The Complement of Human and Biblical Wisdom

Wisdom comes from asking questions and seeking answers to the questions asked.

Asking Questions

Albert Einstein once said, “Thinking is difficult; that’s why so few people do it.” Thinking is a process of self-intuition through asking relevant questions to create self-awareness and self-introspection. It is the natural habit of the human mind to try to solve problems by asking questions. Through solving problems, the mind can then make things happen.

Seeking Answers

Seeking answers may not be that easy; just as Albert Einstein also said, “Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”

Understanding requires both human wisdom and Biblical wisdom.

According to Ronald Reagan, “Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

When we ask, we may also receive—just as Jesus said: “Seek and you shall find.” That said, many seek but still do not find, just as many ask questions but do not receive answers because they do not have the spiritual wisdom to guide them in what they seek and in the questions they ask.

Lack of Spiritual Wisdom

Seeking answers to all the questions asked requires spiritual wisdom to show us that we are all living in a material world full of problems, that solving others' problems does not help us solve our own, and that solving our own problems does not guarantee that we will not have any more problems to be solved. Spiritual wisdom can only be intuited in the presence of God.

The lack of spiritual wisdom is often due to excessive attachment to the material things in the physical world. The human flaw of attachment can be discerned and even overcome with human wisdom, which is no more than the ultimate truth of human existence. In the Christian tradition, truth begins with God, and not with the self. However, in Eastern cultures, the understanding of self is the first step in the pursuit of true human wisdom.

Get the wisdom of letting go to attain the complement of human and spiritual wisdom.

 Stephen Lau     

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Darker Side of Life

Life is always imperfect, and living is forever a bed of roses with some thorns. We are imperfect human beings living in an imperfect world. As such, the art of living involves the wisdom of knowing who you really are, and how things happen and work in your life. Without this profound understanding, you will forever be haunted by the awareness of the darker side of life.

The Bible calls the darker side of human nature “sin.” None of us is exempt from sin. Life is always an inner struggle between what is perceived in an individual’s moral system as “right” and the dark opposing force inside to do just the opposite. To make matters worse, most of us are really quite good at self-deception. Either we deceive ourselves into thinking that the dark opposing force does not exist in ourselves, or we simply inflate our own personal virtues to overshadow the dark force within us.

Robert Louis Stevenson, the famous Scottish novelist, calls this darker side of human nature the duality of man. In his famous story of “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” he presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both having a dark side within them, where evil is lurking to surface anytime. Both of them hide their evil away, pretending it never exists. In the end, it turns out that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are actually one and the same person.

If the darker of life is deemed as something “evil” as depicted by Robert Louis Stevenson, it may immediately lead to self-denial and downright rejection. The darker side is ideally described as a “not-so-good” quality, or just human flaws and weaknesses that we see in others as well as in ourselves. Whatever the definition may be, the darker of life, ironically enough, makes life wholesome, without which life is incomplete and unreal—at best, a self-delusion. Human darkness is part and parcel of human existence. Denying its existence only leads to more pain, regret, and resignation. But understanding the dualistic human nature offers a way to return to wholeness, which is an important ingredient in the art of living well.

Read my book: The Book of Life and Living.

Also, find out more about the essentials of Tao wisdom.

Tao wisdom is the essence in the art of living well. It is the profound wisdom of the ancient Chinese sage, Lao Tzu, the author of the immortal classic Tao Te Ching, one of the most translated works in world literature. The book has been popular for thousands of years due to its wisdom, which is simple but controversial, profound and yet intriguing. To fully understand it, you need to get all the essentials of Tao wisdom.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Role of Biblical Wisdom

The Book of Divine Wisdom

The Bible is the Word of God. Through the Bible, God speaks to each and every one of us, if we are willing. In other words, the wisdom expressed in the Bible is God’s divine wisdom to man.

The Authenticity of Biblical Truths

According to Guinness Book of Records, the Bible is the all-time best-selling book, as well as the most translated work in world literature. This indicates that many people do believe that the Bible is a book of absolute truths and divine wisdom from God.

The Bible is a book of wisdom based on Biblical truths that require faith to believe in the authenticity of historical manuscripts reporting those events that had already taken place.

”Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, his brother Philip tetrarch of Iturea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene,” (Luke 3:1)

This Biblical faith is further attested to by human historical time scale: BC (Before Christ) and AD (Anno Domini—"in the year of our Lord"). Jesus Christ is a real historical figure, and His birth is a very solid historical fact reported by many historians.

The Old Testament and the New Testament

The Bible is made up of the Old Testament and the New Testament.

The Old Testament comprises thirty-nine books: the Pentateuch, written by Moses, about how the Israelites came to be the chosen people of God; the historical books, written by numerous authors, about the history of Israel, from its rise in Canaan to its downfall in Babylon; the poetical books about wisdom and worship for the Israelites; and the books of ancient prophets, admonishing and warning the Israelites of destruction through their sinful nature and disobedience to God.

These religious writings of ancient Israel focused on the chronicle history of Israel, the questions of good and evil in the world, the subtle relationships between God and man through worship and regulations, and the Covenant of God with man. In short, the Old Testament is the revelation of God’s wisdom to man.

The New Testament is a collection of writings by eight different writers (the Apostles: Matthew, John, Paul, James, Peter, Jude; the Disciples: Mark, Luke), addressing different early Christian churches. This collection of twenty-seven books, comprising the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, the Epistles, and the Revelation of John, appeared one after another in the second half of the first century.

The New Testament is explicit about the revelation of God’s wisdom to man through the birth of Jesus, the Son of God, and the Messiah of Israel. God’s wisdom is expressed through Jesus’ teachings, culminating in the Crucifixion, which symbolizes the conquest of human death due to sin, as well as the fulfillment of the Covenant of God with man.

Biblical Wisdom

Biblical wisdom is not just for the Israelites; it is for all believers and non-believers alike because it is the only way to salvation, which is the ultimate conquest of human mortality.

Human existence is all about life and death. Living for life is making the most out of life and avoiding any disorder in life that may bring about premature death. To meet this tall order, human wisdom is inadequate. Biblical wisdom shows humans how to live life to the best and the fullest, as well as how to conquer death, which comes as the end.

Biblical wisdom holds the key to attaining the wisdom in life and living.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau

Tao Is the Way Through Depression

No Way! TAO Is The Way!
TAO Wisdom To Live And Survive In A World Of Depression!

TAO wisdom is the way to go through depression—experiencing every aspect of depression, instead of avoiding it with distractions or drugs—and thus the only Way to get you out of depression while living in a world of depression.

It provides many examples from news and everyday life to show you  how TAO wisdom can help you live as if everything is a miracle.

Don’t deny or stigmatize your depression! Go through it, and you may or may not get enlightened, but you will look at your depression differently.

To get your digital copy, click here. 

Be A Better And Happier You With TAO Wisdom

Be A Better And Happier You With TAO Wisdom  

To live well as if everything is a miracle, you need to know self, as well as others, in order to have better human relationships, without which happiness is evasive and elusive.   

Get the ancient wisdom of Lao Tzu (what is known as TAO wisdom), to see the interconnection of self and others. After all, no man is an island, and we all are connected somehow and somewhat. We need to be aware of that.

Awareness of your own responsibility for humanity may enable you to rein in your temper and inhibit your anger. Better understanding of humanity lets you acknowledge the destructive forces of anger, and thereby instrumental in reducing their strength. Your short temper can benefit from Tao wisdom, which shows you the importance and necessity of embracing all—the easy and the difficult, as well as the pleasant and the unpleasant. In life, difficult and unpleasant experiences not only train but also enhance you mental stability to control your temper, which often undermines your compassion for others. Tao wisdom teaches you not to pick and choose but to embrace anything and everything in life because any situation in life can make you become either a teacher or a student. Life is about anything and everything that you can learn from, and this is where true wisdom comes from.

Understanding that anything is everything may also make you see things very differently. People and things do not exist independently; they all exist with a reason; the reason may or may not be apparent to all of us. When there is long, there has to be short; they do not exist simply because of their own nature. Everything in life is not only relative but also related. Viewing any life situation—whether it is good or bad—with this profound human wisdom may help you see that anything is everything, In other words, any life situation is not under its own power but depends on many present causes and conditions, as well as many past causes and conditions; otherwise it could not have come into being. With this perspective, you can see much more of the whole picture, and thus you can see the reality of the situation.

Stephen Lau
Copyright© by Stephen Lau

The Happiness Myths

Happiness is only an abstraction, a far-fetched thought that is often elusive and evasive; it is difficult not only to define but also to understand. To further the complication, happiness often creates certain misleading myths.

The myth: the happiness sources

It is always a myth that abundant wealth, good health, and satisfying relationships—what most people crave and pursue in their lives—will bring them happiness. Abundant wealth, good health, and satisfying relationships are only the byproducts of happiness; they do not cause or bring true and lasting happiness in real life.

To illustrate, many lottery winners attest to their experiences of temporary ecstatic happiness, and nearly all winners confess that their winning has ultimately made them miserable and unhappy for various reasons. Maybe once the initial stimulus of sudden wealth and the drastic changes of lifestyle have worn off, they ultimately return to their original baseline level of happiness or unhappiness. Or, maybe, according to some experts, having too much pleasure—what is known as “eustress”—could also cause stress, just as lacking in pleasure might be stressful to the many have-nots.

The myth: the happiness effort

It is also a myth that happiness is something that can be pursued with willpower and effort. The Bible rightly says that pursuing happiness is just “like chasing the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:11)

Effort does not necessarily bring happiness; it only creates the illusion of an environment that is conducive to temporary happiness. To illustrate, one may work diligently in one’s career to excel and to get to the top of the profession only to find that one has a terminal illness, or has incurred a debilitating accident. For example, Steve Job, the co-founder of Apple computers, had his life cut short by pancreatic cancer at the height of his successful business career.

Pursuing happiness may be only a fantasy fueled by temporary moments of happiness, because aging, illnesses, misfortunes, and ultimately death plague all alike; in other words, impermanence cuts short all human efforts and endeavors to bring happiness. We are all aware of the fact that impermanence is an ultimate leveler of everybody and everything, but many of us still choose to delude ourselves into thinking otherwise. Denial only fosters the myth that if there is a will there must be a way to attaining happiness, and that all it requires is the human effort to make any dream come true.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau