Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
Living the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching
by Dr Wayne Dyer
If you are interested in developing your mindset from a spiritual perspective in a way that really can transform your reality, then this book should be at the top of your reading list. Several of my clients from business owners and leaders to champion martial artists and doctors have read the interpretation of the ancient philosophical text called ‘The Toa Te Ching’ (pronounced “Dow De Ching’), presented in this book and found it to be transformative on their philosophy on leadership and on life.
In terms of helping leaders to ‘transform their mindset and their thoughts’ and in doing so to totally transform their reality, I have found the late great Dr Wayne Dyer THE most helpful of all the many people I have learned from.
Mindset has 3 overlapping elements which are 1) mental, 2) emotional and 3) spiritual, of these 3, I have found ‘spiritual’ to be by far the most powerful because when you transform your spiritual mindset, you automatically transform your mental and emotional mindset. By ‘spiritual’ I do not mean ‘religious’, although for some people their spirituality very much includes their religious beliefs, for others this is not the case. I believe that many of the earliest people to walk the Earth were ‘being spiritual’ many thousands of years ago, long before any religion existed.
In line with the assumption that ‘spirituality is as old or perhaps even older than humanity itself’, The Toa Te Ching is very old, being written over 2,500 years ago in ancient China. The author of the Tao Te Ching was called Lao Tzu, which in ancient Chinese means ‘wise old man’, some modern-day scholars believe that the book was written by more than one person, some translate the title of the book itself to mean “The Way of Virtue”, however I prefer the literal translation ….
‘Tao’ is usually translated as ‘the Way’ and ‘Te’ is translated as ‘the light’ whereas ‘Ching’ means ‘Book’, which for me literally translates into ….
“The book that shows The Way”. Or as stated by Steven Mitchel who wrote my favourite English translation of the Tao Te Ching “The Book of The Way”.
The Bible is the only book in history that has been printed more times than The Toa Te Ching, I have an English translation on my bookshelf, however, translating the text and being able to interpret the text, are 2 completely different things and I believe Dr Wayne Dyer has achieved a remarkable interpretation of the Toa Te Ching in this book.
‘The Tao’ (as the book is sometimes abbreviated to) was written BEFORE the birth of all the world’s major religions and personally I personally don’t believe that any of the philosophies it presents conflict with the spiritual philosophies within these religions. The over-ridding philosophy in The Tao is ‘to strive to live in harmony with nature’ and ‘to go of ego-driven desires.’.
Before crafting his own interpretations of the many layers of wisdom contained in this ancient manuscript, Dr Wayne Dyer, spent a whole year focused on researching the many translations of the famous ancient spiritual book which contains 5,000 Chinese characters in 100 pages, divided into 81 verses or chapters.
Dr Wayne Dyer divides his book up into a corresponding 81 chapters with his interpretation of each chapter and how it links to your life.
You don’t need to read, or listen to this book all in one sitting, although I did, it is also wise to read one chapter at a time and reflect on the wisdom contained within it, something I am also doing.
I will share one verse with you to illustrate the power and purpose of this book. I chose verse 66, because it is the verse I reflected on yesterday and ‘servant leadership’ is a core element of the work I do ….
66th verse
“Why is ‘the sea’ king of a hundred streams? Because it lies beneath them, humility gives it, its power!”
Those who want to hold a position above others must speak humbly, those who wish to lead, must follow, thus when a sage stands above the people, they do not feel the heaviness of his weight, and when he stands in front of the people, they do not feel hurt. The sage stays low, so the world never tires of exalting him, he remains a servant, so the world never tires of keeping him as their king.
I know that the late Dr Wayne Dyer, had a tremendous influence on one of my own great mentors Dr John Demartini and I am profoundly grateful to Dr Wayne Dyer for writing this book and other books like Excuses Be Gone and for fulfilling one of his major life missions to ‘not die with my music still inside me’. Thank you, Wayne!
Thank you Alistair another great review!