Confucius

Confucius(551-479BCE) was a Chinese sage, teacher and administrator, whose ideas have profoundly influenced Chinese society through 2,500 years. His observations and teachings are to be found in the Analects (Li chi), which were mostly compiled by his disciples and successors in later years. There are alternative versions of his life in the later Mengzi by Mencius, and also in the later Zuozhuan.

His family and personal name was Kong Qiu. He is also known as Kongzi or Kong Fuzi (lit: Master Kong). The Latinized name, Confucius, is derived from Kong Fuzi, and was first used by the Jesuit missionaries to China in the sixteenth century.

Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi has stated that Confucius was an incarnation of the Primordial Master, who “taught the humanity how we can improve our relations with other human beings” (1995-0913), and who “wanted to establish a quality of people, a category of people who would have a feeling for others and we say in samajikata or the public-minded people” (1986-1009).

In 1990 in Hong Kong, Shri Mataji observed that Lao Tse was working out the left side, and that Confucius was working out the right side. (reported by Alex Henshaw)


Bibliography
The Analects of Confucius, translated by Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007)
Mark Cartwright, ‘Confucius’
http://www.ancient.eu.com/Confucius/
Raymond Dawson, Confucius (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981)
Alex Henshaw, ‘The left and right side’ in Eternally Inspiring Recollections of our Divine Mother, edited by Linda J.Williams (London: Blossomtime Publishing, 2nd ed., 2013), vol.5:125
Jeffrey Riegel, ‘Confucius’ [2002; rev. 2013] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius
Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Berthrong, eds., Confucianism and ecology: the interrelation of heaven, earth, and humans (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998)
Tu Weiming and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds., Confucian spirituality (New York: Crossroad, 2003)