"One is schooled in immortality through the heart.
If the heart is sincere, one attains the path of
Immortality. The path of immortality is a private
Quest; if one retires within oneself, the Tao
Will come." (Taoism, pp.123)
This quote from Isabelle Robinet's book, "Taoism; Growth of a Religion", is a warm welcome to the base of a relationship between the Christian philosophy of Pseudo-Dionysius of the medieval period, and Taoism of China in the East. Though Taoism was born many a century before, it does not make the contemplation of Dionysius any less immaterial or complex.
The indigenous Chinese teachings gleaned from Taoism, directly relate to the idea of an "unknowable deity" which Dionysius proposes. Try as they both may, a concrete name or definition cannot be coalesced to imagine the actuality of "God". So, many names are given to assist the feeble brain of humans in understanding to the best of our ability. We have two philosophies attempting to understand the same principle, that being god, in their own particular ways. Dionysius explores these themes in his book, "The Divine Names" (Dionysius, pp.47). The unseen worlds of connections between these Eastern and Western ideas, are divided only by geography, a few hundred years of philosophical nuances, and the bounds of the human condition.
Many schools of thought and masters have contributed to the development of Taoism and Christianity. Each philosopher has built upon the other, and striving toward a clarification or purification (if you will) of the truth, they find a way to a personal truth. The Shangqing School in Taoism sets off to explore and explicate the hierarchy of worlds unseen. Much the same occurs in a book by Pseudo-Dionysius entitled, The Celestial Hierarchy (Dionysius, pp.143).
With Shangqing, development of the unseen worlds began within the individual (Taoism, pp.121). Meditation and visualizations are a key to extrapolating the Self from...