Taoistcultivation

The sky

Another name given to Haotian is the “Vast Sky God.” In Chinese the name of heaven is ‘sky’ or ‘.tian.’The sky in this respect does not mean the blue sky of the material world, but the spiritual sky that allocates all beings into their destiny. All beings live under the sky and cannot reach above it. It is similar to fish in an ocean. Through force of will a fish cannot escape the ocean. As all beings live under the sky, all beings live under Haotian. The sky, the  this regard, also separates man and heaven. If man wanted to reach above the sky one would need a sort of vehicle or a rocket ship. Similarly if one wanted to exit the earth and reach heaven, one needs the vehicle of cultivation. Through cultivation one transcends the fate of one’s karma one begins to turn towards the sky. However try as one may it is never easy to reach the sky. In ancient taoism it is said that humans can never reach the sky. Heaven remains as heaven and human remains as human. Cultivation was also said to be the gift of ‘heaven’ to humanity. Cultivation enables the advancement of humanity towards heaven. Immortality was the goal of those seekers that chose to turn away from their karma and seek a higher path.