Amritsar

Taoists, do not believe in a diety. It is a set of philosophies that are ever changing based on the learned experiences of the particular Toaist. It's main study is that everything is in perpetual flux and motion, however the flux and motion is given itself to a state of harmony. The reason for the flux is to always try and harmonize itself to the ever changing environment. Yin and Yang good in evil, evil in good, light in the dark, dark in the light. Taoists believe in a spirit though usually unidentified as a God per say is a state of peace and tranquility allowing one's self to become part of the living nature of the environment that surrounds us. To become part of the balance, and not offset it. Put simply "God" is in everything and everything is apart of "God" There is not multiple souls, but one complete soul that is spread into different pieces that inhabit everyone. We are all apart of each other, and yet separate. It is a general philosophy to try to understand the things that we fear to question. Not to explain it, but simply to understand it as it is, and become one with it.

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Daoism, also spelled Taoism, indigenous religio-philosophical tradition that has shaped Chinese life for more than 2,000 years. In the broadest sense, a Daoist attitude toward life can be seen in the accepting and yielding, the joyful and carefree sides of the Chinese character, an attitude that offsets and complements the moral and duty-conscious, austere and purposeful character ascribed to Confucianism. Daoism is also characterized by a positive, active attitude toward the occult and the metaphysical (theories on the nature of reality), whereas the agnostic, pragmatic Confucian tradition considers these issues of only marginal importance, although the reality of such issues is, by most Confucians, not denied.

More strictly defined, Daoism includes: the ideas and attitudes peculiar to the Laozi (or Daodejing; "Classic of the Way of Power"), the Zhuangzi, the Liezi, and related writings; the Daoist religion, which is concerned with the ritual worship of the Dao; and those who identify themselves as Daoists.

Daoist thought permeates Chinese culture, including many aspects not usually considered Daoist. In Chinese religion, the Daoist tradition-often serving as a link between the Confucian tradition and folk tradition-has generally been more popular and spontaneous than the official (Confucian) state cult and less diffuse and shapeless than folk religion.

Daoist philosophy and religion have found their way into all Asian cultures influenced by China, especially those of Vietnam, Japan, and Korea. Various religious practices reminiscent of Daoism in such areas of Chinese cultural influence indicate early contacts with Chinese travelers and immigrants that have yet to be elucidated.

Both Western Sinologists and Chinese scholars themselves have distinguished-since Han times (206 bce-220 ce)-between a Daoist philosophy of the great mystics and their commentators (daojia) and a later Daoist religion (daojiao). This theory-no longer considered valid-was based on the view that the "ancient Daoism" of the mystics antedated the "later Neo-Daoist superstitions" that were misinterpretations of the mystics' metaphorical images. The mystics, however, should be viewed against the background of the religious practices existing in their own times. Their ecstasies, for example, were closely related to the trances and spirit journeys of the early magicians and shamans (religious personages with healing and psychic transformation powers). Not only are the authors of the Daodejing, the Zhuangzi (book of "Master Chuang"), and the Liezi(book of "Master Lie") not the actual and central founders of an earlier "pure" Daoism later degraded into superstitious practices but they can even be considered somewhat on the margin of older Daoist traditions. Therefore, because there has been a nearly continuous mutual influence between Daoists of different social classes-philosophers, ascetics, alchemists, and the priests of popular cults-the distinction between philosophical and religious Daoism in this article is made simply for the sake of descriptive convenience.

There is also a tendency among scholars today to draw a less rigid line between what is called Daoist and what is called Confucian. The two traditions share many of the same ideas about man, society, the ruler, heaven, and the universe-ideas that were not created by either school but that stem from a tradition prior to either Confucius or Laozi.

Viewed from this common tradition, orthodox Confucianism limited its field of interest to the creation of a moral and political system that fashioned society and the Chinese empire; whereas Daoism, inside the same worldview, represented more personal and metaphysical preoccupations.

In the case of Buddhism-a third tradition that influenced China-fundamental concepts such as the nonexistence of the individual ego and the illusory nature of the physical world are diametrically opposed to Daoism. In terms of overt individual and collective practices, however, competition between these two religions for influence among the people-a competition in which Confucianism had no need to participate because it had state patronage-resulted in mutual borrowings, numerous superficial similarities, and essentially Chinese developments inside Buddhism, such as the Chan (Japanese Zen) sect. In folk religion, since Song times (960-1279), Daoist and Buddhist elements have coexisted without clear distinctions in the minds of the worshippers.

General characteristics

The great sages and their associated texts

Laozi and the Daodejing

Behind all forms of Daoism stands the figure of Laozi, traditionally regarded as the author of the classic text known as the Laozi, or the Daodejing ("Classic of the Way of Power"). The first mention of Laozi is found in another early classic of Daoist speculation, the Zhuangzi (4th-3rd century bce), so called after the name of its author. In this work Laozi is described as being one of Zhuangzi's own teachers, and the same book contains many of the Master's (Laozi's) discourses, generally introduced by the questions of a disciple. The Zhuangzi also presents seven versions of a meeting of Laozi and Confucius. Laozi is portrayed as the elder and his Daoist teachings confound his celebrated interlocutor. The Zhuangzi also gives the only account of Laozi's death. Thus, in this early source, Laozi appears as a senior contemporary of Confucius (6th-5th century bce) and a renowned Daoist master, a curator of the archives at the court of the Zhou dynasty (c. 1046-256 bce), and, finally, a mere mortal.

The first consistent biographical account of Laozi is found in the "Records of the Historian" (Shiji)-China's first universal history (2nd century bce)-of Sima Qian. This concise résumé has served as the classical source on the philosopher's life. Laozi's family name was Li, his given name Er; and he occupied the post of archivist at the Zhou court. He is said to have instructed Confucius on points of ceremony. Observing the decline of the Zhou dynasty, Laozi left the court and headed west. At the request of Yin Xi, the guardian of the frontier pass, he wrote his treatise on the Dao in two scrolls. He then left China behind, and what became of him is not known. The historian quotes variant accounts, including one that attributed to Laozi an exceptional longevity; the narrative terminates with the genealogy of eight generations of Laozi's supposed descendants. With passing references in other early texts, this constitutes the body of information on the life of the sage as of the 2nd century bce; it is presumably legendary (see also Laozi).

Modern scholarship has little to add to the Shijiaccount, and the Daodejing, regarded by many scholars as a compilation that reached its final form only in the 3rd century bce, rather than the work of a single author, stands alone, with all its attractions and enigmas, as the fundamental text of both philosophical and religious Daoism.

The work's 81 brief sections contain only about 5,000 characters in all, from which fact derives still another of its titles, Laozi's Five Thousand Words. The text itself appears in equal measure to express a profound quietism and anarchistic views on government. It is consequently between the extremes of meditative introspection and political application that its many and widely divergent interpreters have veered.

The Daodejing was meant as a handbook for the ruler. He should be a sage whose actions pass so unnoticed that his very existence remains unknown. He imposes no restrictions or prohibitions on his subjects; "so long as I love quietude, the people will of themselves go straight. So long as I act only by inactivity, the people will of themselves become prosperous." His simplicity makes the Ten Thousand Things passionless and still, and peace follows naturally. He does not teach them discrimination, virtue, or ambition because "when intellect emerges, the great artifices begin. When discord is rife in families, 'dutiful sons' appear. When the State falls into anarchy, 'loyal subjects' appear." Thus, it is better to banish wisdom, righteousness, and ingenuity, and the people will benefit a hundredfold.

Therefore the Sage rules by emptying their hearts (minds) and filling their bellies, weakening their wills and strengthening their bones, ever striving to make the people knowledgeless and desireless.

The word "people" in this passage more likely refers not to the common people but to those nobles and intellectuals who incite the ruler's ambition and aggressiveness.

War is condemned but not entirely excluded: "Arms are ill-omened instruments," and the sage uses them only when he cannot do otherwise. He does not glory in victory; "he that has conquered in battle is received with rites of mourning."

The book shares certain constants of classical Chinese thought but clothes them in an imagery of its own. The sacred aura surrounding kingship is here rationalized and expressed as "inaction" (wuwei), demanding of the sovereign no more than right cosmological orientation at the centre of an obedient universe. Survivals of archaic notions concerning the compelling effect of renunciation-which the Confucians sanctified as ritual "deference" (rang)-are echoed in the recommendation to "hold to the role of the female," with an eye to the ultimate mastery that comes of passivity.

It is more particularly in the function attributed to the Dao, or Way, that this little tract stands apart. The term "dao" was employed by all schools of thought. The universe has its dao; there is a dao of the sovereign, his royal mode of being, while the dao of man comprises continuity through procreation. Each of the schools, too, had its own dao, its way or doctrine. But in the Daodejing, the ultimate unity of the universal Dao itself, is proposed as a social ideal. It is this idealistic peculiarity that seems to justify later historians and bibliographers in their assignment of the term Daoist to the Daodejing and its successors.

From a literary point of view, the Daodejing is distinguished for its highly compressed style. Unlike the dialectic or anecdotal composition of other contemporary treatises, it articulates its cryptic subject matter in short, concise statements. More than half of these are in rhyme, and close parallelism recurs throughout the text. No proper name occurs anywhere. Although its historical enigmas are apparently insoluble, there is abundant testimony to the vast influence exercised by the book since the earliest times and in surprisingly varied social contexts. Among the classics of speculative Daoism, it alone holds the distinction of having become a scripture of the esoteric Daoist movements, which developed their own interpretations of its ambiguities and transmitted it as a sacred text.

The interpretation of Zhuangzi

Pseudohistorical knowledge of the sage Zhuangzi is even less well defined than that of Laozi. Most of Sima Qian's brief portrait of the man is transparently drawn from anecdotes in the Zhuangzi itself and as such has no necessary basis in fact. The Zhuangzi, however, is valuable as a monument of Chinese literature and because it contains considerable documentary material, describing numerous speculative trends and spiritual practices of the Warring States period (475-221 bce).

Whereas the Daodejing is addressed to the sage-king, the Zhuangzi is the earliest surviving Chinese text to present a philosophy for private life, a wisdom for the individual. Zhuangzi is said to have preferred the doctrine of Laozi over all others; many of his writings strike the reader as metaphorical illustrations of the terse sayings of the "Old Master."

Whereas Laozi in his book as well as in his life (in legend) was concerned with Daoist rule, Zhuangzi, some generations later, rejected all participation in society. He compared the servant of state to the well-fed decorated ox being led to sacrifice in the temple and himself to the untended piglet blissfully frolicking in the mire.

Here there is none of the Daodejing's studied density. The rambling Zhuangzi opens with a sprightly fable, illustrating the incomprehension of small wildfowl of the majestic splendour of a gigantic bird. Other such parables demonstrate the relativity of all values: the sliding scales of size, utility, beauty, and perfection. There is a colloquy between the Lord of the Yellow River and the God of the Eastern Ocean, in which the complacent self-satisfaction of the lesser spirit is shaken by his unexpected meeting with inconceivable vastness. Humble artisans are depicted, who, through the perfect mastery of their craft, exemplify for their social superiors the art of mastering life. Life and death are equated, and the dying are seen to welcome their approaching transformation as a fusion with the Dao. A succession of acquiescent cripples exclaims in rapture on the strange forms in which it has pleased heaven to shape them. Those involved in state ritual are brought onstage only to be mocked, and the propositions of contemporary logic-choppers are drawn into the unending whirl of paradox, spun out to their conclusions, and so abolished. Such are a few aspects of this wild kaleidoscope of unconventional thought, a landmark in Chinese literature. Its concluding chapter is a systematic account of the preeminent thinkers of the time, and the note of mock despair on which it closes typifies the Zhuangzi's position regarding the more formal, straitlaced ideologies that it parodies.

Among the strange figures that people the pages of Zhuangzi are a very special class of spiritualized being. Dwelling far apart from the turbulent world of men, dining on air and sipping the dew, they share none of the anxieties of ordinary folk and have the smooth, untroubled faces of children. These "supreme persons," or "perfect persons," are immune to the effects of the elements, untouched by heat and cold. They possess the power of flight and are described as mounting upward with a fluttering motion. Their effortless existence was the ultimate in autonomy, the natural spontaneity that Zhuangzi ceaselessly applauds. These striking portraits may have been intended to be allegorical, but whatever their original meaning, these Immortals (xian), as they came to be called, were to become the centre of great interest. Purely literary descriptions of their freedom, their breathtaking mobility, and their agelessness were construed as practical objectives by later generations. By a variety of practices, people attempted to attain these qualities in their own persons, and in time Zhuangzi's unfettered paragons of liberty were to see themselves classified according to kind and degree in a hierarchy of the heavenly hosts (see alsoZhuangzi).

Basic concepts of Daoism

Certain concepts of ancient agrarian religion have dominated Chinese thought uninterruptedly from before the formation of the philosophic schools until the first radical break with tradition and the overthrow of dynastic rule at the beginning of the 20th century, and they are thus not specifically Daoist. The most important of these concepts are (1) the continuity between nature and human beings, or the interaction between the world and human society; (2) the rhythm of constant flux and transformation in the universe and the return or reversion of all things to the Dao from which they emerged; and (3) the worship of ancestors, the cult of heaven, and the divine nature of the sovereign.

The double edge sword is called a Khanda

The sword is used to stir the immortalizing nectar of Amrit given to initiates to drink in the Sikh baptism ceremony.

The Khanda is a Sikh symbol representative of the Sikhs martial history and is displayed proudly by Sikhs in a variety of ways:

· Adorning the nishan sahib, the Sikh flag.

· Decorative ramalas draping the Guru Granth Sahib.

· As a pin worn on the turban.

· Appliquéd and embroidered on clothing.

· In poster form and artwork on wall.

· Computer graphics and wallpaper.

· Accompanying articles in print.

· On banners and on floats in parades.