Zeng Guofan: It is difficult to disobey the destiny, but to fulfill human affairs, you must obey the destiny

1

Human power can never overwhelm the power of nature

Zeng Guofan’s life can be said to be a life of constant struggle with himself. Before that, he said: I don’t believe in two things in my life, one is not superstitious about Feng Shui, and the other is I don’t believe in fate.

But as he gained more experience and experience, he gradually began to believe in both Feng Shui and fate.

Why do many entrepreneurs, successful people, and wealthy people believe in Feng Shui? Why do these powerful people like to study Zeng Guofan? In fact, their belief in Feng Shui was inspired by their predecessors.

Li Ka-shing, Jack Ma, Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou, Bill Gates, etc. all believe in Feng Shui.

Prior to this, Zeng Guofan was attracted to his grandfather, whom he had admired for a long time. His grandfather did not believe in Feng Shui masters, monks, Taoist priests, wizards, and doctors. This also affected Zeng Guofan. At this stage, Zeng Guofan did not fully believe in Feng Shui. It was not until his family's fortune changed that he truly believed in Feng Shui.

In fact, the reason why many people become superstitious about "supernatural powers" is because they rely on their own experience to judge. However, most of the time, human experience is not necessarily effective.

Coupled with the death of his grandmother, Zeng Guofan realized that "natural forces" are beyond human control. At that time, my grandmother passed away, and my grandfather asked to be buried in his favorite place, Mudou Chong. People advised his grandfather that the feng shui of this place was not good, but how could he change his grandfather's decision?

Zeng Guofan could only agree, but to the surprise of the Zeng family, after his grandmother was buried, there were many happy events in the family. His grandfather recovered from his illness, and three boys were added to the family. Zeng Guoquan also became a scholar, and Zeng Guofan also Start getting promotions and salary increases.

What's going on? Zeng Guofan thought that it was obvious that the place where his grandmother was buried had good feng shui, which allowed the Zeng family's wealth to go smoothly.

He himself believes that the natural power of Feng Shui is granted by God and cannot be controlled by human power.

He also understood the essential differences between humans, animals, and plants by studying the orientation of the creatures' heads.

He said: When the sky is round and the earth is round, a person's head is round, like the sky, and his feet are square, like the earth. Humans walk upright between heaven and earth, with their heads in the sky and their feet on the earth, so they can absorb the righteousness of heaven and earth, have knowledge and understand principles.

Animals have their feet downward but their heads forward, so they can only absorb the bias of heaven and earth and only understand the knowledge of one model. For example, the crow of a crow indicates that something bad is happening, a dog can only watch the door, and an ox can only plow the fields.

Neo-Confucianism believes that all things evolved from the Qi of Tai Chi. Since they are Qi, they can communicate with each other. Zhu Xi believed that humans evolved from Qi, which was used to explain ghosts and gods.

Indeed, people often say that a person lives for one breath and a tree lives for one bark. As long as he does not take his last breath, it means that the person is still somewhat saved.

Therefore, since you are a human being, you have to live up to your expectations.

2

Destiny is difficult to do, and you have to obey the destiny to do your best

When Zeng Guofan had rich life experience and experience, he began to believe in Feng Shui , and there is a more mysterious and powerful destiny.

In fact, as early as the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, people believed that heaven was a personal force with will and dominated everything.

Among them, Confucius believed in destiny. He often said: A gentleman has three fears: fear of destiny, fear of great people, and fear of the words of sages.

People often say that destiny is determined by heaven, which means that the greatness of destiny lies in the fact that destiny is unshakable.

As early as in Chinese culture, the influence of destiny on the Chinese people is also deeply rooted.

You may have heard that people often say: character determines destiny. Zhu Xi said that fate determines character. In other words, whether a person is rich or poor, there is a certain number.

If you have read Zeng Guofan, you can see that in his youth, Zeng Guofan was actually a very typical "man can conquer nature" believer. He believed very much in the power of will and believed that human will is invincible. What cannot be done is that people's destiny is mainly in their own hands. Anyone can be reborn by relying on their own willpower.

Is that because when he was young, he had little experience and qualifications, and he didn’t understand what destiny was?

This is what we call young and frivolous, the winner takes all. In fact, if these useless words are used, you can only indulge in them when you are young.

But the reality is that many times, people’s efforts and gains are not directly proportional.

Some people are not born to study, but they can do great things after entering the society. Some people have a low starting point, but their careers are very big. Some people are born into rich families. , but achieved nothing in life.

Therefore, destiny is like a woman’s heart that is difficult to fathom. You don’t know what it will bring you in the next second? This may be destiny, the mysterious reason.

Just like Zeng Guofan, he had too many unexpected things in his life. Before the age of 28, he took the scholar examination 7 times before he succeeded, and failed the Jinshi examination twice. He never expected that he would From the age of 28, his destiny began to go smoothly again.

Therefore, the extent of a person's achievements is not entirely determined by himself. He has long believed that when it comes to building meritorious deeds, half of it is natural affairs and the other half is human affairs.

3

Life and death are determined by destiny, wealth is determined by heaven

Some events of too large a scale cannot be decided by one person or a group organization.

There are many levels of power behind it, including timing, location, people, history, human nature, etc. However, the role that one person can play is very limited.

When the Taiping Army just started to rise, many Qing Dynasty generals wanted to destroy the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. At that time, the power of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom was on the rise. Zeng Guofan later led the Hunan Army to win because The civil strife in the Taiping Rebellion at that time was related to the political riots in the later period.

Therefore, after experiencing these, Zeng Guofan believed that the scope of human subjective efforts is quite narrow, and the environment and timing are far more important than human efforts.

The education we have received since we were young is that man can conquer nature through subjective initiative. But now think about it, man and nature are subjective and objective. How can the subjective be greater than the objective? How can man conquer heaven? ?

The cruelest truth in the world is that destiny cannot be violated. On the contrary, the game of life has completely lost its charm.

However, precisely because destiny does not dare to be disobeyed, this game will not end. Since the game will not end, why should we care about winning or losing?

Just do your best and obey fate, and you will be fine.