A recent Canonized Saint.
Saint Olga Of Alaska

Inner Worlds

Instead of struggling with our outer world in efforts to improve it, which is a quest that seems endless, we might find greater satisfaction by working on our inner worlds. Our minds, our hearts. They are worlds just as complex as the one we see around us.

Exploring the mind, cultivating our thoughts, contemplating our awareness – that's where we are the most likely to find the answers to the questions with the same origin. That's also how to satisfy our longing, without ravaging the world around us.

It could also lead to the discovery that there is not so much we need from the outside world.

In the Tao Te Ching, Chapter 34, the thought is expressed as:

The great Way is all-pervading.

It reaches to the left and to the right.

All things depend on it with their existence.

Still it demands no obedience.

It demands no honor for what it accomplishes.

It clothes and feeds all things without ruling them.

It is eternally without desire.

So, it can be called small.

All things return to it,

Although it does not make itself their ruler.

So, it can be called great.

Therefore, the sage does not strive to be great.

Thereby he can accomplish the great.

How can the western mind relate to Tao from a cultural and religious perspective?

Jesus said "Go into your closet and pray." What is "your closet"?

Would the "closet" be your inner self that you find when you meditate on the words of Jesus?

Tao means "the way".

Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Light."

How does this differ in comparison to what the Tao (The way) speaks of when we are told to go within?

The Eastern religions and philosophies are often criticized in a context of being atheistic,or profane. The common thread within the respective belief systems and philosophies is the attempted description of something intangible,incommunicable and indescribable.

The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.

The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name.

(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven and earth;

(conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother/Father of all things.

Always without desire we must be found,

If its deep mystery we would sound;

But if desire always within us be,

Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

Truth is revealed to the one who detaches himself from the world, not tempted by anything in it and not distracted by any of its phenomena.

Because we allow ourselves to be consumed by the world, we can't see it clearly. If we cease to look at the world for what we hope or fear that it will be to us, then we can see what it really is – its true nature, which is the Way.

Under these two aspects, it is really the same; but as development takes place, it receives the different names. Together we call them the Mystery.

Where the Mystery is, the deepest is the gate of all that is subtle and wonderful.

First quote is written in the Denaakk'e language.

A fish that is alive swims against the flow of the water.

One that is dead floats down with the water.

A true Christian goes against the current of a sinful age.

A false one is swept away by its swiftness.

St.Philaret of Moscow

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