Cesaire’s Cahier was not only a powerful deconstruction of colonialism but an impassioned plea by the poet for an imagined return to the Africa of his forefathers. It was a desperate longing to reconnect with the 'invulnerable sap', that state of total belonging that I was to discover in the Tao Te Ching. I began to suspect that the way of the West was contrary to the integral vision of the Tao.

I believe that we have to leave our academic, scientific training behind when we approach the mystery of the Tao. We tend to want to analyse and look at knowledge, what is, in a Western ‘objective’, scientific and discursive way (a construct of materialist dialectics) which immediately separates us from the nature of Tao.

The ultimate answers to existence are not to be found in intellectual, scientific or philosophical concepts but rather on a level of direct non-conceptual experience. We should no longer confuse the indivisible nature of reality with conceptual categories of language. The meaning of the language of the Tao Te Ching can only adequately convey the meaning if related to personal experience, i.e., experiential self-exploration.

The very first lines of the Tao Te Ching states that “The Tao that can be spoken is not the Eternal Tao” meaning that the Tao cannot be caught by words. One cannot discuss it in ordinary language; it is ineffable; it can only be experienced. That is the paradox. The Tao is impersonal yet can only be known by personal experience. One could but try to live it and be in a state of complete nowness, one with the primordial wisdom. Very few can attain this state, so who would dare expound it? One can but meditate on its precepts: reconciliation of opposites, non-duality, non- attachment, without desire for accumulating material things.

The greatest difficulty in translating the text from the original language emerges from the ideogramic nature of Chinese writing itself, its hieroglyphs or pictograms, allowing for a certain degree of abstraction whilst addressing themselves to the fundamental questions of existence, the nature of reality and the mystery of creation, all of which are beyond description .For me the importance of the Tao Te Ching, lies not only in the deep philosophical truths it contains but in the innate poetry of the text. Elusive and paradoxical, mysterious and challenging, no one version captures the poetry, yet in their totality, the many versions convey the esoteric wisdom inherently linked to how we should envision a decent world for all of humanity. The Tao is a wisdom that predates everything in existence. Discovering the Tao is about discovering what is intrinsically good about human existence and how to share it with others; that there is a vast, unchanging primordial wisdom that supports all life - a sanctity that is never tarnished or diminished by the confusion that bedevils the phenomenal world, a confusion manifest in the materialistic construct of the prevailing world view, nationalistic hubris, alienation from the natural sustaining environment threatening ecological disaster for our planet, economic embargoes and warfare, racism and unconcern for the poverty and suffering of the majority of mankind.

Immersed in the Tao and having explored the Cahier via a two year-long stage tour, I felt I was ready for my own return to source. This eventually turned into Blackness & the Dreaming Soul, my latest book which records- without bitterness and recrimination, I hope- how I came to terms with imposed feelings of inferiority, frustration and anger and which has led me to a personal transformation. As a West Indian in Britain, I write from the position of insider, perceived as perpetual outsider, inviting all of us to look at what is wrong with the prevailing dominant world culture that seeks to impose its values, its dualism, its historiography, selfishness and disregard for the great majority of humanity, leading to the current ecological and spiritual crisis that threatens our very survival and its inability to deal with these issues.

My journey took me to very diverse places and allowed me to cross paths with a surprising number of like minds. This website records their thoughts and mine in the hope that the reader may transcend the usual specialist categories of the West, opting instead for a reconstruction of the way in which we make our reality. My journal of self-discovery has led me to a holistic outlook beyond the frustrations that have dogged my life, beyond anger and polarity. Instead of adopting the mono-culture of globalisation in which these dualities are enshrined, I have sought to develop a vision of unity in diversity in which all things are connected; man and nature, earth and cosmos. I hope what follows encourages others to follow similar journeys