PRAYERS ARE SELDOM ANSWERED

<b>PRAYERS ARE SELDOM ANSWERED</b>
Your “prayers not answered” means your “expectations not fulfilled.” The TAO wisdom explains why: your attachments to careers, money, relationships, and success “make” but also “break” you by creating your flawed ego-self that demands your “expectations to be fulfilled.”

Sampling "Tao Te Ching"

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, the ancient sage from China more than 2,600 years ago, is one of the most translated and controversial books in world literature. The language of the original text was plain and simple, but without any punctuation. That was deliberate on his part: making it open to various interpretations by different translators.  

"Focusing on status gives us pride, and not humility.
Hoarding worldly riches deprives us of heavenly assets.
An empty mind with no craving and no expectation helps us let go.
Being in the world and not of the world, we attain heavenly grace.
With heavenly grace, we become pure and selfless.
And everything settles into its own perfect place."

(Lao Tzu, "Tao Te Ching", Chapter 3)

The above quote is taken from my translation of Tao Te Ching; all the 81 chapters are also included in my book "TAO The Way to Biblical Wisdom


According to Lao Tzu, ego-self is the source of all human conflicts and miseries. An ego-self is a "false" self-image we have created for ourselves, which is equivalent to pride, which is one of the Seven Deadly Sins of man. With inflated pride, we want to be someone else that we are not. In order to sustain and protect that ego or pride, we crave for material things and power to satisfy our ego. In the process, we become selfish, and, as a result, we detach or separate ourselves from the Creator.To reverse the situation, we need an empty mind, which is essentially letting go the conventional thinking of "doing more to get more" and "the more, the better." Once we can empty our minds, we can reverse our conditioned mindset, and do just the opposite; they will then be filled with heavenly grace to guide us in our lives. Accordingly, we don't overdo; instead, we accomplish, by doing what is necessary, and learn, by going where we we need to go. In life, everything follows a natural order, just like the four seasons. Everything exists due to its opposite, each complementing the other, such as success and failure, or life and death. Without failure there will be no success; without death, there will be no life. Understanding this profound wisdom, "everything settles into its own perfect place."

Stephen Lau


Copyright© by Stephen Lau

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