Book Review: "Change Your Thoughts...Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao" by Dr. Wayne Dyer

Most of what I learned about spirituality in my early years on the path, I learned from Wayne Dyer. I wish he’d written this book first. It would have saved me so much angst on the journey and so much “striving to arrive.” But as his colleague and friend, Deepak Chopra said in his book, The Third Jesus, “Spirit, like water, remains fresh only when it flows.”

Dyer’s consciousness was not there yet. Mine was so much, much further away.

As a matter of fact, I’d purchased Dyer’s book last year. I skimmed it and thought it would be a daunting task to weed through the many chapters to find the “pearls” I knew had to be somewhere in the pages. So, I read it sporadically, not making much connection with it, until recently when I picked it up again.

Now, with a changed consciousness, I find “pearls” in every page, in each chapter, in each day I read. “Wisdom of Tao,” is now my day- to- day guide for living. Each day, I pick a new chapter, or two, and try to “work” with it as I go through my day, trying to indeed practice the simple “Way” of the Tao.

“Living the Wisdom of the Tao” is not a book you read and put away on the shelf. It’s a book that’s intended to help you live your life in a clear, uncomplicated, simple, yet powerful way. Once you’ve reached a certain level of spiritual consciousness, then "Wisdom of the Tao" can provide a natural way to respond to the world unfolding around you and through you.

“The Wisdom of the Tao” that Dyer offers is based on “Tao Te Ching,” teachings that were dictated by Lao-tzu of China about 500 years before the birth of Jesus. In his “wisdom,” Dyer undertakes all 81 verses that make up the slim and tiny Tao Te Ching volume and interprets Lao-tzu’s meaning. Taking 81 very profound and insightful verses and trying to interpret the meaning of each line, each verse, obviously was not an easy thing to do. So, as Dyer explains, what we end up reading are his thoughts about what Lao-tzu meant.

He painstakingly went through each verse and strove for the meaning. Here’s how he said he did it:

“I awake before 4 a.m, meditate, consume juices and supplements, and enter my sacred writing space. In the table, I have some framed drawings of Lao-tzu: In one he’s clad in simple robes, in another he’s standing with a staff, and in a third he’s astride an ox. I ease into my work and read one verse of the Tao Te Ching, letting the words stay with me and inviting the forces of both the outer and the inner life to inform me.

Some of the passages contain ideas that seem to be directed to political leaders---yet in all cases I keep the average reader in mind. In other words, I seek the wisdom for “everyone”, not just for those in positions of government or business. I jot down a few notes, and for the next three days I think about what Lao-tzu is offering. I invite the Tao to be with Me throughout the day in all my activities as a background to the title of this book.'Change your thoughts, Wayne,' I tell myself, 'watch how your life changes.' And my thoughts' do' change!”

Using 10 of the most “well respected translations” of the "Tao Te Ching" in a period of over a year, Dyer set about writing his interpretation of the wisdom of the Tao, “the supreme reality, an all-pervasive source of everything .”

According to Dyer, The Tao cannot be named or defined. It never begins or ends, does nothing yet animates everything in the world of form and boundaries and which Lao-tzu calls ”the world of the 10,000 things.”

The 1st Verse Dyer interprets as “Living the Mystery.” Here his interpretation is that we just practice “letting go of always naming and labeling” things and relationships. Just let them be. “Let the world unfold without always attempting to figure it all out,” he writes. “Relax, let go, allow and recognize that some of your desires are about how you think your world should be, rather than how it is in the moment.”

I will not attempt to recount verse by verse, Dyer’s interpretations of the Tao. But this is truly the only way the essence of the book can be shared. To attempt to put words to Dyer’s message would be doing a disservice to him and all the work he put into translating the Tao so that we may benefit.

What I will say is that EACH chapter, each of the 81 verses, from the first to the last two, “Living Your Own Utopia” and “Living Without Accumulating,” offers pearls that people search a lifetime to find. The good thing is that you don’t have to read the chapters in sequence. You can go to “the one” that speaks to you on a certain day and work with it.

For example, if you feel the need of “letting go,” you would select Verse 55, “Living by Letting Go.” If your preference is to learn how to put aside the ways of the world, then you’d select Verse 35,”Living Beyond World Pleasures, ” or you may choose, Verse 37, “Living in Simplicity.”

My goal is to go through each one of the verses repeatedly over the next year, until their essence is a part of my “being.”

One important verse that you may want to incorporate immediately to deal with any stress you currently may be experiencing is Verse 50: “Living as an Immortal.”

Here, Dyer offers that “since the fear of death tops virtually everyone’s list of anxieties,” why not die now...while you’re alive!? He offers this exercise to “Die While You’re Alive!”

“In your imagination, contemplate the death of your physical shell: Visualize it lying there lifeless, and observe how you, the witness, aren’t identified with this corpse. Now bring that same attention to your body as it gets up and goes about its daily tasks. Nothing could harm your human form when it was dead, and nothing can harm you now because you are not that body---you’re the invisible witnessing essence. Remain in this realization, knowing that you’ve experienced the death of your earthly container as your primary source of identification. In this new awareness, you’re impenetrable and free.”

Dyer sees this exercise as allowing you to “change how you think about death by seeing your essential spiritual beingness, and you’ll be able to enjoy this world without the dread caused by believing you are of it."

I tried this exercise, and it does seem to take you to a different level.

I’m confident that like me, after you read this powerful offering by Dyer, you’ll feel tremendously grateful to him for providing this message of love, hope, and guidance in “Living the Wisdom of the Tao.”

Years ago, I’d purchased the “Tao Te Ching,” because someone somewhere had told me that it was a MUST read for anyone on the spiritual path. I still have my tiny little volume, and now thanks to Wayne Dyer, I can pick up “my little black book” and feel a “connection” with the verses.

With “Change your thoughts...and Change your life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao,” you are given a powerful way to becoming more empowered, yet living simply, with less complications and less at the will of your ego.

All you need do, now, is pick up a copy and keep it as your companion to following the “way” to the TRUTH within you! You’ll be so much richer...and much, much wiser... for doing so.

Namaste’,

Che’