There’s a saying:
“When we walk past and bump into someone on the street, consider the number of people we’ve passed compared to the number we’ve never passed. The number of years of affinity we have with the people we have spent with. On the streets and we may never talk, it’s about three hundred years. For us to be in the same room and on the similar spiritual path of Tao, it is likely that we 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 Grand 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 1940’s. Upon his departure and return to Heaven in the year 1995, his Heavenly Title is “Pai Sui Sean Ti”. bestowed by God (Lao Mu). “Pai Sui” means “Pure Water”, “Sean” means “Holy or Immortal” and “Ti” means God or Emperor. Millions of Tao devotees bow, kneel and offer respect to him daily due to his great sacrifice. He was the one who was given the responsibility of getting the 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 ensued 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 mundane life with a promising career and 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 the time, the Taiwanese spoke Hokkien, which is a different vernacular than Lao Qian Ren’s native language, Mandarin. He was unable to communicate effectively, but nevertheless he was not discouraged. With great faith in Heaven, he asked for divine guidance during his daily prayers every morning.
Hoping to find people with whom he might have an affinity, he traveled in the general direction indicated by the smoke from the burning incense. He would walk and talk to people throughout his journey. He eventually managed to not only introduce some of these people to the Tao, but they also became the nucleus of the Tao movement in Taiwan. He once walked forty miles in the rain to talk to a person who was not only disinterested but also slammed the door in his face. His persistence, stamina, 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 below it. The large 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 about his trips back to the mainland, he expressed the pain and temptation to meet again every time the train passed through his hometown. He knew very well that if he stopped by 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 because 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 emotion if he opened the cards.
With his great sacrifice, thousands or millions of people received elevation and the true understanding and realization of the Tao all over 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 affinity in Malaysia, including me, receiving Tao and continuing to cultivate its essence today.
The propagation of the Tao is the combined effort and partnership between the human being 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 the spirit that has always existed since the beginning of time. You need the sincerity of the heart to be able to ignite it. It has to be done sincerely and it is not something we can earn by studying a book or trying to understand it with our reason and intellect. The 5000 years of the Tao lineage is also called the Golden Thread and this is the saying of my Heavenly Master Ji Gong:
“For those who have sought the Tao (received the seal of the living God) and obtained the Marking of the Luminous Master (teacher with Heavenly decree to transmit the Tao), the spiritual Hole or Gate of the soul has already been opened. As long as they eliminate all delusions (deceitful within the mind) and practice the heavenly virtues that are innate within their original nature, and as long as they benefit the multitude and preach the Tao for Heaven, then they will be linked with the Golden Thread.”
Author: T.A. Chew
