The Call of Silence
Book Details
Author(s)Abdullah Dougan
PublisherGnostic Press
ISBN / ASIN0473169053
ISBN-139780473169053
Sales Rank6,245,216
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
These reflections on the Tao-Teh-King illuminate the universal truth that is at the heart of all true teachings. Abdullah hoped that by giving some insight into this classic Taoist work from an objective viewpoint, readers would be able to take the ideas presented further, and reach a deeper understanding within themselves. He believed that for mankind to have been given such a jewel as this Taoist teaching was a rare occurrence: 'If a person could really understand what the Tao-Teh-King is about he would give up everything else.'
Excerpts from the book:
The fifth-dimensional concept of the Tao is way beyond the third- and fourth-dimensional capabilities of words and thought, which is why you must have a silence to have any true knowledge of it. You must learn about the silence yourself. What most people call silence is only an absence of noise, an absence of the rattling around of the formatory apparatus and associative thinking. Getting rid of the noise is the first step, and is all that the mind is capable of. You have to work hard to get some silence in yourself, first by practising Ramnam - you come to the silence by remembrance. When the silence does happen, it is there, it is something you have discovered in yourself. It has been there all the time, you have not heard it because of all the junk inside yourself, then one day you get a taste of it. Then it will be remembrance that brings you back to it. (pp. 27-28)
The 'spontaneous' recognition of Tao and teh comes not through ordinary thinking but from inside yourself. Lao Tse has used a variety of words to describe attributes of teh, but words can only give you a taste. You are left to form your own conception of it, but the real understanding comes from a stillness or silence within yourself. Once you have entered this mystery it is still very difficult to talk about. (p. 65)
Excerpts from the book:
The fifth-dimensional concept of the Tao is way beyond the third- and fourth-dimensional capabilities of words and thought, which is why you must have a silence to have any true knowledge of it. You must learn about the silence yourself. What most people call silence is only an absence of noise, an absence of the rattling around of the formatory apparatus and associative thinking. Getting rid of the noise is the first step, and is all that the mind is capable of. You have to work hard to get some silence in yourself, first by practising Ramnam - you come to the silence by remembrance. When the silence does happen, it is there, it is something you have discovered in yourself. It has been there all the time, you have not heard it because of all the junk inside yourself, then one day you get a taste of it. Then it will be remembrance that brings you back to it. (pp. 27-28)
The 'spontaneous' recognition of Tao and teh comes not through ordinary thinking but from inside yourself. Lao Tse has used a variety of words to describe attributes of teh, but words can only give you a taste. You are left to form your own conception of it, but the real understanding comes from a stillness or silence within yourself. Once you have entered this mystery it is still very difficult to talk about. (p. 65)
