Origins of Taoism

[organicskip]

Hi there

 

I am doing some research and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the origin of Taoism? Has anyone heard of the Sons and Daughters Of Reflective Light, if so do you have any information regarding them?

 

Many thanks

[Huguito]

Hello

 

I am Christian so this is the view i get about that:

 

I feel that in very ancient times when Adam lived in Earth most people were Christians, then when they traveled to different country some group came to China and whit the knowledge they knew about Christianity the found inspirations of the beautiful land of China and from there the Yin and Yang came thanks to inspiration from God, and from there came Tao!

 

Like i said this is what i belive, in the few books i had read i had not really understand or get the really information where Taoism originate!

 

But i need to read this 2 books to understand more:

 

Faith of Our Fathers by Chan Kei Thong

Finding God in Ancient China: How the Ancient Chinese Worshiped the God of the Bible by Chan Kei Thong, Charlene L. Fu

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...n%20Kei%20Thong

 

http://www.faithofourfathersbooks.com/

 

Like i said i read this book because like Christian i like to read in a Christian point of view about the origin. I don't say this is the right or the true origin, because i don't know!

 

Any way i belive also that Tao is or was like the word for God in ancient time!

 

Good bye

[Unconditioned]

Please do not take offence to this but in order to be a Christian that implies a belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God.

 

That being the case, Taoism was around much earlier than Jesus.

 

Edit: If you're referring to God as in the Bible then the timeline makes no difference. Depending on your definition you could equate Tao and God but would need to strip off quite a bit of history from either tradition to come to that conclusion.

 

Edit 2: I have no idea where/how Taoism started

Edited July 17, 2009 by Unconditioned

[Aetherous]

There are tales of really ancient people traveling the world to spread the teachings. You could call them ascended masters...they weren't typical humans, according to the stories. I think this is what you're talking about regarding the sons and daughters of reflective light...in other words the "great white brotherhood". A google search brings up a lot on that.

 

I'm not sure if I believe the tales, though. If you look at the spiritual traditions in the world, they aren't very similar at all, except for the fact that they are spiritual practices for human development. You don't find the same technique in two separate places.

 

This could either mean that the tales aren't true, or that it happened so long ago that the commonality was obscured.

 

I practice some Taoist things which have been said to originate in ancient Egypt, or which inspired a lot of the Egyptian beliefs (since it may be older than their civilization). But that was just what I was told about the practices. It could very well not be true, and be a more recent invention.

 

It seems to me that these things can't be known, because there isn't a clear enough history. It's good to leave the history up to the historians, and if they don't have enough evidence to support the theories of the ancients, then those theories should just be regarded as tall tales.

[Huguito]

Good to know.

[Josh Young]

All of the concept/understandings of Tao can be found in Vedic works.

These concepts appear to hail from Egypt before India, before that their origin is obscure.

 

However Tao"ism" is Chinese in development.

[Pietro]

Please do not believe things that you know being wrong. If you honestly look at all you know, and you make a reasoned guess about something, then it is ok to 'believe' it. But do not start believing, and then look for info. It's really not a good place to be. And it has some huge risks in you becoming a danger to others or to yourself.

 

Now some hard facts:

 

Hello

 

I am Christian ...

do you know what does that mean?

 

...so ...

I am a christian ... so ....

It just doesn't sound right.

Being a christian should more be on the right side of the equation, being relate to something you believe, which should then be related to some facts:

facts--->belief--->Religious identity.

The other way around really does not work very much.

 

...this is the view i get about that:

 

I feel that...

 

Feeling and facts are not the same thing.

you know it, I know it, let's go on.

 

...in very ancient times when Adam lived in Earth most people were Christians, then when they traveled to different country some group came to China and whit the knowledge they knew about Christianity the found inspirations of the beautiful land of China and from there the Yin and Yang came thanks to inspiration from God, and from there came Tao!

...

 

OMG!!!

 

There are multiple errors in this line. And I just cannot divide them all.

But let us start:

...when Adam lived in Earth most people were...

 

First of all we need to accept that there ever was an Adam, and that human beings were created.

Even if we accept this fully mythological, fantastical, ungrounded, unproven story, then we should go along with the story: when Adam lived on earth... there was no one else except Adam and his family.

 

...in very ancient times when Adam lived in Earth most people were Christians...

Fact: before Jesus there was no one that was a christian, and Jesus himself was a jew.

 

 

...then when they traveled to different country some group came to China and whit the knowledge they knew about Christianity the found inspirations of the beautiful land of China and from there the Yin and Yang came thanks to inspiration from God, and from there came Tao!

...

Leaving aside the idea that there was any Christian before Jesus, and rereading your phrase as:

some jews... traveled to different country some group came to China and whit the knowledge they knew about the Christian Jewish God the found inspirations of the beautiful land of China and from there the Yin and Yang came thanks to inspiration from God, and from there came Tao!

 

Now this is more plausible. But of course is fully unproven. Plus we have proves (mosaic in tombs) that the concept of a duality was present thousands of years ago. Way before Lao Tzu.

 

But sure the idea that spiritual ideas somehow moved from one country to the other is quite plausible. What you should be aware of is that nearly every tradition on the face of the earth rewrites history to make their tradition look older. You want some examples:

 

In chuang tzu, lao tzu is seen as older than confucious; (factually lao tzu probably never even existed!)

There are taoists texts that declare that lao tzu after leaving went to india to start buddhism. And viceversa, stories that claim that lao tzu was a bodhisatva...

and so on.

 

So check the facts first,

then try to find a plausible story that fits the facts,

if your believes clash with the facts change your believes.

 

...

Like i said this is what i belive, in the few books i had read i had not really understand or get the really information where Taoism originate!

 

But i need to read this 2 books to understand more:

 

Faith of Our Fathers by Chan Kei Thong

Finding God in Ancient China: How the Ancient Chinese Worshiped the God of the Bible by Chan Kei Thong, Charlene L. Fu

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-h...n%20Kei%20Thong

 

http://www.faithofourfathersbooks.com/

 

Like i said i read this book because like Christian i like to read in a Christian point of view about the origin. I don't say this is the right or the true origin, because i don't know!

 

Any way i belive also that Tao is or was like the word for God in ancient time!

 

Good bye

 

May I suggest you:

 

The Jesus Sutra: a book from a serious academic about the first christians that came to China.

 

The Shambhala Guite to Taoism, an easy to approach story of taoism.

 

 

 

 

Any way i belive also that Tao is or was like the word for God in ancient time!

 

Good bye

 

More like in more modern times.

Religious taoism is more modern than philosophical taoism, and part of it does see a lot of gods.

Generally the ultimate forces are seen as non conscious, with no personality. But I am not sure in some taoist traditions where lao tzu is seen as a direct expression of the source you don't find a symbolism very similar to the christian one.

[Huguito]

I don't want to answer.

[Stigweard]

[Marblehead]

Hi Stigweard,

 

Good post. And pretty accurate, I think.

 

Be well!

[organicskip]

Hi there

 

I am doing some research and was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the origin of Taoism? Has anyone heard of the Sons and Daughters Of Reflective Light, if so do you have any information regarding them?

 

Many thanks

 

Hi everyone

 

Thanks for all the posts and help, Taoism is very old and from my research so far, like so many other systems it has its roots in ancient shamanistic practices. The "great white brotherhood" reference was very helpful if not a little odd!

 

Thank you Stigweard for your references to Fuxi and your comments very helpful.

 

Thanks again

 

[Josh Young]

Let us though give due analysis to what is agreed upon by modern scholars and masters of Taoism

Consensus is not fact.

Scholars opinions change with each generation.

 

I do not say that Taoism has roots in Veda or Egypt. This would be inaccurate. Tao is not a religion at all, there are religions based upon it, but they are not Tao.

 

There is a genetic bottleneck in our history, we all descend from a very small group of people. When this occurred there was a cultural bottleneck, from this all people and cultures came to be, through divergence and regional development. No culture appeared or just came to be, neither did people in this sense.

 

If you go far enough back and examine the symbols you will note that religions converge and their symbols become less and less distinct. This becomes obscured by time and the development of language, thus different cultures have different words for the same things. Over time as these things develop it appears that they are culturally endemic, and indeed the forms they take are, however that is not their origin.

 

If we take a concept and share it with another culture, then the terms must change to be able to do so. If that concept is preserved for thousands of years in both cultures, then it will seem as if the concepts are endemic and not related, indeed even the terms will change over time in the individual cultures, there will end up being different symbols and rituals and forms for the concepts, it will come to appear that they are unrelated and people who maintain the concepts will argue over who is right and where things came from.

 

People have an incremental view, it is based on limitations of region and culture and borders. Often the views are ethnocentric, even racist in tone, people want to reinforce the borders, boundaries and limitations. They think that for two different forms to both be right entails reconciling them and that such is syncretism.

 

If we look at abramic religions we can see examples of this type of thing occurring. If you go back far enough with abramic religion though, you even run into Buddhist and vedic symbols and find the concepts are not different than those of Tao.

 

The consensus of scholars also ignores any evidence that does not fit into their paradigm. This is so common in archaeology that it isn't funny.

The consensus of scholars on heavier than air flight was once that it was mathematically impossible, when numerous witnesses wrote to newspapers about seeing the Wright Brothers flights the newspapers responded by stating that they were all frauds because the experts knew that heavier than air flight was mathematically impossible. Scientific American refused to publish about the flights. The Wrights were called frauds and liars by the scholars and experts on the subject of flight.

 

When Barbara McClintock found evidence of jumping genes she was ridiculed because the so called experts knew she had to be wrong.

Eventually others found out she was right and she received the Nobel prize for the work that the scholars "knew" was wrong. She was awarded the prize in 1983, more than 30 years after her discoveries.

 

Consensus is merely opinion, not truth.

Scholars are often wrong, pay them no mind.

[Stigweard]

[Marblehead]

Hi Guys,

 

I don't remember who the translator was but in the intorduction of the translation to his/her Tao-Te Ching it was stated that, in that person's opinion, Taoism is more compatible with the sciences than any other belief system he/she knew of.

 

I totally agree with this opinion. Taoism teaches us to observe, observe, observe and then form as few fixed opinions as absolutely necessary (things change, you know). Science teaches the same thing except their guide is to state as few facts as necessary until the proof has been verified.

 

Be well!

[林愛偉]

Wow...

 

 

Daoism was never an "ism" as people see "isms" today. In ancient China and now in the world, there are many "Ways" of living one's ...life. These "Ways" are just paths, or lifestyles. Because the Chinese language has the word "Dao" doesn't make every meditation, energy work, martial arts, or anything for that manner... a good thing.

Its just a word in the Chinese language meaning a path, like a street, literal street with cars and people, or avenue, or road one can literally walk on. It is contextually used to mean manner of how one lives their life.

Because of its use as a metaphor for teaching people, it has been categorized to mean spiritual path in which it has been used too loosely since its inception.

Any origin being sought is just an origin of lifestyles, not some "spiritual" path. "Dao" in the cultivation sense can have evil paths and good paths. These evil and good paths will have qigong, meditation, philosophy and a hint of wisdom if any at all.

Both will have the possibility of leading one to abilities and things of a "spiritual" experience, but thats not the point of cultivation at all whether of Buddhist, Daoist, Christian, Jewish...etc. Aside from everyone's "knowledge" of their practice and philosophy, does any one even know what cultivation is ?

 

Looking for an origin of "Daoism"? Wouldn't it be better to just practice without these trivial questions? Its like asking what made the universe. Go and practice and one day you'll figure it out. The world will not end if you don't know right now.... haha

 

Peace,

Lin

[de_paradise]

maybe its as old as the Tao itself.

[Josh Young]

I do not view researchers as scholars.

Nor do I view paying the opinions of scholars no mind to be same as ignoring data.

 

I pursue scholarly pursuits myself, to pay no mind to the opinions does not mean that one cannot learn, but rather one does not become burdened with the preconceptions that can only and inevitably change over time, thus to pay no mind is to realize that the conclusions of scholars are relative and subject to change.

 

so then to answer the question:

Where exactly do you think we would be if we did as you say Josh and paid no mind to scholars or the scholastic evolution of knowledge?

as you can seen from my own opinion above, paying no mind to scholars has nothing to do with the progression of knowledge. The scholastic evolution of knowledge strikes me as a different and complex topic that I cannot succinctly address. My own so called higher education consists primarily of Biology, Philosophy and History and I am somewhat familiar with the philosophy of science, which is a field utterly separate from science. The latter part of your question relates to this and I have no desire to take the conversation in that direction.

----

Cultivation is development. No more, no less.

It has many forms but it requires intent and effort.

 

There is Tao-ism, but it is not the same as Tao. Just based on it, after a manner.

 

I view the Tao as without origin, but the realization of Tao, such as is found implied by the Taodejing, is older than China as we know it. The eight fold path symbol relates to the bagua. Vedic astrology and the tradition of the seven stars/even sages appear to have heavily influenced China, however these elements do not appear to originate in India, though many scholars are of the opinion they do, and while they can be identified in Egypt, they are not of Egyptian origin. I cannot claim to know where they came from, but they are very old.

 

This reminds me of the topic of where "white" people came from. It has been indicated recently (genetics) that they all share a single common ancestor at one point. If you look at the genetic evidences then the indication of time frames is rather far from what is commonly accepted by scholars. What I mean is that according to genetic data China was populated about 50-60K years ago! But data like this tend to be ignored by scholars because it does not fit into what they accept.

 

Many people are like this, it is human nature to reject that which does not fit into your ontology. This aspect of humanity plays a major role in science and knowledge in general. What we "know" to be "true" is only opinion after all.

[BrainDance]

Daoism was never an "ism" as people see "isms" today. In ancient China and now in the world, there are many "Ways" of living one's ...life. These "Ways" are just paths, or lifestyles. Because the Chinese language has the word "Dao" doesn't make every meditation, energy work, martial arts, or anything for that manner... a good thing.

 

 

I think this is an important point, the whole idea of "ism" is a pretty Western concept, if not entirely a Western concept. The idea of religion as most people view it is also entirely different (and that's why, for example, "dharma" doesn't directly translate into English or other Western languages.)

 

That said we are mostly, I think, Westerners here. The vast majority of our psychology is pretty ingrained into us, and people from other cultures do think in different ways, not just small cultural nuances but the very makeup of "Western" or "Eastern" thought is drastically different. I can't practice yet anyway, but when I finish up my program (clinical psychology) I wouldn't be able to effectively give therapy to a person from such a drastically different culture. The methods are just so different because the thoughts and behaviors are different. Neither is better than the other, it's just like blue eyes and brown eyes, different yet equal. So it's only natural for us to translate not only words but concepts into ways that are more understandable to us. A westerner practicing an Eastern philosophy will always be different than someone from another culture, you can't get rid of your "western spin."

 

Another thing about "Taoism," going back to the authors of the "founding texts" so to speak (again I think the view of even having founding texts is something very Western of me) they didn't even identify with each other as being from the same philosophical school. They were only teaching their understanding of concepts that had evolved in China over a great period of time, I'd imagine from before the first settlements on the Yellow River. It just so happened that eventually people started to "get" the unified message in those texts, brought together a lot of great teachings. Still, that's not even so unified in Taoism, and it seems like it's mostly up to the individual practitioner, at least how it's been taken in the West.

 

Looking for an origin of "Daoism"? Wouldn't it be better to just practice without these trivial questions? Its like asking what made the universe. Go and practice and one day you'll figure it out. The world will not end if you don't know right now.... haha

 

I don't think I can agree with you here. I think it's very important, no matter what you're undertaking in life, to understand how it came to be. For example, in Christianity I've always been a proponent of people reading the non-canonical texts, the Gnostic ones mostly. Not because I would think people would accept them as canon, but understanding those texts helps you understand the way people thought at the time, the political climate of the time, the desires and wishes of the people, what was important to them. If you understand these things, what you do accept as canonical will become a far more enriching experience.

 

Understanding the history of Tao and it's practitioners/teachers, especially when these great people existed in a time and place very different from our own, I think is very important. When you understand Taoisms place in Chinese culture back then, how it fared with Confucius and his philosophies, and the flow of Taoism (non-peaceful times I think? Not to simplify, but from my understanding it seemed to be peoples choice when they weren't comfortable with their state) versus Confucianism. I think that message says a lot, completely content with every aspect of your life and state? Sure, just go with it (Confucius.) Are you uncomfortable with the way things are going? Do you see any flaws in the way people are doing things? (Which I think is always how people feel) then, maybe you should look for something else (Tao in this case.)

[林愛偉]

 

 

I don't think I can agree with you here. I think it's very important, no matter what you're undertaking in life, to understand how it came to be. For example, in Christianity I've always been a proponent of people reading the non-canonical texts, the Gnostic ones mostly. Not because I would think people would accept them as canon, but understanding those texts helps you understand the way people thought at the time, the political climate of the time, the desires and wishes of the people, what was important to them. If you understand these things, what you do accept as canonical will become a far more enriching experience.

 

Understanding the history of Tao and it's practitioners/teachers, especially when these great people existed in a time and place very different from our own, I think is very important. When you understand Taoisms place in Chinese culture back then, how it fared with Confucius and his philosophies, and the flow of Taoism (non-peaceful times I think? Not to simplify, but from my understanding it seemed to be peoples choice when they weren't comfortable with their state) versus Confucianism. I think that message says a lot, completely content with every aspect of your life and state? Sure, just go with it (Confucius.) Are you uncomfortable with the way things are going? Do you see any flaws in the way people are doing things? (Which I think is always how people feel) then, maybe you should look for something else (Tao in this case.)

 

 

History is one thing, but looking to find the origin of a concept would lead one to ponder over who was the first to think of it. Waste of time. Investigate Chinese culture, totally fine, understand how COnfucianism, Daoism and Buddhism shaped Chinese culture, fine. But looking for the one cause of this idea called "Dao" is similar to a dog chasing its own tail.

 

Usually what happens is one is told the origins of the one and the two, but doesn't believe it because the reason doesn't fit into popular belief within the realms of those who "believe" in "Dao".

 

The fact is, Daoism is a general name for many categories of cultivation methods. There is Complete Reality Path, Proper Path, Dragon Path, Buddha Path, Demon Path, Bodhisattva Path, Immortal Path, etc...

 

Which one to find the origin of? and do they all have the same origins?

 

Trivial questions...better to cultivate and find out through that so as to stop the trivial thinking.

 

Peace,

Lin

[Lucky7Strikes]

IMHO,

 

the question "what is the origin of Taoism" is like asking "what is the origin of spirituality."

 

and then one would look into what exactly spirituality is...and find that it is a concept that has too subjective of a definition...and...BLAH!

 

BUT,

 

I don't think answers like these are what skip was looking for. .

 

So I'll just recommend a book I'm reading right now called Taoist Meditation by Isabelle Robinet. The beginning chapters have quite a few interesting stuff on the Mao Shan school's take on the creation cycle, deities, gods, and of course, the Tao. It's awesome, definitely check it out.

Edited July 19, 2009 by Lucky7Strikes

[Stigweard]

[Butcho]

Friends,

 

Taoism is an umbrella term that covers a lot of territory. Religious, philosophical, and so on.

 

The history of the Tao goes back to a time long forgotten in the historic record. A time before the written historic record.

 

Taoism began as an oral tradition. To a time when most people felt an intimate connection to Nature.

 

And yet the eternal Tao is timeless. Outside of or beyond the dualistic concept of past and future.

 

The Tao is a word for the underlying unity of existence. Or at least that which is the source of the underlying unity of existence. Or.... words. The course that can be discoursed is not the eternal Course.

 

A reality beyond words. Beyond thought.

 

The best we can do in this regard is experience the Tao for ourselves.

 

Thus the sagely tell us the first step of a journey of a thousand miles begins when we sit down and follow our own breath home. The Dark Path of Lao Tzu. The Journey to the Interior of Basho. The yin path. Dark does not come out of light. Light comes out of dark. There is a natural order to existence. All is not chaos for there is a grain to reality. The watercourse way of the eternal Tao.

 

Butcho

[Marblehead]

Hi Butcho,

 

Nice post.

 

I do have something to say here though. It is regarding history.

 

I have heard it said, and I hold to this, that we should try to understand our history because with this understanding we will understand why we are at this specific place at this specific point in time.

 

Once we understand where we are we can determine where we would like to be and then determine which path we think we should follow in order to get there.

 

Of course, in Taoist philosophy there really is no destination. It is all about the journey. But without holding (very lightly) to our history, that is, where we were, do we know if we are going somewhere or if we are standing still.

 

Be well!