There are different levels of Taoism gods, and they all need humans to output their part. You might think that if gods can help us here, why do they need our help? Think about it this way, the people who invent products like our phones and computers, are very powerful but what if we all don’t buy their products or support them? King is not a king without the people, it is a theory that we all know but have a hard time applying to this kind of situation. In this article, I want to let you know how the gods need humans, and what happens if humans are not doing their parts.
Different Levels of Gods
There are gods in your body, at the altar, and even beyond the altar and in the celestial court. The gods in your body treat your body as the house, and the gods at the altar treat the altar as the house, the gods in the celestial court have their place too, which is supported and built from the combination of both the gods above and the humans here.
Impact on the Gods
The gods in your body are fuelled by your heart’s energy, which is from your trust and faith. If these factors are going down, then the energy that powers up the “housing” is weakened. If you imagine the gods have their world inside your body, then it is as if the world is shaking, crippling, and things are falling apart because of the faith level dropping. Then soon their houses will break, it is as if someone going through an earthquake. Imagine you are the god, and you are drinking your tea inside this world. Suddenly your world is shaking, your house is falling apart, and you don’t even know what you have done that deserves all these. The human lost faith in you, leading to breaking your village and house, will you like this guy or feel good about the guy who is making your life so horrible?
The next level is your altar, it is built by you and your faith too. If you start to not burn incense, use the altar, and communicate with the gods; how can you expect the relationship to last, and the altar’s inner world to last? The same thing will happen soon!
The next level up is the celestial court above, but this is very different from the other two. This one is not depending on you only, but all the people who are in the lineage system. That means if we do not keep the lineage growing, but shrinking instead; their world will also run out of energy to sustain, then the same thing can happen too.
Loyalty vs Betrayal
We have explained loyalty in the earlier articles, now let’s talk about what betrayal to your Tao and gods is about and how it impacts the celestial court.
The longer you stay in the lineage, the more you have been helping to invest in the celestial court and keep it growing because of your faith and output of all sorts. Then one day, you decided to back off and put yourself out of the lineage or remove yourself from your higher position and put yourself back down in the very newbie position. This is already a betrayal act; it is like a supervisor in a company who has worked up to that higher position already, then suddenly because he feels stressed at work, he decided to just “lower down himself” and escape from that position. He wanted to be a “newbie” instead, and just strip his power and such. This is a form of betrayal because he escapes from his duty and responsibility, breaking his promise and trust with the Tao. This act of betrayal will lead to the celestial court shaking too because this disciple already invested into the court before, and now his faith is shaking; everything related to him in the celestial court will also be shaken.
If you are a very genuine newbie, and your faith just started, then you withdraw; there is going to be no impact in the celestial court since you are nobody in the court. However, once you have gone up to a certain level, you cannot undo history, and you cannot say you just want to quit your position then escape from it. Think about marriage, can you just “step down” from being a wife/husband one day because you feel stressed? Even just saying it out to the other half is already going to hurt their feelings a lot, and imagine how it hurts the god when you say or act that way with your Tao. Check out the 10 commandments, if one day you are betraying the Tao, see how many rules you have broken! That is breaking of trust, and is clearly an act of betrayal.
We Create Our Future
Gods can help us do better, and give us a better future. Yet, we create our future with our actions and decisions. If we want the gods to keep being able to help us, we need to also provide them with the trust, faith and determination that they need to sustain and remain in their world too. By doing the opposite, we are destroying the celestial court, the inner worlds of your altar, and the inner world of the gods inside your body. It’s just like swinging a hammer around to knock down the house.
Also read up on virtues such as loyalty, righteousness, benevolence, and what is evil. Stay aligned with your Tao, and you will be one of us who are constantly helping and contributing to creating the world for the gods so that the gods can create the world for us.
Ordain today and become a Taoist! Nothing is better than actually being a Taoist and witnessing all these by yourself! Still not so certain? Then we welcome you to read our “First Taoism Book”!