This slim tome marks the end of journey through reading the world’s major religious texts aloud. Much like my experience with The Bhagavad Gita, Laozi’s Tao Te Ching is a short read packed with concise expressions of insight and generalized wisdom. You don’t have to believe everything it says—in fact, you know your critical thinking skills are working when you don’t—but it’s so small there’s no reason not to at least give it a glance.
The progression from The Holy Bible down to this book was a fascinating and valuable trip. It really started with Robert Graves’s exhaustive The Greek Myths, which got me thinking I should try this grand experiment. If I were to go back and do it again, I would in a heartbeat, and I’d add the Avesta to the pre-reading exercises. The reality is that there were myriad spiritual manuals pre-Bible, and myriad since. They’re all valuable, on an intellectual level.
And that brings us to my takeaway: I now believe that faith and spirituality are best reached by a lone pilgrim’s self-directed research, and that whatever discoveries arise must be practiced rather than preached. Real understanding reveals itself only in the consequences of our actions.
Go with God. Or don’t. It’s all up to you.
2025.05.19 – 2025.05.26