Tao Te Ching – The Way of the Action of the Soul
Translation by Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey
Click here to go to a chart of all 81 chapters; by clicking on an individual chapter, you will be taken to a page where you can read and listen to audio recordings of that chapter by both Alan and Barbara.
The Tao Te Ching is an ancient Chinese document said to have been written about 2500 years ago. It is an important piece of Taoist literature which has been translated by many people because of its age and spiritual nature. It is extensively studied throughout the world in a variety of translations.
The author of the Tao Te Ching is “Lao Tzu” which means “the grand old master.” Hence, the author’s birth name is not known, and there is no recorded history of the author’s life. The document is typically divided into eighty-one chapters and contains more than 5,000 Chinese characters.
Alan Sheets and Barbara Tovey made an unexpected correlation between the Tao Te Ching and the nine soultype energies; they discovered that the Tao Te Ching is an expression of these energies. By organizing the Tao Te Ching according to the chart, they found that every ninth chapter addresses the nature of the same soultype, creating nine groups of nine chapters.
The Tao Te Ching represents the first historical writing found by Alan and Barbara that directly addresses the nine energies, and can best be be understood and utilized if there is an understanding of the way these energies work together to create transformation. The Tao Te Ching is a manual that can be used to teach people how to bring the wisdom of the soul into the world.
Of the possible interpretations for each Chinese character, they chose the definition that was the oldest interpretation of each character and best communicated insight about the soultype energy being addressed. They made minor grammatical adjustments to account for the shift from the Chinese way of expressing ideas to the American style.
Although Alan and Barbara are not scholars of Chinese literature or Taoism, they have extensive knowledge of the soultype energies. This gave them a foundation to add context that had not previously been integrated into other Tao Te Ching translations. The soultype-specific nuances bring each chapter more alive and contribute to this powerful spiritual document.
New Equations is learned through personal experience. The Tao Te Ching is very much the same. Instead of trying to make sense out of the words, let your body absorb them so you have a body-based experience of the nine energies.