"Stay away from ghosts and gods" is a sentence in "The Analects" and was Confucius's answer to Fan Chi when he asked for knowledge. Fan Chi, a person who appears many times in "The Analects", seeks knowledge and benevolence, which shows that this classmate is also a very eager to learn. But every time he asked Confucius, he got a different answer, which was very "Confucius-specific." Because Confucius always gives the best answer based on different people, different situations, and different things, so to understand the sentence "respect ghosts and gods", you must first understand the conversation environment from the original text and then explain it.
Fan Chi asked
Fan Chi asked. Confucius said: "The benevolence and righteousness of serving the people and respecting ghosts and gods can be said to be the best known to everyone." Asked Ren, he said: "Benevolent people are rare first, and then they can be called benevolent." - "The Analects of Confucius"
< p>"Knowledge" leads to "wisdom". Seeking knowledge is not seeking knowledge, but seeking wisdom. Fan Chi asked Confucius: What is true wisdom?What is wisdom can include many aspects. This time, Confucius' answer was more political. He said, "Serving the interests of the people and respecting ghosts and gods at a distance can be called knowledge."
Service is service, and serving the people is leadership. What Confucius meant was that if you are a political official, you should serve the people well and not do what God says. You need to "keep away from ghosts and spirits." This is the wisdom of politics.
Fan Chi
Why did Confucius answer Fan Chi’s question from the perspective of “doing politics”?
Fan Chi, a person whose background was not particularly good, was a child who grew up in hardship. Confucius commented on Fan Chi and said: "The villain is as good as Xu Fan." The villain is not a traitor in the current sense, but a person living at the bottom.
Confucius taught people like Fan Chi some practical principles. Confucius said: "If you learn well, you will become an official." If Fan Chi engages in his profession in the future, what should he do? This is Confucius' answer.
Keep a surprising distance from someone
Confucius believed in ghosts and gods. "Confucius did not talk about the chaos of strange forces" does not mean that Confucius did not believe in ghosts and gods, but in education, he should take the righteousness of a gentleman as the standard and cannot worship ghosts and gods, otherwise he will be restricted by ghosts and gods.
Similarly, if you are in politics and want to serve the people (or govern), how should you guide the people? Very simple. To believe in ghosts and gods, you must respect them, but you must not be obsessed with them or be superstitious.
Because ghosts and gods are too far away from us. The so-called humans and gods have their own ways. Ghosts and gods are heaven, but what we take is human nature. Far. Human nature is very close to us, because each of us lives in human nature, and everything you experience, such as doing business, being in politics, going to school, getting married, socializing... is part of human nature.
This is the way for leaders to guide the people. Ghosts and gods are far away from us. We should respect them but not be superstitious. What we should do more is to do our job well. If we are farmers, we should cultivate the land well. If we are the emperor, we must govern the country well.
If you can do this, you will be a wise leader.
Ghosts
There are many explanations about ghosts and gods.
In ancient times, those great gods went from humans to gods, and humans could find ladders to communicate with gods. Jiang Ziya can also confer gods; later, the ghosts and gods created by people in literary works, such as Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie, are another kind; as well as the gods brought by religion.
For ordinary people, there are only three types of ghosts and gods: complete disbelief, belief in existence, and superstition.
In the case of Confucian Confucius, the people should be taught the second way: belief in existence; and the third way: superstition should be eradicated.
Confucianism is very respectful to ghosts and gods. Why sacrifice ancestors? Because the ancients believed that after death, only the body dies, and the soul still exists and becomes a god or ghost. Why is sacrificial ritual a kind of etiquette and sacrifice that has been written into the Confucian classic "Book of Rites"?
Confucian respect for ghosts and gods is reflected in sacrificial rituals - "Sacrificial rituals have more than enough respect, but if it is not enough, there is more than enough respect." This limits "belief in ghosts and gods" to a reasonable Within the scope, the converse is superstition.
Therefore, Confucius's answer to Fan Chi was that he hoped that leaders would treat ghosts and gods in a reasonable manner when serving or governing the people.
Finally, please do not look at the thoughts of the ancients through today's eyes, otherwise, this discussion will be meaningless.