)

I learned to read with the Tao Te Ching -- among many other books, of course. My situation is perhaps more uncommon in that I never "found the Tao"... it was just there, it was a part of life, in a way. The book I found kind of interesting and a little part here or there made sense every once in a while, but I had little interest in "studying" it.

Like most kids, I inherited much of my world view from my [Taoist] parents -- especially my dad Carl -- so I didn't really think twice about it for a long time. As I got older, especially in my teenage years, I began to actually think about my experiences a little and see how they fit into the Taoist world-view. Lo and behold, it made sense. It fit.

I am not a scholar or a philosopher. I would call my dad a philosopher because he likes to think about these kinds of things. He's got a talent for that kind of thing. Me, I like to think, but more about everyday stuff, music, technical problems, mundane things... but I can appreciate the world-view because it's helped me very much to understand things. I can think of many times in my life were I was much less confused about a situation than I would have been without my Taoist background... not that I'm never confused. From my attempts at talking with other folks about Taoism and such related issues, I can appreciate why it's not a popular "religion."

Well, there's my two-and-a-half cents... of course, by trying to lay hold of it I've lost it, to a certain extent. But better than nothing!

Welcome to the site!

Luke

p.s. - Oh, and don't worry Lynn... if the visitors become too "close between" Papa and I have a plan to limit membership... to join, you have to submit a drawing of an uncarved block.

The next time someone tells me that I make them feel so guilty because I meditate and they "should" I will tell them that I decide to meditate "just like an apple falling to the ground is 'deciding' to fall down." Ha!

I've never seen Carl be grumpy, but I very rarely see Carl. It could be that my impression of him is completely wrong, but as he and is wife have explained to me, our projections say more about us than about the other. So I must be a very nice kind-hearted non-judgmental person. Double ha!

Whatever he is....some of my favorite people are grumpy. Take my husband...

About Taoism, the thing about it that stood out the most for me this time around was the lack of hype. The Tao doesn't say this is the only way, everything else is bunk; it says even this is bunk. "The way that can be spoken is not the constant way."

It is so profound! The lines that knocked me out:

Darkly visible, it only seems as if it were there.
I know not whose son it is.
It images the forefather of God.

Wow. I mean, wow.

Carl:

... I'm not sure studying Tao works.

....That does seem to make sense. Tao in and of itself is not something that can be "studied" ...In fact, I suppose one can't really classify it as a 'thing.' At any rate, that sentence got me thinking.

I suppose my statement on "studying Tao" was probably just a verbal fallacy... because I wasn't quite sure how to phrase that thought. It reminded me of what the Tao Te Ching says about words.

Anyway, thank you for your post. I love being inspired to think!

I love the idea of being able to make my own interpretations when it comes to my beliefs (or IDEAS is the word I usually like to use in place of "belief." Growing up, my family was passively Christian; but I spent the first 9 years of my education going to Christian school.

By the time I got out and went to high school, it was a culture shock for me. About that time, I started questioning my Christian upbringing, Eventually I even started to resent it, and how I felt it had brainwashed me...

But that was the other extreme in my life, and I've moved passed that too. Somewhere between adoring and hating the religion, I found a happy medium... which I think was the first Taoist type thing I had ever done (though I didn't realize it at the time). Now I'm somewhere in an agnostic mind set when it comes to religion, and I'm pretty happy there. The mystery of not being able to fully know about things like god, morality, life after death, etc. no longer scares me like it used to. And I thnk that was a pretty good step forward personally.

Sorry, I kinda went off on a tangent there. But thanks for your post. It helps being reassured that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong here. The right/wrong, correct/incorrect thing is my default setting from my childhood, so sometimes I revert back to it.