For the past two weeks or so, I've been reading a chapter from Tao Te Ching, which is the writings of Lao Tsu, who it says was "an older contemporary of Confucius," and "according to an ancient legend, as he was riding off into the desert to die - sick at heart at the ways of men - he was persuaded by a gatekeeper in northwestern China to write down his teachings for posterity."

It is a "new translation," by Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English, 'cept it was printed in 1972, so it isn't new anymore.

I've been reading a chapter every night. The chapters are really short (More words count less.), more like poems, really. No rhymes though.

I like it, it requires thought, but you can put as much thought into it as you want to, you can still get something out of it.

Here, I gift you with one.

SEVEN
Heaven and earth last forever.
Why do heaven and earth last forever?
They are unborn,
So ever living.
The sage stays behind, thus he is ahead.
He is detached, thus at one with all.
Through selfless action, he attains fulfillment.

That's just the most meaningful short one that I've read so far, I'm afraid. The characters, so far that I've seen in the chapters, are heaven, earth, the ten thousand things and the wise/the sage. "The ten thousand things," I think, is a stock epithet for all living thing, including people, animals and plants. You get separated from the ten thousand things, I suppose, when you become enlightened. No need to assume that's true, though. I'm no Chinese philosopher, nor am I a prophet, nor do I want be.

I'm just a little girl, still trying to decide what I want to believe in, what seems most right. I went to 'Winter Retreat" with my Christian friends from school. The counselor in my cabin told me that I sounded really sincere to her, in my search for a belief system, and that G-d could do a lot with an inquiring mind.

I don't know that I want to become a Christian (i.e. accept Jesus Christ as my savior, and that he did for me), but their belief is very strong. When they did Worship - singing songs of praise - they generated so much power that I had a hard time staying standing.

I'm thinking, these days, that there is a higher power, and that it is sort of a collection of life force, and we on earth are embodied bits of life force. OM (let's call the higher power OM, G-d has too many preconvcieved notions) is the sum of everyone and everything that ever was, and who ever will be. Just not everyone who currently is. I think Jesus and Buddha and such probably got an extra dose of life force, or soul, or spirit, whatever you want to call it, from OM, and they were still in touch with OM, whereas we, the common person, are disconnected from OM during our lifetime. We ain't G-d, anymore than one line of code is an operating system. Schmoik, we ain't even a line of code. We are pixels making up ones and zeros.

OM ain't all one thing either, except for everything. Everything is the one thing that OM is, which doesn't exactly make a lot of sense. OM isn't evil, but it isn't good either. It is both. Depends on if there are more good or evil people not currently existing. Maybe OM will be sweet for you if you have a lot of not-cerrently-existing-people who happen to like you. Hitler and Stalin, you know, are part of OM. However, so are all the people they killed. I'm thinking real internal struggle, doncha know?

I could think spiritually for you and me some more, but it is 22:53, so

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray for OM my soul to keep,
And if I should die before I wake
I believe that OM my soul will take.