The Three Realms of Celestial Beings · Internal Reference¶
Complete original text for deep study. Source: Chanyuan Corpus · Celestial Cultivation Chapter · "The Three Realms of Celestial Beings and the Three Steps to Becoming One" (Xuefeng, 2025-03-05)
Full Text¶
This essay does not discuss the classifications of celestial beings — such as human celestials, ghost celestials, terrestrial celestials, divine immortals, or heavenly celestials. It addresses only the three realms of celestial beings and the steps by which a human being may become one.
The three realms of a celestial being are:
First: Having dissolved attachments to kinship and friendship, having dissolved attachments to personal relationships — already at ease in all circumstances, flowing with affinities, moving with one's nature, acting with the moment; no longer captivated by wealth, power, status, fame, beauty; able to wander freely with the flow of circumstances, at ease in whatever arises, going wherever the course of life leads.
Second: Having no worldly bonds, no worries, no debts — no self, no selfishness, no clinging — merged with heaven and earth, merged with the Tao; already owning nothing yet possessing everything; having no fixed home yet finding home everywhere; having no blood relations yet finding warmth and affection in all.
Third: Thinking has already transcended the boundaries of heaven and earth; consciousness has already moved beyond the human world; body, mind, and spirit have reached a high degree of freedom; possessing infinite divine transformation — able to give form to anything, able to bring forth something from nothing, able to conjure in an instant all manner of houses, plants, animals, and people — even able to create heaven and earth, sun and moon, rivers and mountains — flowing freely and with no obstruction whatsoever.
Having learned the three realms of celestial beings, one can discern the following three steps to becoming one.
Step One: Transcend the ordinary; surpass the conventional; set aside rationality. To transcend the ordinary means no longer pursuing material wealth, power, and status, no longer attached to fame and beauty. To surpass the conventional means no longer being bound and shackled by kinship, friendship, romantic love, or affectionate attachment. To set aside rationality means no longer relying on knowledge and experience to weigh pros and cons through logical reasoning — acting entirely from the greatest inner drive.
Step Two: Set aside human nature and cultivate celestial nature. The universe is holographic; every being carries within itself the divine, the demonic, the Buddha-nature, the celestial nature, the human nature, the animal nature, and the elemental nature. As humans, human nature is our dominant characteristic — but human nature is not celestial nature. Only by setting aside human nature, forming an affinity with the celestial, and cultivating celestial nature can one break free from the binding and shackles of human nature and move toward the state of a celestial being.
Step Three: Keep oneself always in a state of spiritual emptiness — in a state of Hundun — in resonance with heaven and earth, in the same frequency as the Tao; fully unaware of any "I"; Taiji thinking dissolved without a trace; retreating into the realm of no-form; experiencing boundless joy; entering the world of play; transforming into myriad expressions of splendor.
The above is addressed primarily to Chanyuan Celestials who are innately from the Thousand-Year World. Readers without celestial roots should treat this as casual conversation and let it pass. Under no circumstances should those readers attempt to cultivate according to what is described here. If one insists on doing so, the probability of going astray is far greater than the probability of becoming a celestial being.
— Chanyuan Corpus · Celestial Cultivation Chapter · "The Three Realms of Celestial Beings and the Three Steps to Becoming One" (Xuefeng, 2025-03-05)