The Analects enlightened: Can God respond to every request?
The Analects of the Analects (40)
Wang Ying
Original text: Ji's brigade in Taishan. Zi Zhi Ran Youyi: "Can the female Fu be saved?" "No." Zi Yue: "Woohoo! Once said that Taishan is not as good as Lin Fanghu? ”
Translation: Ji Shi is going to sacrifice Taishan. Confucius said to Ran You, "Can you redeem it?" Ran You replied, "No." Confucius said, "Oh, I can't imagine that Taishan is not as good as Lin Fang (Zhi Li)?" ”
Feeling: Taishan is the spiritual mountain of the Chinese nation, in ancient times, only the emperor could sacrifice Taishan, called "Feng Zen", hoping that "guotai and the people are safe and stable as Mount Tai". As the doctor of the State of Lu, Ji Shi was neither an emperor nor a monarch of the princely states, but he wanted to worship Mount Tai, and his political ambitions were exposed. Confucius saw this and asked Ran You, who was an official in the Ji clan, if he could save the matter, and Ran You replied that he could not, because if Ran You said something, the Ji clan could not listen to it. So Confucius sighed: "I can't imagine that Taishan, who accepts sacrifices, is not as attentive as ordinary people Lin Fang!" As mentioned in the above chapter, Lin Fang once asked Confucius "the basis of etiquette", indicating that Lin Fang was still a person who paid attention to etiquette, so why did the god of Taishan tolerate Ji's behavior of "arrogance"? Are you going to bless him for his misdeeds?
In the minds of the Chinese people, "God" is almost omnipotent, and when a good person encounters difficulties, he asks God to bless him with the blessing of the fierce and auspicious and survives the difficulties; the bad guys also ask God to bless them and hope that the conspiracy will succeed; now even the senior high school students who are about to take the college entrance examination are also under the leadership of their parents, praying to God to worship the Buddha, hoping that God can bless him to be admitted to a prestigious university; when he goes to college, he enshrines "Brother Chun" in the dormitory, burns incense and worships every day, hoping that she can bless the students of Xinxin to pass the gate.
Is "God" really omniscient and omnipotent, responsive, and blessed all who ask Him to fulfill their wishes? If this is the case, "God" is also too unprincipled, I would rather daydream, be a bad person, be a great thief of the yangtze river, because what I think, God can bless me to get something; if I do bad things, I can also get God's blessing and not be discovered.
In fact, "God" is only a spiritual sustenance in people's hearts, a vague concept that neither blesses the good nor the bad, but only blesses those who work hard for the noble goals of life.
A person's success is often constrained by various factors, some people may work hard all their lives, but in the end they cannot succeed, is it "God" who is playing tricks on him? It is not so, it may be that his fate is not good, it is the opposite of what he wants, or it may be that he has not found the right opportunity, he has not met with talent, or it may be that he has not worked hard enough. If we admit that there is a "God," this "God" can only be synonymous with "destiny, opportunity, and effort."
I remember that an old gentleman who studied "Zhou Yi" once said something like this: "There is something in fate, and through personal efforts, there will be; there is something in fate, and if individuals do not work hard, there may be; there is no fate, and after personal efforts, there may be; there is no fate, and individuals do not work hard, there must be none." These words were very profound, Ji Shi was against the heavenly path, destined to fail, for such a person, as an upright god of Tarzan, how could he bless him?