Holy Emperor Guan’s True Scripture to Awaken the World
Venerate heaven and earth;
perform the rites to the Gods;
Worship your ancestors;
be dutiful to your parents.
Keep the kings laws,
revere your teacher and superiors;
Love your brothers,
and be true to your friends.
Live in harmony with your kindred,
agree with village neighbor;
Let husband and wife mind their separate duties,
and teach their children and grandchildren.
Always practice what is expedient for others;
accumulate many secret deeds of charity;
Rescue those in trouble;
assist those who are hard pressed;
pity the fatherless and compassionate the poor.
Found and repair temples;
print and make moral and religious books.
Supply medicine, give tea,
avoid killing animals, and liberate them to live.
Make bridges, repair roads;
pity the widow, rescue the oppressed;
Value grain; use plenty sparingly,
remove people’s difficulties; settle their strife.
Contribute your property to effect good designs;
give instruction and teach men;
Make peace between enemies;
have just measures and balances.
Approach near to the virtuous;
keep far off from badmen;
Conceal men’s vice, and publish their virtues;
do what is advantageous to creatures,
and save the common people.
Turn the mind to right principles;
reform errors and renovate yourself;
Be filled with benevolence and kindness;
retain no vicious thoughts.
Let every virtuous deed be heartily believed,
and reverently practiced;
Although man sees it not,
the Gods have already heard it.
Judgments will be dissipated;
sickness diminished;
calamities will not assail;
Men and animals will all enjoy repose;
and felicitous stars shed their auspicious influence.
If a man cherish a wicked heart,
and don’t practice virtue;
Debauch men’s wives and daughters;
and mar people’s marriages.
Ruin men’s reputation,
envy people’s talents,
Plot against people’s property,
and stir up strife.
Injure others to benefit himself,
fatten his house and enrich his person.
Hate Heaven and repine at Earth;
rail at rain and curse the sunshine.
Slander sages, and vilify worthies;
destroy idols and insult the Gods.
Slay and kill cows and dogs;
defile and cast away lettered paper.
Presume on power and insult the virtuous;
rely on riches to oppress the poor,
Separate men’s bones and flesh (kindred)
and set at variance brothers.
Disbelieve right principles;
fornicate, rob, be depraved, and lewd;
Ambitious, extravagant and deceitful;
and despise economy and diligence.
Wasteful of grain;
ungrateful of favors.
Deceiving himself;
having large measures, and little scales
(unequal weights and measures).
Establish false and heterodox sects;
draw away and deceive the simple.
Make pretenses and talk of ascending to Heaven;
and collect property to spend it on dissipation.
In the light impose on men,
and in the dark cheat;
use flowery talk and specious lips.
In the open day utter curses,
and behind backs, plot assault.
Not preserve Heavenly principles,
not obey the human heart;
Lead men to commit wickedness;
and disbelieve a future retribution·
Perpetrate every vice,
and cultivate no virtue;
Such a man will be accused to the government;
water and fire and robbers will assail him.
Desperate poison, distemper and plague shall be his lot;
he shall beget profligates and fools;
Himself shall be murdered, his family ruined;
his sons robbers, his daughters whores.
The nearer retributions shall fall on himself,
the more distant retribution shall fall on his children and grandchildren;
The Gods look down and examine;
and err not an hairsbreadth.
Virtue and vice are the two roads,
which separate misery and happiness;
The Practice of virtue bring a happy recompense;
on the perpetrator of vice, misery falls.
I have made this discourse,
wishing men to receive and practice it;
The language, though shallow and near,
will greatly benefit body and mind.
Those who mock my words,
shall be decapitated, and cut to pieces;
For those who adhere to them and recite them,
evil shall be dispersed, and blessing accumulated.
He who desires children, shall have males;
he who desires long life, shall attain to many years,
The desires for riches, and honors, and fame,
shall all be accomplished.
Whatever is prayed for,
shall be obtained according to the heart’s wish;
Ten thousand calamities shall melt like snow;
and all blessings rush in like a troop.
My words are not selfish,
but for the aid of the virtuous;
Let all men respectfully practice them.
Be not careless! be not darkened!
Emperor Guan, Qing Dynasty- 219 CE
