God and Faith
Many people burn incense and worship gods. Is it effective? In ancient Daoism, there were originally no gods. As the saying goes, "Immortals are made by humans." Whether humans can become immortals is not the topic here; this article still focuses on whether burning incense and worshipping gods is truly effective.
Looking at countries around the world, religious people are naturally mostly believers in gods. Among non-religious people, a large portion also believe in gods, and the rest are those who completely do not believe, or are atheists. Some atheists may not truly disbelieve in gods; they merely attempt to replace the concept of a theistic god with atheism, hoping to achieve success through personal effort. From certain perspectives, this has positive significance.
The Yin Fu Jing is one of the greatest classics, and the Daoist Yin Fu school originated from it. It is the highest scripture of the Daoist Yin Fu school. According to the view of the Daoist Yin Fu school: "People know why the divine is divine, but they do not know why the non-divine is divine." This sentence reveals the essence and key of divinity.
Do gods really exist in the world? What exactly are gods? Another type of creature? A higher level of life?
Ancient sayings state that sages established teachings based on divinity. The "based on" here is often misunderstood by people in the world; "based on" does not refer to cause.
"Who relies on whom to reach the extreme." -- Shi Jing · Feng · Zai Chi
The "based on" here means relying on. Sages relied on divinity to establish teachings, thereby educating the world. The teaching was established by sages. What is teaching? Teaching is education. The duty of religion is education. What is it educating? It educates people to live better. To establish a teaching, there must be a god. What is a god? A god is the core soul of a teaching. If a dead object were used as a spiritual guide, it might not be close enough. Early gods existed in the form of totems. Later, with changes in the times, humans endowed totems with spirituality, thus evolving the most primitive gods.
It is often said that one can obtain the form but not the spirit. The spirit is the most灵动 (dynamic/spiritual) part among all things. Spiritually, the spirit resides in the heart. What is the spirit? When you witness the creative power of heaven, earth, and all things, you feel the spirit; when you master a certain skill to perfection, you obtain the spirit.
Whether one obtains the spirit or not is the gap between people. Although the spirit is elusive and its form is hard to contain, we can still feel its existence through various methods. The so-called "supernatural craftsmanship" refers to this meaning.
Sages established teachings based on divinity, not like the gods established by later generations. The spirit is the essence and soul of all things. It cannot be replaced by any God of Wealth or Buddha. After all, there are more ordinary people in the world. If one wishes to benefit all people universally, describing such an elusive and obscure thing would be difficult for most people to understand. So, how does one establish teachings based on divinity?
People in the world always have wishes, requests, and beliefs. Spiritual thoughts also always have something to寄托 (rely on). However, not everyone can find a寄托, and not everyone who has寄托 spiritual thoughts knows how to utilize them. Thus, clever people in the world evolved the concept of gods, shaping various images to make them deeply rooted in people's minds, allowing people to remember them at all times, so that a single thought can寄托 spiritual thoughts elsewhere. Again, clever people in the world personified specific deities, using gods to replace objective laws, and created various deeds, allowing the gods shaped by later generations to enter people's hearts widely.
So, what are the conditions for entering people's hearts? People are the most realistic, so there must be utility. What utility? When you face disaster, live in hardship, have bad luck, or feel sad and angry, there is an object to confide in and寄托, an object to pray to.
When a god obtains unity, it becomes spiritual. When people do not consciously寄托 spiritual thoughts, the god formed in the human heart gradually becomes a true god. Therefore, we do not need to question why gods in different countries' religions are so different. The power of a god lies in the human heart, not in nationality or religion.
When humanity collectively believes in gods for later generations, this belief itself generates great power. This power is the concentrated manifestation of the group's subconscious. The gods of religion absorb this power with certain selectivity. For example, orthodox religions require good thoughts as a priority. If everyone has good thoughts, it can achieve mass self-regulation, thereby achieving the goal of group improvement.
So, when a person burns incense and worships gods, one often hears various stories of divine efficacy, but some say it has no effect at all. Why is this? The reason is simply that the spiritual thoughts provided by people when they have no specific requests can become the raw material that nourishes the god. When you have a request, the corresponding god will feedback the corresponding regulatory power to you based on the amount of spiritual thoughts you provide. If the spiritual thoughts you provide are few, it is difficult for you to get enough power to solve the problem. Of course, some things' success or failure depends on a thin line. Often at such moments, last-minute efforts can also see results.
Religions require doing good. In the process of constant good thoughts and doing good deeds, this power can be well accumulated. After accumulation, one can also receive good returns. But this return is greatly related to the amount of spiritual thoughts寄托. Regularly burning incense and worshipping gods has positive significance; it is a method of saving. When seeking gods, it is time to withdraw your savings. Without savings, running to beg gods every day is naturally useless.
So, is it okay not to burn incense and seek gods? The answer is certainly yes. Gods exist between heaven, earth, and all things. Whenever there is thought, there can be寄托. But it needs to be noted that寄托ing spiritual thoughts in the same place is far better than寄托ing them here and there. So, the spirit is focused and the will is firm.
Firmly believing in science will naturally bring benefits from science. Science has no gods? That is just the self-indulgent fantasy of some so-called scientific workers. Science pursues truth, precise and rigorous measurement and analysis of objective things. This itself is pursuing a god in another sense. It is just that this god does not require you to believe in demons and monsters, nor does it require you to believe in absurd karma of three lives. It takes non-action as the god. Therefore, so-called no thoughts mean no desires, no desires mean no demons, and no demons mean self-firmness. If you persist in believing in no gods and no ghosts, you can also achieve that ghosts and gods cannot invade. Deeply understanding the god of science makes it easy to understand what "people do not know, hence not divine, hence divine" means.
Also because of this, it is often observed that the efficacy of Guanyin for the masses is sometimes not as good as that of local deities in small villages. This is not because Guanyin is ineffective; in fact, she is very effective. However, people in small villages do not know that Guanyin does not pay attention to them, so their spiritual thoughts are concentrated on local deities, thus causing this phenomenon.
Of course, it still depends on the human heart. Gods have never stopped humans from exploring and developing. But after humans establish gods, they often fool themselves. What was originally just a tool for saving and using, under the embellishment of interested parties, becomes a complex demon or monster, directly leading to the decline of social morals. One fools another, fooling again and again, until everyone in the world fools themselves.
Especially in the current era, some Daoist disciples have completely lost the simple and primitive style of Daoism. You must know that Daoism pursues the Dao, not worshipping a god to gather wealth, nor using demons and monsters to confuse people's hearts. Only the Dao is truly the most important thing. Outside of the Dao, whether transformed by the Dao or acting through the Dao, they are all post-heaven有形 (formable) and named things. Such things cannot be brought at birth nor taken at death. Why be obsessed with them? If thoughts are寄托 on wealth, one can seek wealth; if寄托 on fortune, one can seek fortune; if寄托 on objects, one can seek objects. But whatever is obtained is limited. Only when thoughts are寄托 on the Dao, and the Dao can transform all things, why not寄托 on the Dao?
Many people seek gods. Some people's wishes come true, while others' do not. Both involve saving and then using. Why is the difference so great? First, the human heart is the most complex. Seekers of gods may not always have pure thoughts, leading to ineffectiveness. This is also the origin of the explanation that "faith makes it effective." But "faith makes it effective" cannot explain everything; there are still other situations. That is, even if the seeker's heart is pure, it may still be ineffective, or the power feedback from the deity is insufficient to accomplish the task. This is because the gods established by later generations have certain selectivity when feedbacking power, and the efficacy of the feedback varies. So, how can this power be maximized? Or how can later deities feedback sufficient power to oneself? This involves a very important principle.
This principle is of great importance. It concerns whether one can obtain sufficient power when borrowing external forces and how to obtain more power to make it effective. After much deliberation, I dare not reveal it. But those with heart, based on what was stated above, should be able to deduce it. I will stop writing here. One cannot let others gain without effort.