Wayfarer64 Posted August 1, 2007 My Hung Gar sifu always said he was just doing the work of god...I did not believe him per se at each instant he claimed such an occurance had taken place...But I always felt that he believed it... Â such truths or beliefs in such things as truth do not always seem self evident... Â our devine essence has yet again manifested in mysterious ways... what comes to mind for me is often doubt when the devine is claimed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Sahaj Nath Posted August 2, 2007 Â This sounds quite similar to the will of heaven. It was taken from a book by John Back: The Reluctant Messiah... Â Â Â you must mean Richard Bach's Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah. i use to love that book. haven't read it in years. i may have to pick it up now. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Taomeow Posted August 2, 2007 (edited) So do you reckon the will of heaven is like some kind of benevolent daddy's guidance, a growth plan for an individual or a corporation? Â Taoism is not monotheistic, so for starters, "the will of heaven" is not equated to "the will of god," because one would have to quickly ask, "which god's will do you mean? The Jade Emperor's? Quan Yin's? The Grand Duke Jupiter's? The dragon-god of steamed rice? Nuwa the creatress of human beings? Laozi in his divine incarnation? The god of the river Luo? Deified Ancestor Lu?" and so on. Futhermore, the will of heaven, in classical taoism, is not separate from the human being, it resides in the kidneys, in the form of kidney yang and zhi. Zni is the kind of willpower that is subjectively perceived as intuition and, often, hindsight wisdom -- you look back at the moves you've made, at the decisions past, and see a pattern, realizing that those moves and decisions brought you somewhere where you were "meant" to go, and that things turned out a certain way because it was "meant to be." A split between one's own body and one's own mind and spirit gets one to conclude then that it was some higher power's guidance that's responsible. However, someone connected with herself, to the point of being aware of the will of her kidneys, not just her brain, comes to the classical taoist conclusion that the will of heaven is her very own. She IS heaven, earth, and all the natural forces in between. Once the will of heaven is understood as her own zhi, she is on an even keel with deities, forces of nature, and tao. Takes some hard-core reconnection work though... Edited August 2, 2007 by Taomeow Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
