There’s a saying:
“When we pass and rub elbows with someone on the street, consider the number of people we’ve passed compared to the number of people we’ve never passed. The number of years of affinity we have with the people we’ve spent time with. in the streets and we may never speak, it’s about three hundred years. For us to be in the same room and on the similar spiritual path of Tao, we likely have at least three thousand years of affinity and affiliation with each other. .”
We don’t know about our past lives and what happened to us before. Two people being together, be it husband and wife, brothers and sisters, a family, etc., is not something that just happened. For better or worse, it has something to do with the past. There is a lineage of Tao with a history of 5,000 years, and all of Tao’s predecessors made considerable sacrifices. Their selfless dedication and the heavenly knowledge transmitted by them deserve great reverence and respect. We can see in their books, great sayings and works done by them for our good. My Great Master Han (Lao Qian Ren) is one of the most important ancestors of the Tao and briefly this is his story:
Lao Qian Ren was one of the eighteen (18) main disciples under my Heavenly Master JiGong (64th Patriarch) during the 1940s. Upon his departure and return to Heaven in the year 1995, his Heavenly title is “Pai Sui Sean Ti” conferred by God (Lao Mu). “Pai Sui” means “Pure Water”, “Sean” means “Holy or Immortal” and “Ti” means God or Emperor. Millions of Tao’s devotees bow down, kneel and offer respect to him daily because of his great sacrifice. He was the one who was given the responsibility to get Tao out of China and during that time (late 1940s) China was going through a turbulent period. There were rapid social and political changes and war broke out between the communists, the Japanese and Dr. Sun Yat Sun.
Lao Qian Ren was instructed by his teacher to pioneer the Tao in Taiwan. He was a family man who ran a very successful business. He owned a dye factory and lived a worldly life with a promising career and a family like most people. Although he was doing very well, he chose to leave everything behind in China to pioneer the Tao in Taiwan. At that time, the Taiwanese spoke Hokkien, which is a different vernacular from Lao Qian Ren’s native language, Mandarin. He was unable to communicate effectively, yet he was not discouraged. With great faith in Heaven, he asked for divine guidance during his daily morning prayers.
Hoping to find people with whom he might have an affinity, he traveled in the general direction indicated by the smoke from burning incense. He would walk and talk to people along his journey. He eventually managed to not only introduce some of these people to the Tao, but they also became the core of the Tao movement in Taiwan. He once walked forty miles in the rain to talk to a person who was not only uninterested but also slammed the door in his face. His persistence, endurance, and determination eventually bore fruit, as can be seen today in Taiwan and around the world with thousands of Tao temples. In Malaysia alone there are more than 2,000 Tao temples under it. The great temple of him in Taiwan can accommodate more than a hundred buses.
During his funeral in 1995, his eldest son on his knees confessed that “father, when you left us, we all cannot forgive you, but father, you are right.” His longing to be with his family and homesickness for him was understandable. Writing of his journeys back to the mainland, he expressed the pain and temptation of meeting again each time the train passed through his hometown. He knew very well that if he stopped and visited, it would be very difficult for him to leave his family again. That would have been the end of his pioneering Tao work in Taiwan. He put the spiritual interest of others before his own interest. It’s not because he was a heartless person, but other people’s spiritual well-being is more important. It was also learned that he kept all of his unopened letters from home under his pillow and his pillow was soaked with tears. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to control his excitement if he opened the letters.
With his great sacrifice, thousands or millions of people received the elevation and the true understanding and realization of the Tao throughout the world. Just over 50 years after his arrival in Taiwan, the world sees more vegetarians than any other spiritual path. At least 90% of Chinese vegetarian shops in Malaysia are operated by Tao devotees and there are more than 800,000 devotees. He was indirectly responsible for those with an affinity in Malaysia, including myself, receiving Tao and continuing to cultivate its essence today.
The propagation of the Tao is the combined effort and partnership between the human and the divine. The divine dictates the general direction of its propagation and humans actually carry out the main effort and put it into action. Tao is the universal essence of spirit that has always existed since the beginning of time. You need the sincerity of the heart to be able to turn it on. It has to be done sincerely and it is not something we can gain by studying a book or trying to understand it with our reason and intellect. The 5,000 years of the Tao lineage is also called the Golden Thread, and this is the saying of my Heavenly Master JiGong:
“For those who have sought the Tao (received the seal of the living God) and obtained the Appointment of the Luminous Master (master with Celestial decree to transmit the Tao), the spiritual Hole or Door of the soul has already been opened. As long as you eliminate all delusions (deceitful within the mind) and practice the heavenly virtues that are innate within your original nature, and as long as you benefit the multitude and preach the Tao for Heaven, then you are linked with the Golden Thread.”
Author: T. A. Chew