(Minghui.org) (Continued from Part 2)
I’d like to share my understanding of the subordinate soul [Editor’s note: which is also translated as assistant consciousness, assistant spirit, assistant soul, and subconsciousness in various Fa lectures]in this 7-part series.
I have personally experienced various forms of interference that my subordinate soul imposed on my master soul [Editor’s note: which is also translated as main consciousness, main soul, and main spirit]. I have also witnessed some local practitioners being persecuted by their subordinate souls.
I write down what happened to me and a few of my local practitioners to serve as a reminder to everyone to be aware of hidden interference from subordinate souls.
Of course, I can only see the things shown to me at my level, and they are by no means the whole truth.
Practitioners should be guided only by the Fa—the truth of the vast universe—and not by the understanding or experience of another cultivator.
Master answered practitioners’ questions about the relationship between the master and subordinate souls in some of his lectures.
Master said,
“Disciple asks: Is it possible for the old forces to plant negative beings in the assistant souls (fu yuanshen) of Dafa disciples?
Teacher: Don't think so much about these things. It is true that the old forces have taken advantage of every chance they have gotten. They have done awful things even to the Dafa disciples whom I really guided and led in history.” (Teaching the Fa in the City of Los Angeles)
“Question: Do karmic relationships exist between the master souls and subordinate souls?
Teacher: Some have karmic relationships, some don't.” (Teaching and Explaining the Fa at the Metropolitan New York Fa Conference)
When practitioner A and I were eliminating practitioner B's meddlesome subordinate soul, I saw a woman covered in blood holding a knife. She told me that B owed her 19 lives. Thus, she would not spare her life.
“In her past lives she has already paid for 18 of the lives she took,” I said. “In this current life, you have manipulated her husband to beat her almost to death 38 times. Isn't that enough?”
“But she is still alive, isn't she?” her subordinate soul replied.
I told her that B had not died because she became a Falun Dafa practitioner and Master protected her. Then I asked the subordinate soul to stop what she was doing and her life would be spared.
“B will compensate you and arrange a good place for you,” I said. “If she can't, our Master will. You are committing a crime if you continue to interfere with B's saving people.”
I warned the subordinate soul, but she gave me a vicious look before she left and told me, “Your master is not my master.”
Many lifetimes ago, practitioner B was a bandit named Yi Feng. He and his brother Yi Nan robbed and killed people. One day a detective caught and killed Yi Nan. He cut up Yi Nan's body and scattered the parts in different places.
Yi Feng was determined to avenge his brother.
Three years later, on the detective's wedding day, he broke into the detective's home and killed 18 people before he faced the detective. Both were injured as they fought, and Yi Feng decided to take off. Before he left, he stabbed the bride in the chest. The detective crawled next to his bride, whom he had known since childhood, as she uttered her last words, “Avenge my death.”
A wedding turned into 19 funerals. The detective was in so much grief that he swore revenge, but he could not find Yi. He almost lost the will to live. He became a monk but could not let go of his hatred. In one of his lives, he consummated in the Taoist school and his subordinate soul left.
In this lifetime, Yi Feng became practitioner B. The bride he had killed in the past life became her husband in this life, and the detective's master soul from the past life had become B's subordinate soul in this life.
Master said,
“In the past, some Taoist practices told you to drink alcohol in order to anaesthetize your main consciousness so that the paraconsciousness could practice cultivation. Many Taoists drink alcohol, and they drink to anaesthetize themselves. They will lose consciousness and sleep deeply. The paraconsciousness would then be taken away for practice. Although I mentioned it like this, what I said is a myth of a thousand ancient ages. They had this way or that way because they found that man could not succeed in cultivation. Since someone completed his cultivation from your body, you were also regarded as having built up De and having suffered. After all, your youth was given to the religion. What should be done? Perhaps, they were also good-hearted and let you be born into a paraconsciousness in the next life. It might well be this way. I find such a chance very slim. Then, they would ask you to practice cultivation, which also was very rare.” (Lecture in Sydney)
From the Fa teachings, I knew that the old forces were sparing no effort to persecute B. They even exploited a very rare chance and made the detective’s master soul B's subordinate soul. I felt sorry for the subordinate soul, who only remembered that she wanted to avenge the bad deed at all cost, even at the cost of the unprecedented opportunity to become a Falun Dafa practitioner.
Practitioner B's trouble at home worsened after the persecution began in 1999. Her subordinate soul often controlled her husband, leading him to drink, beat her, and say how he hoped she would soon die.
B initially thought that she owed her husband and accepted the abuse. She felt hopeless, although she thought that she had paid her debt and eliminated a lot of karma this way.
B's husband frequently reminded her, “You owe me!” She knew that something was not right but was not really clear on the Fa, preventing her from understanding how to deal with the situation.
She failed to negate the old force arrangements. She asked for a divorce, but her husband threatened to kill her family members. B did not insist because she did not want to give Falun Dafa a bad name and she still hoped that her husband could change and be saved.
Her husband prevented her from doing Dafa truth clarification and talking to people about the persecution. He even burned her Falun Dafa books and cursed Master and Falun Dafa.
Master said,
“That’s how depraved some people have become. So there are all kinds of people, even those who dare to blaspheme Buddhas. As soon as the blasphemous words come out of his mouth, his soul (yuanshen) falls downward.” (Teaching the Fa at the Assistants' Fa Conference in Changchun)
The old forces knew that her husband was bound to go to hell for all the bad deeds he did. They even made him do bad things. He shouted that he would go to the lowest level of hell and would take her along. In fact, her husband's master soul was already in hell. His body was controlled by evil elements. The person living in this world was no longer him.
Her husband had a very high libido and often bragged about it. He wanted sex almost every day, day and night. He abused her body. Her home became her prison. Her husband frequently swore to kill her and then commit suicide.
My understanding was that the old forces prioritize personal cultivation over Fa-rectification. They purposely impose evil elements on practitioners in the name of helping with personal cultivation. Many practitioners who do not have a clear understanding of the Fa passively cultivate amidst many tribulations.
Master has already scooped us out of hell and cleansed our sins and paid the debts we accumulated in our past lives. He has resolved everything for us with compassion and compensated the sentient beings with benevolent returns. He has pushed us to the right level and given us a much grander and more important mission.
Master said,
“I have truly borne for you the sins you committed over hundreds and thousands of years. And it doesn't stop at just that. Because of this, I will also save you and turn you into Gods. I have spared no effort for you in this process. Along with this, since you'll become Gods at levels that high, I have to give you the honors of Gods at levels that high and all the blessings that you need to have at levels that high. Never, from the beginning of time, has any God dared to do this. Something like this has never happened before.” (Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)
If we were still confined by the old principle of karmic retribution and passively endured hardships, the old forces would exploit this gap. They would create more trouble with the excuse that practitioners still had karma and attachments.
Thus, we’ve not only allowed them to interfere, but also put our sentient beings in harm's way. As a practitioner we must be sure of our purpose in cultivation and be clear that we did not come here just to pay our debts and to endure the persecution. We are here to assist Master with Fa rectification and save sentient beings.
Master said,
“The old forces will interfere with practitioners from time to time, but think about how important saving sentient beings is! Why do they have to cause all that interference. Don't acknowledge it! Since none of them are worthy of participating, what I wanted was for none of the sentient beings to interfere, for them all to wait there, and I would have gone forward rectifying things, and the worst beings, however bad they might be, and no matter what kind of mistakes they'd made in history, all of them could have reached Consummation while just staying put. Wouldn't that have been great?! Of course, that wouldn't have been done without principle, as I would have been transforming everything that a Dafa disciple owed into benevolent returns for sentient beings, and everyone would have been given the best compensation. If he couldn't do it, then Master would help him do it.” (Fa-Lecture During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference)
As I was talking to B about the Fa principles, I saw her subordinate soul searching for helpers.
“Master explained the Fa clearly yet you still refuse to rectify yourself,” I said to the subordinate soul. “You heard everything we said when we exchanged our understandings on the Fa principles, yet you still fight us. The process of Fa rectification can no longer keep you.”
B's subordinate soul looked at me with a grudge in her eyes, walked away, and continued to seek help.
Practitioners A, B, and I agreed that we had to eliminate B's subordinate soul. When we sent righteous thoughts, I saw righteous gods had seized her, put a Sinking Lock on her, and sunk her into a Celestial Pond.
A Sinking Lock is a celestial punishment, a mechanism that works on its own. The righteous gods tie it to the one who violates the rules and sinks them into the Celestial Pond. The pond contains sand-like matter.
When the body of B's subordinate soul entered the pond, each granule of sand became matters made of hooks, forks, or shovels. I saw black matter fall off of her. Four hours later the lock dragged her out of the pond, but sunk her back in two hours later.
Two days later her helpers came, and she complained to them how she had been wronged. She had a master, who also had a master, and the list went on. These masters had many disciples. They were all unhappy with A, B and me. On the third day, they waged war against us. Righteous gods took action and destroyed all of them, including the subordinate soul.
From what I understand, B's subordinate soul had a chance to live, but she ruined her own future as well as that of other gods. These gods did not balance their relation with Dafa and the practitioners well and hence were manipulated by the old forces to persecute practitioners.
As practitioners we should clearly know that we are practitioners during the Fa rectification period, and no old forces or any life from the old universe can decide our lives. If our righteous thoughts are truly firm, they can split mountains, and the factors that interfere with us can be rectified. This will eliminate unnecessary tribulations.
We often say that we assist Master in rectifying the Fa. It is, in fact, Master helping us to rectify the Fa in our universe. We are helping ourselves. Assisting Master in rectifying the Fa is, in fact, the process of us purifying and rectifying ourselves in the Fa. When we improve, Master then helps us with our universes.
(Continued in Part 4)