Robyn Lebron God or Gods Taoism does not have a god in the sense of Western theology There is no omnipotent being who created and controls the universe The universe is the Tao, and the Tao impersonally supervises things But the Tao is not a god, nor is it worshiped by Taoists, but it is always acknowledged as This may seem surprising as Taoists use godlike references to the Tao (or sometimes referred to as “the Eternal Tao”): “ ǡ ǡ ǡ ǡǥȀ Ǣ Ȁ ǡ ” (Taishang laojun kaitian jing, ǣǡ 1993).19 There are no words to describe the Tao Because there is no language, it is best understood in the way the belief in the Tao plays out in people’s lives and their interaction with the world around them The goes on to say the “ ǡ ǥ Ǣ Ǥ” Taoism does include many deities, but although these are venerated in Taoist temples, they are part of the universe and depend, like everything, on the Tao These deities are within this universe and are themselves subject to the Tao The priesthood views the many gods as of the one Tao, “which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing.” The concept of a personified deity is foreign to them, as is the concept of the creation of the universe Thus, they not pray as Christians do; there is no god to hear the prayers or to act upon them They seek answers to life’s problems through inner meditation and outer observation.20 The spiritual beings of primary importance in religious Taoism are the ( in Chinese) First introduced in the ChuangTzu and perhaps intended by the author to be allegorical, these superhumans or perfected persons came to be venerated and emulated by Taoists Some even seek to locate them in the hope of asking them their secret of immortality In the Chuang-Tzu, these perfect beings dwell far away in an untroubled place, where they experience an effortless existence of physical freedom They are ageless, eat nothing but air, drink nothing ut dew, and en oy the power of flight