Authenticity is Life Being Itself

The Tao Te Ching outlines ‘The Way.’ Which, in my opinion, is one of the best expositions on what happens when you surrender to the intelligence of life. The Tao is the unchanging, ever-present, ultimate life-giving quality.

The Way is about non-action, meaning doing the most efficient or necessary amount of work and then letting go of it. Though it may seem so at first glance, non-action is not inaction. The Way is about taking the specific and accurate steps for you in a given moment. So, it could look like a lot of action, but the difference is the precision of the action. It’s about the effortless movement through life. This, in my understanding, translates to being connected to your authenticity.

There is a great deal of discussion these days around the word authenticity. “Be authentic” are likely two words you can find on a coffee mug in your local gift shop. But what does it mean to do so and why is it such an existential need?

From what I can see, we have created so many strategies for bringing authenticity forth. Conversely, the Tao talks about allowing authenticity to arise as the gift of life. That the reason you are here is because of your authenticity and it naturally flows when you are in touch with life. In other words, when you align with life, you bring your creativity and innovation to it.

But what does it mean to align with life? It seems like this is a lot more effortful than the Tao makes it out to be. How do we come to a space of non-doing to touch our authenticity? A question that, in itself, confirms our disconnection from the natural flow of life.

Much of Eastern thought is about the capacity to surrender. This conflicts with our Western way of thought- needing a method, formula, or road map to get somewhere. It’s impossible to strategize surrender, but the wisdom books of the East outlay the principles that we can work off. They speak to the building blocks of life that create our experience. When we understand these fundamentals, we can find a truer expression of life through us because we are then in touch with the substance that creates, rather than seeing only the form that is created.

Another proposition made by the Tao Te Ching is that life is a movement, a cyclic process. However, underneath that process of movement is an unchanging stillness. Therefore, finding stillness in the movement of life or, conversely, movement in the stillness of life is where we find effortlessness. This is important because effort begins when we disconnect from the union of opposites. In other words, we separate from the full spectrum of life.

As far as the Tao is concerned, effort is not authentic. It takes practice to build enough trust in life in order to surrender to it. Nevertheless, if we choose ‘The Way’, everything in our life becomes practice material for finding deeper surrender. And, because of that, a depth in authenticity.

When we choose to follow the effortless Way, the choice we are making is to see all the areas in which we live effortfully, graceless, and outside of our authenticity. Therefore, our path becomes a journey of awakening to what it means to live.

¨My teachings are easy to understand

and easy to put into practice.

Yet your intellect will never grasp them,

and if you try to practice them, you’ll fail.

My teachings are older than the world.

How can you grasp their meaning?

If you want to know me.

Look inside your heart.¨

-Lao Tzu n. 70