Two of Pentacles: Wu Wei, The Way, Law of Attraction
The Two of Pentacles in tarot perfectly illustrates the concepts of duality, Wu Wei/The Way and living in the present moment.
I’ve always had a fascination with the teachings of the Tao. However, it wasn’t love at first sight. When I was in elementary school, Tao Te Ching was mandatory reading. I rejected the teachers' interpretations of the Tao, not because I was so enlightened at a young age, but because I could sense their conditioned values, and Tao Te Ching was just a tool for them to impose those values on their students. They may not have done it consciously but learning and teaching Tao Te Ching was nothing more than a mandatory subject and a test everyone must pass.
I may be biased. But it doesn't matter because I'm not dwelling on the intentions of the teachers or the flaws in the education system. It was simply not my time to understand and embrace the profound wisdom Lao Tzu had to share.
The second chance
Tao Te Ching, dragon guides, Bashar and the law of attraction principles are different schools of teachings coming from various messengers, but I cannot help but notice the fundamental truth they share. Perhaps it's the abstract way Lao Tzu expressed the wisdom of Tao, I find it difficult for me to understand it by reading the Tao Te Ching directly. I like using Tao Te Ching to supplement and expand my understanding of the concepts of duality, Wu Wei/The Way and living in the present moment. I’m also a visual person. The Two of Pentacles in tarot perfectly illustrates these concepts to me.
Duality
Our physical reality is built based on duality, right or wrong, this or that, black or white, etc. This dual perspective helps us build a foundation for us to expand our view of the reality and of ourselves later in life. Usually, this happens on one's spiritual journey. As catalyst gets more and more complicated as we continue on this human journey, we're invited to see and understand our reality and ourselves beyond the dualistic point of views. The ability to perceive a situation or a relationship beyond the duality seems to be the key to forgiveness and compassion.
The purpose of duality is to help us inform biased opinions, so we can choose. You can choose what you prefer and what you don't prefer in your reality. You can make decisions that align with the truth of the totality of YOU, and not just your physical mind.
The catalyst is neutral. It’s how we define the catalyst that makes an experience negative or positive. When there’s light, there’s darkness. Chapter 2 in Tao Te Ching sums it up perfectly.
“Everybody on earth knowing that beauty is beautiful makes ugliness.
Everybody knowing that goodness is good makes wickedness.
For being and nonbeing arise together; hard and easy complete each other; long and short shape each other; high and low depend on each other; note and voice make the music together; before and after follow each other.
That’s why the wise soul does without doing, teaches without talking.
The things of this world exist, they are; you can’t refuse them.
To bear and not to own; to act and not lay claim; to do the work and let it go: for just letting it go is what makes it stay.”
2. Wu Wei & The Way
My favorite translation of Wu Wei is effortless doing. Wu Wei is such an abstract concept it takes a long time for me to know it through experience. If you're familiar with the law of attraction, especially Abraham Hicks' teaching, the essence of their teaching is the same as Wu Wei. The non-resistance of going with the flow and not forcing things to happen at a certain time or in a certain way.
Or if you're familiar with Bashar's teaching, his formula explains the concept of Wu Wei and The Way in 5 simple steps:
#1. Act on your excitement, your passion, whatever is most exciting to you, in the moment. Do this every moment that you can.
#2. Do this to the best of your ability. Take it as far as you can go until you cannot take it any further.
#3. Act on your excitement/passion with absolutely no insistence, assumption or expectation of what the outcome should be.
#4. Choose to remain in a positive state regardless of what happens.
#5. Constantly investigate your belief systems. Release & replace the un-preferred beliefs: fear-based beliefs, and the beliefs not in alignment with who you prefer to be.
Our ego likes to know how to get to where we want to go, but it doesn’t have good visibility to all the infinite possibilities of the paths we get to travel. Efficiency seems to be the emphasis in how we run our lives on a daily basis. As a result, we deem only the shortest path as the path worth taking not knowing sometimes the shortest path is the hardest path.
“The Way never does anything, and everything gets done.
If those in power could hold to the Way, the ten thousand things would look after themselves.
If even so they tried to act, I’d quiet them with the nameless, the natural.
In the unnamed, in the unshapen, is not wanting.
In not wanting is stillness.
In stillness all under heaven rests.”
