9

Longevity and Immortality

Immortality is commonly understood to be the ultimate goal of Taoist practice. It takes many, many years of conscious cultivation to achieve the Taoist goal of physical/spiritual immortality, and it is a very rare attainment. However, anyone can improve his or her everyday life in a practical sense by learning the basic Taoist practices. Just believing and having faith in spiritual/immortal reality is useful for focusing one’s commitment to the spiritual path, but that alone does not get the job done. If people choose, they can also cultivate their experience to the higher levels of spiritual attainment. We begin by learning to be present in this life, and by transforming stress into vitality and developing compassion through love. We then recycle that special quality of energy to keep the body healthy and in harmony with mind and spirit—and learn to cultivate true nature as spirit. Then we become open to develop possibilities beyond the cycles of life and death.

Taoists value health and longevity for their benefits in enabling a better quality of life. In addition, health and longevity are valued because they provide the strength and time necessary for sustaining the prolonged effort necessary to achieve spiritual immortality. Does longevity make one a sage or immortal? The renowned Taoist master White Cloud (Mantak Chia’s teacher) explained that his teacher lived to be well over a hundred years old. The Grand Master had gone to a cave in the high mountains for prolonged meditation involving outof-body travel in the higher planes and returning to the source. For that kind of practice, he had put wax in his nose and other orifices to keep out insects and dust. White Cloud had to make sure that his teacher’s body was not eaten while his teacher’s spirit was away traveling to source. There are many stories like this, where a faithful disciple or other attendant looks after an advanced meditator’s body.

If a Taoist practitioner lives to be very old and has seriously applied him- or herself in cultivating and transforming energy into spirit, it is very likely that he or she could become a sage. It depends on the individual’s level of practice. The same applies for immortality. If one hasn’t finished transforming one’s energy, one could become a partial spiritual immortal or partial physical/spiritual immortal.

Immortality does not mean keeping the same body forever. Nor does it mean that you have awareness of your spirit in different incarnations. Meditators do often report an awareness of past lives—and this may be useful and interesting—but this is not what Taoists mean when they refer to “attaining immortality.” One’s soul-spirit has not been liberated when it is being cycled through various incarnations. It is still in need of purification until it achieves the evolved state of spiritual liberation.

There is a difference between spiritual immortality and physical/spiritual immortality. It depends on the degree of practice one has mastered. The distinction is easy to grasp. For spiritual immortality, one has achieved the ability to withdraw one’s purified spirit energy from the body and traverse the inner regions independently—and merge in oneness with the eternal source—the Tao or Wu Chi or God. In this state, the liberated spirit can manifest on the inner planes, but the physical body has returned to dust, and the spirit cannot return in the physical form.

In contrast, one who has attained physical/spiritual immortality has been able to complete the more tedious and time-consuming process of transforming all of one’s physical, soul, and spirit energy into the spirit body during the time of life in the physical body. Thus, one gains all the powers of spiritual liberation, plus the ability to manifest at will in the physical form. In other words, when one has achieved physical/spiritual immortality, one has mastered the ability to dematerialize and rematerialize the human body. This is a rare and extraordinary attainment.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF IMMORTALITY

The philosophy of physical immortality strips the mind of all kinds of fears and miseries. It permits love and divine energy to express themselves more fully in your personality. Therefore, even if you don’t realize physical immortality, the philosophy is a wholesome group of ideas to work with. In fact, the philosophy of physical immortality produces a more positive life even if it does not achieve the ultimate goal. The belief that death is inevitable will kill you if nothing else does. But the truth is that your spirit is already eternal; you only have to move your mind and body into harmony with your eternal spirit. The philosophy of physical immortality gives your body a chance.

According to the psychology of physical immortality, one of the biggest differences between one person and another is the quality of their thoughts. Thoughts of everlasting life produce health. Psychosomatic science has proven that our beliefs influence our health. Even if you survive old age, illness, and accidents, and practice Taoist techniques for health and healing, your own belief in death will get you in the end—unless you change it. Seriously questioning the idea that death is inevitable is good and practical for both mental and physical health.

Put simply, the cause of death is pollution in the body: physical pollution and energy pollution. Spiritual purification involves getting rid of physical and energy pollution faster than we take it in. The more we are able to purify this pollution faster than we accumulate it, the more we can live in the spirit, and the more control we have over our lives. When we do not purify this pollution, we move toward aging and death.

To practice the psychology of immortality, reduce negativity in your thoughts and feelings. Learn to breathe with deep, cleansing, abdominal breaths. Practice the Taoist exercises for sensing Chi (vital energy or life force) and Jing (generative energy/sexual essence). Learn to cultivate these energies, conserve them, and refine them into Shen (spiritual energy). Use the Shen to enter the Wu Chi, to return to the Tao, and to attain immortality. Develop a personal philosophy of physical immortality: eternal life of spirit, mind, and body.

From Gaui to Cui

GATHERING TOGETHER (CUI) OF THE 45TH HEXAGRAM

In the I Ching, the idea of cultivating, conserving, refining, and transforming vital life energies is illustrated in the forty-fifth hexagram, Cui, which means “gathering together.” The sage gathers together, purifies, and transforms all the energies of the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. The Cui hexagram depicts a temple that is built to pay tribute to ancestors. In this temple, which can also be seen as the temple of the human body, all spirits are united. All wounded souls and cloudy minds—and all aspects and energies of the body/mind—are purified.

This transformation is the transition from the forty-third hexagram, Guai, which means “breakthrough,” to the Cui hexagram. The Guai hexagram signifies a breakthrough after a long accumulation of tension, as a swollen river breaks through its dikes, or in the manner of a cloudburst. The energies that “break through” are “gathered together” and transformed.

In this transformation, the spiritual mind is elevated to follow a higher spiritual path. One’s needs are diminished, and instinctive behavior is abandoned in order to embrace the power of Te. When Te unifies all the spirits within the family, the lost souls are recovered and unified. Spiritual flowers and fruits are produced, longevity is ensured and immortality results.

This can be also envisioned as the transition from order to work, from discipline to obedience, and from self-realization to self-actualization. Longevity is the order, the discipline, and the self-realization. Immortality is the work, the obedience, and the self-actualization. Longevity is a wish and immortality is the result of the wish.

Live Fully

In the history of mankind, longevity has been the most common desire. And there is no greater wish than to attain spiritual immortality. The pursuit of physical and spiritual immortality is a powerful and extremely positive spiritual practice. Yet only a small minority of people can predict their physical life journey. The masters of meditation can do so. A good doctor can predict the final outcome of a patient’s life based on pathological evidence. A clear-minded person may get a small glimpse or foresight. Ultimately, however, the spiritual life is independent from the physical life.

The mind plays an important role in death and dying. If a person has made up his or her mind to commit suicide, no one can prevent it. The decision comes from within. The proper approach is to live life fully without fighting against the nature of life and death. This can be illustrated from the life stories of Buddha or Jesus, both of whom were religious founders as well as superior masters of meditation. Buddha once ate poisoned meat to hasten his last breath; Jesus was crucified after his last meal. They each knew what awaited them: death through mastering the spirit’s way.

A life span of several hundred years was not uncommon for ancient Taoist sages. For example, Guang Chengzi, the Yellow Emperor’s guru, is reported to have lived over twelve hundred years. Yet longevity cannot replace immortality. One needn’t live a long physical life in order to achieve immortality. Wang Chunyang, the founder of the Complete Reality School of Taoism, lived only to the age of fifty-eight.

CHANGE AND CHANGLESSNESS

When the ego retreats completely, the body is able to live its fullest physical life journey. When the mind disappears completely, the immortality or the native spiritual essence becomes fully present. Longevity is the process of changing within unchanging, while immortality is the character of the sameness of unchanging within the changing. Changing from and toward unchanging can never be predicted by the ego.

Understanding the white and holding on to the black

Enables the formation of the world.

Being the formation of the world, ongoing action does not stray.

When ongoing action does not stray, it returns to the infinite.

This simplicity takes shape as a mechanism.

The sage makes it the head ruler.

Great ruling never divides.

(28:3–4)

The formation of the world is constructed within the mechanism; great ruling is what governs it. This is the mechanism of life and death, birth and rebirth. From sunrise to sunset, from night to day, it is a sleepless resting continuity of free changing process. From male to female, white to black, fire to water, it is the power of penetration. From female to male, black to white, water to fire, it is the power of receptiveness. Penetrating and receiving continues with no sign of beginning or end. The two never stray apart from each other: the Oneness within, the formation of the world. This action comes from nowhere, yet is present and exists everywhere.

As our mind begins to work, we understand the workability of the world. When our mind starts changing direction, we make sense of the change in our changing world. When our mind ceases to change, we conclude that changing is unchanging. The unchanging reality beyond the movement of the mind is the nature of the Tao and the birth of universe.

Eternity

Heaven is eternal, and earth is long lasting.

What makes heaven and earth eternal and long lasting is that they do not give birth to themselves.

It is this that makes them eternal and long lasting.

(67:1–2)

Eternal changelessness, beyond birth and death, is the immortality of the Tao. Longevity deals with form, both transforming and deforming. It exists between birth and death, growth and retirement, moving forward and turning back. Immortality reveals the presence of everlasting eternity. Lao Tzu further explains:

Reaching the ultimate emptiness,

Concentrating on the central stillness,

All things work together.

From this I observe their returning.

All things under heaven flourish in their vitality,

Yet each returns to its own root.

This is stillness.

Stillness means returning to its destiny.

Returning to its destiny is steadfastness.

To know steadfastness means enlightenment.

(16:1–3)

Here Lao Tzu is examining the Tao through returning to the eternal stillness. He finds that destiny moves along its steadfast course without being troubled by the mind; that is the realization of enlightenment. Knowing this is the mind’s acceptance of impartiality and equanimity. This impartiality is being with the body of the Tao, a process of returning, nonbeing, and nothingness.

The body and mind can handle the changes and cycles of life just as it does the motion of the sun and the waning and waxing of the moon. Time takes care of itself. There is no need to remember everything and there is no need to hold onto everything. Renewal and change is the child of the Tao. This is the process of acceptance; this is the quality of inner steadfastness; this is the regal mind and the body of the Tao.

All that we experience is change. From the moment of our conception to the development of our independent life path, from the flash of an idea to its expression in the world, we are constantly participating in a process of evolutionary change.

Each movement is an enlightened journey. If the mind is not present and the body is not ready, repetition and continuation must take place until the mind is free. This is the glory and grace of enlightening reality. Live fully, die completely. Then move on without looking back just as though nothing has happened. This is the true paradox of Lao Tzu’s teaching. To practice this requires purity, innocence, and humility. It also requires the inner flexibility of the tender reed.

When people are born, they are soft and gentle.

When they die, they are stiff and callous.

When myriad things, grasses and trees, are born, they are soft and tender.

When they die, they are withered.

So stiffness and callousness are the company of death.

Softness and suppleness are the company of life.

(78:1–3)

Lao Tzu understood from his own experience and his observation of the natural world that fluidity, flexibility, softness, and suppleness are the conduits of life. With this fluidity, one does not resist change and time, and thus is not ravaged by it. Softness and suppleness are the company of life.

The Presence of Spirit

How to suffuse one’s mental content with presence is the major issue of cultivation, or the application of Wu Wei, or inactive action, non-minded action. To suffuse one’s mental content with presence is to allow fully the presence of spirit. It is to engage with the constant, moment-by-moment unification of biophysiological action and psychospiritual awareness. A total mental awareness is needed with no inquiry into the meaning and result of each activity. No hypothesis is necessary prior to the activity, and no control is exerted toward the outcome of the activity. To love and to be loved is the effective practice of being fully present. When the reality of presence is absent or blocked, an energy imbalance and deficiency is created. The mind manifests with wishes and longings for the loss of the connected, loving presence. If the disconnection continues to exist, hope is lost, depression darkens the mind, and the richness of life dwindles away. It is like a beautiful flower withering away.

This is what Lao Tzu refers to when he says extreme fondness is necessarily very costly. Yet, the fondness is a feedback resulting from the energetic quality of either light or darkness. To be fond of the spiritual path will involve sacrifice of the physical life but will free the self, while to be fond of the dark force depletes all, pleasing only the materialistic and hellish world.

Instead of being fully engaged with presence, the mind tends to close off its environment as the ego advances. This is the nature of animated egoistic activity in its fear of losing the presence connection. The ego augments further pressure on the biophysiological action. Through this process, the psychospiritual richness of living, of “being with the presence,” descends into obsessive ego control. The richness of life is replaced with the desire of becoming materially rich. Through obsession the ego attains satisfaction; through possession the mind avoids being lost in the reality of nature. The transcendent nature of reality becomes merely a mental configuration. The real vision of heaven becomes distant. Living is meaningless; dying seems unsatisfactory.

The more you cling to, the more you lose.

So knowing what is sufficient averts disgrace.

Knowing when to stop averts danger.

This can lead to a longer life.

(44:2–3)

This refers to actual objects to which the mind clings as well as the very act of clinging. Objects represent images and are the symbols of that clinging behavior. And in this clinging, one is attached to the future, dwelling in fear and a sense of lack or impoverishment. One is no longer present, no longer allowing fully the always full and enriching presence of spirit. This is the drive that depletes the Chi or life force, ultimately leading to illness and death.

TAOIST SEXUAL PRACTICES FOR LONGEVITY AND IMMORTALITY

Tao is the harmony of yin and yang. The earliest manifestation of this harmony in human beings is the descending eternal yang Chi of heaven and the ascending and evolving yin Chi of mother earth that occurs at conception. However, this harmony or balance is almost always lost and must be regained. Most people are rarely in touch with the true nature of eternal harmony. Rarely do we experience the blissfulness of that harmonious beauty; however, it can be experienced in Taoist sexual practice.

Taoists believe that when a man and woman join together to make love, their orgasmic energy joins together as well as the sperm and egg, combining the universal, cosmic, and earthly Chi forces. (Taoists refer to this process as the reunion of heaven and earth.) The process is so powerful that it can create a new human life. Yet common sexual practices waste valuable life force. People unknowingly deplete themselves of energy in numerous ways, thereby destroying their health. By redirecting sexual energy, they can have the best sexual experience and also cultivate energy for healing and rejuvenating their bodies, and transforming lower energies into higher spiritual energies.

Generally, common orgasms are mere pulsations of the genitals which occur only in the genital region. (They are referred to as genital or outward orgasms.) For men, such orgasms are short in duration and cannot be repeated once the seminal fluid is gone. Although a woman’s experience lasts longer, there is not much benefit to her body if her sexual energy is habitually left unchanneled, only to drain out during menstruation. The loss of Jing (sexual/generative essence) can negatively affect one’s health and sexuality.

TAOIST SEXUAL PRACTICES CULTIVATE AND TRANSFORM JING AND CHI INTO SHEN

An internal orgasm, which leads to a total body orgasm, occurs throughout the entire body, as well as in the genitals. It can be extended in its duration and repeated for hours. By moving the pulsation of the orgasm up to the higher centers of the body, Jing can be retained and the orgasmic sensation increased tenfold. This also retains the seminal fluid in men. If one knows how to maintain orgasms for long periods of time, the universal and earthly Chi forces can be activated and combined into a higher bliss, which is a powerful healing energy.

Taoists believe that the only reason one should ejaculate or allow the loss of Jing to occur is for the purpose of having children. Unfortunately, people carelessly lose their health in their quest for genital orgasms. Ejaculation causes a brief sensation in which sexual energy is passed out of the body and lost. Women who lose energy are also deprived of true sexual pleasure and satisfaction. Internal orgasms are a healthier and longer-lasting approach to sex with no loss of stimulation to the genitals. The sensations actually travel through all of the organs, glands, and nerves, thrilling and revitalizing them with sexual energy.

Some religions attack sex, creating a great deal of fear and negativity about sexuality. Sex is a powerful yet neutral force. It should not be judged as good or bad, but it can multiply any positive or negative quality that exists within us. This same sexual energy, which can create another human being, or enhance one’s spiritual growth, can also increase our negative states if we neglect to recycle it. Sex is like fire. Fire can cook your food, warm your house, and help to provide a comfortable life. If it is misused, however, it can burn down your house. The same principle applies to sexual energy, which can benefit anyone’s health, vitality, and longevity. Unfortunately, some religions have condemned it while trying to prevent its misuse, thereby promoting confusion.

Through their practice of celibacy, masters, monks, nuns, and priests learn how to use sexual energy to enhance their virtues and connect with the spirit. By focusing upon divinity as a means of raising sexual energy up to the higher centers of their bodies, they transform it into virtuous energy, which enhances their spiritual growth, leading to union with God or Spirit. This can only occur when sexual energy is conserved and transferred up to the higher centers and the crown.

The purpose of celibacy is simply to avoid the loss of Jing, but celibacy alone does not move Jing up to the higher centers for transformation and reunion with the higher forces. Also, most people find celibacy to be impractical in daily life. Unfortunately misconceptions about such practices deter them from learning how to properly control and use sexual energy. (See Mantak Chia’s Taoist Secrets of Love and Healing Love through the Tao for detailed discussion of the Taoist transformative sexual practices.)

When people learn to conserve their sexual energy, they begin to love, conserve, and protect nature. When they lose too much Jing through common sexual practices, or through drugs, alcohol, and smoking, humans can become progressively destructive. In their constant search for sensorial excitement through fast sex and addictive substances, some people become violent without reason and abusive to their environment.

It is interesting to note that most businesses in the world try to appeal to us by stimulating our senses with sexual titillation. Unfortunately, society and the business world follow the common misconception that sex was intended to release pent up energies and emotions. The truth is that sex is a means of building up the energies that the body needs. Sexual desire is not really a search for release, but often it is a search for new sources of energy to replenish lost Jing Chi.

When too much sexual energy is lost, the brain and sensory organs become empty. Then people unconsciously seek other sources to fulfill their desires for stimulation. They desire more orgasmic pleasures because they are so used to passing Jing out of their bodies that their need for internal energy becomes desperate. In searching to fulfill their internal needs, they actually drain themselves more by relying upon old sexual habits. Unfortunately, drugs and alcohol also offer the kinds of stimulation (like false orgasms) that further deplete the body of energy. These substances therefore become addictive as they weaken the body and mind. The more energy that is lost, the more the body must replace to achieve high levels of stimulation. When people smoke, drink, or take drugs, their desires for stimulation possess them more as their energies decrease.

The Taoists suggest that this state is like a little death, a self-destruction through overstimulation of the senses, with vital energies pouring out. Destructive attitudes gradually increase as these people try to replace lost Jing through means which further drain them. This is often the cause of violence as the search for sexual energy becomes obsessive. Once the body is in this state, the subconscious mind carries the destruction further. Its tendency is to destroy itself and everything around it.

Besides the problems of lust, anger, and violence, there are other attitudes that are related to greed and obsession. Money can stimulate you through the power it offers, but if you allow money to take up all your time and energy, it will also begin to take over your life. Such problems occur because we lose so much sexual energy in our daily lives that we have little or no control over our bodies and minds. For this reason, as noted above, many religions fear sex and warn their followers to be wary of its potential destructiveness. The problem is that they do not give their followers some means of controlling this powerful energy. Many will suggest celibacy, suppression, or restrictions, and thereby promote confusion about the bad effects of sex. Such suppression often has a reverse effect. If you withhold emotions for too long, they eventually explode outward at some unexpected moment, causing a great disturbance. Similarly, a sexually deprived person may create a great disturbance when the hold is finally lost on his or her sexual energy.

The Taoist sexual practices, when properly mastered, enable one to cultivate, purify, channel, and transform all the energies available to human beings, resulting in health, vitality, and longevity. This provides the energy for higher spiritual practices and spiritual transformation, ultimately leading to spiritual immortality.

HARMONY IS ETERNAL

Longevity and spiritual immortality are cultivated through living in harmony at all levels of existence. Spirit is yang and soul is yin. When they are embraced, oneness is preserved. We are the children of the earth mother and heavenly father. Divine yang Chi and earthly yin Chi is instilled within our body/mind.

Harmony is eternal.

Knowing harmony is discernment.

(55:3)

Human life is enhanced through connection to the universal harmony of heaven and earth, divine and human, inner and outer. When we become simple, still, and quiet, we can become sensitive to this harmony. This is true discernment. It is knowing what is eternal and essential, and knowing what is not.

The High Is Founded upon the Low

Esteem is rooted in the humble.

The high is founded upon the low.

This is why the lords and rulers call themselves widows and orphans without support.

Is this not the root of being humble?

Much praise amounts to no praise.

(39:4–6)

The fifteenth I Ching hexagram, Chian, sheds light on this process. Chian means modesty. This hexagram is made up of the trigrams Ken (keeping still, mountain) and Kun (the receptive, earth).

MODESTY (CHIAN) OF THE 15TH HEXAGRAM

The mountain is the youngest son of the divinity, the representative of heaven and earth. It dispenses the blessings of heaven, the clouds and rain that gather at its summit, and shines forth radiant heavenly light. This shows what modesty is and how it functions in great and strong people. Kun, the earth, stands above. Lowliness is a quality of the earth: this is the very reason why it appears in this hexagram as exalted, by being placed above the mountain. This shows how modesty functions in lowly, simple people: they are lifted up by it.

Harmony between heaven and earth, between yang and yin, masculine and feminine, spirit and soul, creative and receptive, is acknowledged and united, unified and embraced, reserved and preserved. They can be as close as they wish, and they can be as distant as they need to be. They are the One, the Oneness, the complete, harmonized, pure self. The relationship within and in between is then expanded, no longer restrained by role playing. The relationship is transformed; self and image are no longer separately defined. All people are brothers and sisters. Love is both inner vision and passion extending to the lengths of the universe. Compassion is inhalation and exhalation. Kindness is giving and receiving. Desire is no longer stressful, wisdom is no longer staged. Renewal and refreshment in all relationships is harmoniously granted. The ego is lost into unconditional love and awareness. The mind is expanded into universal understanding. Te is the expression of life’s journey.

Form and Formless

Each moment is a transformation; each moment is a death. We are composed of the form given us (physical, mental, and spiritual) and the formless form we have within. Form is composed of everything about our individual physical being, from hair to nails. Formless form is the soul and spirit granted us. Form must die, but formless form never dies. It is the very nature of energy transformation. At a subliminal level, matter and energy are inseparable. It is form because of its changing and transforming quality, it is formless because of its innate perfection and completion.

The fire never extinguishes itself, yet each fire’s glow must be extinguished. The water is never dried up, yet each water molecule evaporates. We are going to die, yet we will never die. Who dies? It is the transformation of body/mind form.

We live, we die. . . .

Why so? It is the nature of life itself.

As a matter of fact, I hear of those who are good at preserving their lives;

Walking through, not avoiding rhinos and tigers.

Entering battle without wearing armaments.

The rhino has no place to dig its horns.

The tiger has no place to drag its claws.

The soldier has no place to thrust his blade.

Why is this so?

Because they have no place to die.

(50:1,3–5)

At this and every moment, we are walking between birth and death. We are living in flux and change, yet in perfect stillness. Yet by not fearing death, not fearing the future—not fearing life—we embrace life fully, and we live with light hearts and minds. We live transparently, and the rhino has no place to dig its horns.

Hun and Po at Death

To die consciously is to have lived through the conscious awareness of hun, or heavenly soul. It is to be released from the morbid obsession of po, or earthly soul. The hun is the ethereal soul. The hun is more subtle, and is yang in nature. The po is the corporeal soul. It is closely related to the physical world and descends into the earth at the time of physical death. The po is more physical, and is yin in nature.

During the last exhalation at death, if hun’s mortal, conscious awareness stays with po, it will merge into the earthly energy pattern of a ghost. It will pass through the gateway of the mouth, nose, or even ears. This energy pattern will not ascend and associate itself with the higher energy sphere at the third eye or crown point, as it ideally would. If it is good, it becomes a wandering ghost; if it is evil, it becomes a hungry ghost.

With conscious death, the mortal conscious awareness of hun discharges itself from po by returning to its original form of Shen. By embracing the light, this individual spirit crystallizes into spiritual being, like a beam of laser light. When love is purified selflessly and completely, it is the pure self and pure love of God-self within. The spiritual body is light and spiritual motive is love. The body is formless and its action is deathless.

Immortality is beyond physical and mental. It is an ultimate integration and embrace that leaves nothing pushed aside or left behind. There is blissful satisfaction within and no fear of being alone. There is no sense of who is dead and or one who is alive; no awareness of living and dying. Soaring from life is not sadness—one has passed through the forgiveness of heart and the attachment of mind. Consciousness becomes a mirror and ego is nothing other than an old habit. This is lasering with pure light, being with pure light, returning to the complete self and God’s love. This is the application of being immortal and entering immortality. Lao Tzu calls this the Tao of having a deep root, a strong stem, a long life, and an enduring vision (59:3). The root is the source and the stem is the form; life is the act and vision is the light.

Your Choice Matters

Whether you want to stick with mortality or choose immortality is entirely your own choice. The heavenly father gives you the light and consciousness. The earthly mother gives you your body and instincts. You are embraced by light. Freedom of choice is given to your heart, the freedom of action granted to your mind, and the freedom to channel the energy is there for the taking. If you follow the inclinations of your ordinary thinking mind, you will chase after ideas, rise and fall with your emotions, protect your beliefs, and sleep fitfully with nightmares.

Let the light shine through you to live with compassion. Remain untroubled with the mind’s loneliness and longing; then you can live with inner peace. You can know with pure awareness, enjoy working with the changing character of nature, and be happy on your sacred path. Lao Tzu emphasizes that: The person who works according to Tao unites with Tao (24:4). He adds simply: Only those who are not slaves to life are wise to the value of life (77:2).