Oooh, me me me!!!
The Tao is the only religious text that appeals to me. The very first verse sums up my whole attitude to spirituality - we can't know the nature of the eternal uncreated; we can only view aspects of it through the cloudy lens of the 10,000 things. I think if everyone started with this basic assumption then a whole lot of people's spiritual journeys would be far more centered on the search for truth and wisdom rather than the seeking of novel experiences or the acquisition of powers.
With his initial assumption from verse 1, Lao Tzu then goes on to concisely describe the few immutable truths that we can discern about the world, without adding a single concept of his own devising. No other text is so perfectly concise and rings so perfectly true. I feel like when I really understand the Tao, I will understand all that there is to be understood.
Unfortunately, others then appropriated the Taoist banner and added lots of novel concepts of their own devising, none of which I have yet found any use for, and which seem to contradict the central simplicity of the Tao. Humans can't resist complicating things or making up stories. If you accidentally lock a man in a room for 5 minutes, by the time you let him out he'll have invented an entire philosophical narrative about why he was locked there, who the mysterious man with the key is, and what untold wonders lie beyond the closed door.
