TAO vs. Religion

05. Are religions and sages the highest existence of human society?

Not only the religions and sages are not the highest existence, but they are imaginary. Sages and all religions are imaginary. All things originated from religions are imaginary. But the truth religions point out— human’s nature and root of the Myriad Things is real and permanent.

In term of forms, religions and sages cannot be higher than the Heaven and Earth, not even higher than the root that generates the Myriad Things. How the Heaven and Earth came from without nature? How the human beings came from without the Heaven and Earth? How the sages came from without human beings? How the religions came from without sages?

Sakyamuni the Buddha said, in his Diamond Sutra, “All things that have characteristics are false and ephemeral.” Since all things that we see and hear are false and ephemeral, how comes the highest existence?

This world is named world, but there is no world in real. Because “being” is not self-existing, “being originates from emptiness and not-being, “not-being” is the essence of “being”, “being” is the form of “not-being”, so “being” is an illusory being, “existence” is an illusory existence. The Heaven and Earth have birth and death, which is an illusory existence, then is all things between the Heaven and Earth the Illusory existence or not?

Only through the theories of religions and sages can religion believers recognize and practice the truth, getting real knowledge, and eventually real fruit of life. Without understanding and being enlightened of the Tao from the practitioner’s own mind, even he reads and recites scriptures for the whole life, working on the forms of religion day and night; he will eventually waste his life. Fundamentally speaking, practitioner of this kind cannot be called real practitioner.

By Orient Dawn
Date: Year 2001