No matter how high you are in the system, everything is powerless if your faith is gone. Faith is a way to invest your heart into something, and it means to believe something without the need for evidence, like the kind of belief from a baby to their parents. It is your most powerful thing, so a baby learns to speak faster than adults with a new language. Baby never question, doubt, judge, or resist their parent. Food comes in, and they eat. Parents take their hands and take them for a walk; they walk with them. Parents say this is too sweet; they accept and believe this is called too sweet. The mindset of a newborn baby is the best mindset for learning, which we call 赤子之心 (Chia Ju Jia Sim). It has no resistance, no processing, and only accepts and learns completely.
Anything that obstructs your “baby mind” is called impurities, and they obstruct your way of learning, which is called 業煞 (Yiep Xia). There are three types of obstructive forces, which comes from the body, mouth and heart; the body is when you don’t want to follow and do what is told; the mouth is resistance to accept teachings, which often results in talking back, the mind is when faith is gone which gives birth to betrayal, rebel, and disbelief. Removing these obstructions will help you learn better as you regain your “baby heart” again. Read "Proper Etiquette" too!
Initiation 入門 (Yip Moon) involves the process of 拜師 (Bye Cia), which translates to worshiping your master/teacher. Worshiping is defined as putting faith and investing your heart into someone or something explained in our article “Worshiping.” This process allows you to enter the human-created lineage system and build a relationship with your teacher. In this case, Ju Cia Juan will accept you as a disciple 弟子 (Di Ju), and you will be connected to him and his altar after the ceremony. You will receive a name registered in the lineage system for using the lineage’s magic power, which is why this name is called your magic name 法號 (Whua Hoe).
Ordaining 皈依 (Gwei Yea) involves the process of 求道 (Kew Doe), which translates to begging the Tao for acceptance. You will then be accepted into the Tao’s system, which registers you into the Celestial Court with a Taoist name as your identity. The name is your Taoist name 道號 (Doe Hoe). You must be initiated before you ordain since your master/teacher is the one who helps to be your guarantor 保舉師 (Bu Jue Cia) for ordaining. Without the guarantor, the Tao won’t accept just anyone. When you break your promise to the guarantor, the Tao will also remove you from the lineage from the PreHeaven side.
What makes one want to be ordained? It is mostly about cultivating, as a Taoist, their life after death, allowing them to have a place to go and not be ghosts or wandering souls. If you care about your life and after-death, ordaining is a must.
Different stages of the lineage system are a good way to open the system for different audiences and set the power level for different purposes. Not the higher, the better, like we need a screwdriver, chainsaw, or demolishing truck, depending on the situation! We can’t bring out the chainsaw to cut paper, even if it is more powerful.
The word for XX-stage is 教 which means "teach." Every stage teaches you something as a focus. For example, the Tin Yat stage teaches you to Tin Yat 天一, which we have explained in the article "What is Tin Yat." The Saam Law stage teaches you about what Saam Law is. The Sun Lung stage teaches you about the Sun Lung. Etc.
Saam Law Sun Gung 三羅神功 is incompatible with other religious practices or other sects of Taoism. If you would like to mix or combine other paths, you can only learn in Tin Yat Stage, which is open to people who still need to be determined and ready to start officially. Mixing paths is a form of disloyalty and betrayal, disrespecting both this and your current path. For those who go on Tin Yat Stage while having other paths, it is a way to try and decide if they want to change and convert to this path. It is not meant for them to practice both paths simultaneously forever.
You will be given a god called Saam Law Jo Si 三羅祖師 (Saam Noh Ju Cia), and this god will stay inside you. Anytime you need help, you can immediately call this god to give you help, protection, and empowerment; anything can be done! However, your power is not that strong, so you can only help yourself and not others. If you must help others, limit it to only people closely related to you. To call this god, you can use the heart spell (HS0) given to you when you initiate.
You will be given two more heart spells and officially ordained, which means you can now access the lineage’s power open to disciples. This is like you are connected to a bigger pool of magic power above, which means you can get extra help when your power is insufficient. Your new heart spells are called HS1 and HS2. HS1 allows you to contact the god inside you, called your Sifu 師父; he acts like your advisor and teacher, who can give suggestions and guidance and help you relay feedback to the lineage’s side. HS2 allows you to contact the gods from the lineage’s pool, which in general is called Jo Si Yeh 祖師爺 because he gives birth to your Sifu, like your father's grandfather or father. (While Sifu is the father). Jo Si Yeh can help you make things better and stronger, and get help for things that you Jo Si cannot handle, or help him reinforce things. For example, your Jo Si already sealed the door to block off evils; Jo Si Yeh can put more power on it to strengthen the resistance power. This stage is very important because it allows you to get extra help which can let you go beyond your limit when the bigger problems come to you. You can also start helping others around you, but limited to the locals you can see in person.
This is a big step up, which allows you to have three more heart spells and the ability to access the Sun Lung Network, which is the network that allows you to beam the magic anywhere in any world. This opens you up to the ability to send magic by distance safely and efficiently. HS3 and HS4 are to communicate with the celestial court. HS3 for inputting a message, HS4 for outputting powers from the court. HS5 is for the distance magic power, Sun Lung Network access. You will be officially registered in the celestial court, which allows you to start building up your credit that will affect your after-death life and use the bigger powers open to help more people besides those locally seeing you.
You will be granted an HS6 which allows you to get stronger power from the celestial court for doing advanced magic. At the same time, the court is open to you, so you will be learning how to work with the court and the system the court uses, like a programmer learning the codings and system so you can create new programs.
You will be granted an HS7 which allows you to get power from the Sun Ting, the highest court in Daai Law Tin’s end. Its power allows you to override the celestial court for executing tasks such as removing things from the court or dealing with a disciple in the Tin Ting stage that needs to be punished or with his magic power removed. Being a Sun Ting stage, you also get a direct power beam to you from Daai Law Tin, which means you could get more protection and powers that go beyond the Tin Ting’s limit, and it could ensure your after-death trip to Daai Law Tin, which could be very important for you!
You will receive an HS8 for using the exclusive Tin Si (celestial master) power. This power allows you to override the two courts for doing work that needs to be done by the highest authority. This will also allow you to beam down knowledge from Daai Law Tin directly and bring down new elements. It’s a stage exclusively granted to the god-picked ones leading the lineage.
Tin Yat Stage is for people who want to “try” without commitment and restrictions. Good for everyone, but also the weakest stage of all. Some people might be on other paths and “trying” this path out; it’s allowed in Tin Yat Stage. However, the more loyal and focused you are, the stronger you get.
Saam Law Stage is the “official” stage to get started; it’s good for everyone as a newbie. Most average Taoists would only need to go up to Sun Lung Stage, and their powers should be enough to deal with anything in life or help others around them who need help. There will be a wall of commitment, which restricts the disciple to be loyal to only one path and cannot have other religions connected to them. If they are not ready, they can stay in Tin Yat Stage.
Tin Ting Stage is for those who want to study the deeper side of the system and become a professional. Then Sun Ting stage are those who want to become a master to pass on the system to the next generation. These disciples should have passion for growing the lineage and spreading the Tao, so they should have strong faith and always care for the lowers, guiding people below them and showing them how to be good Taoists and disciples with their actions.
Tin Si Stage is for the leaders who hold the biggest responsibility and have the strongest faith and passion for the lineage, which requires their life to be sacrificed to the lineage, being a full-time Taoist, always standby and giving their love and care to the people in the lineage whenever they could.
When one builds their altar and officially gets it fired up, it will allow them to connect to our lineage’s altar network, which allows the celestial court to connect to them and bring them resources. It also allows them to cultivate the gods at the altar for greater development and growth in magic power. Anyone can build an altar starting from Tin Yat Stage. However, the court will only connect to them if they are in Saam Law Stage and above. Those in Tin Yat Stage would only be connected to the HQ altar of Ju Cia Juan and Gim Cia Juan. A network of altars are like a network of houses or army base; it allows us to transfer things back and forth and give help to each other to support and protect each other’s location.
However, a disciple doesn’t need an altar to do magic because they can use heart spells and their system as an altar to connect to the celestial court or even higher court. That is the power of a heart spell, like the never-dying fire starter that can save your life no matter what happens; even if everything is gone in this world and your house is flooded, you can still use a heart spell to connect to the source of power.
There are two goals of learning with us.
For initiates, your goal is to learn the wisdom and magic to improve your life and help you overcome obstacles. It will bring you a better life and improve your well-being overall.
For ordained Taoists, your goal is to live well, die well, and transition to the next phase, eventually leading you to the final destination, the Taoist heaven, Daai Law Tin, for a continuation of life in that world. This goal greatly benefits you because it means that your whole life is not wasted for just a short life in this world but for continuing your journey later.
