(Minghui.org) Recently a Minghui article “Thoughts on the End Time for Fa Rectification and Prophecies” caught my attention. The article documented several predictions made by a young practitioner, including what will happen to Taiwan in 2022 and how things will unfold when the Fa rectifies the human world. The predictions sparked heated discussions among local practitioners.
The reactions of the local practitioners toward the content of the article and the fast-changing global politics after the 2020 U.S. presidential election prompted me to reflect on my local practitioners’ and my own state of cultivation.
I had always been into politics due to my academic major and job nature, and I also have a family member, who is also a practitioner, share my interest. We often discussed current events while we ate meals and voiced our opinions on breaking news or important issues. This gradually brought out our attachments such as showing off and fighting. When my family member voiced a viewpoint, I felt like I had to say something to show off my intelligence. When our views differed, we argued. When we argued, the cultivation of speech was out of the window.
After knowing that Trump had lost the election, we paid even more attention to politics. Meanwhile, a faucet at home broke down twice, and a sink once. These were hints that we should pay attention to the cultivation of speech.
These conversations took up a lot of time. They also brought out my strong curiosity toward the predictions and prophecies on the Internet, as well as the end time for the persecution. I had never thought that I was strongly attached to the end time for the persecution until recently. In fact I never looked for this attachment, let alone tried to eliminate it.
Before I took up Falun Gong, I knew several elderly practitioners. They were attached to and often talked about the political struggles between Jiang Zemin (the former chairman of the Chinese Communist Party who ordered the persecution) and Wen Jiabao (the former premier of the Chinese Communist Party). When the strong earthquake hit Sichuan Province in 2008, I heard practitioners talk about the end being near. Such comments gave me a false impression of Falun Gong and prevented me from becoming a practitioner at that time.
Back then I had quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for a while and I believed that practitioners have higher moral standards than ordinary people. I was willing to take a step further to find out more about cultivation. As soon as I saw these practitioners talking irrationally constantly, it turned me off and I lost interest. It wasn’t until many years later that I finally decided to become a practitioner after reading Zhuan Falun online.
My experience told me that we need to straighten our every thought based on the teachings and do things rationally.
Let’s think about why Trump didn’t get reelected in 2020. My understanding is that the evil needs to be fully revealed through specific events or people to demonstrate the true colors of the corrupt and the ugly. The evil appearing to have won presents an ongoing test for everyone, including the politicians, the elites, and we practitioners too.
Do we choose to openly side with the just and firmly hold onto our beliefs and values no matter what we think will happen to us, such as war (including the one between Taiwan and China) or the pandemic? Do we make calculated decisions not to take sides and play neutral to please either side? Or do we go on with our lives and ask no questions and see nothing?
We all have different attitudes and opinions. Conditional faith is not faith; being kind without a principle is not kindness. Hence at different stages come different tests. Does a person with faith doubt the divine’s arrangement and the chosen one at difficult times? Does a kind man stop being kind when the world falls apart and everyone has to fight for his best interest?
Mankind has been ruled by a negative deteriorating force in the past. In fact this force has for decades kidnapped both the communist and democratic societies, the political and business elites, and the news and the entertainment industries. It’s dragging mankind into an abyss and the evilness of the force has not yet been fully revealed to the public. I had no doubt that democracy was good until the 2020 U.S. election. I believed the thinkers in the Age of Enlightenment were magnificent until I learned that many of them were influenced by or connected to communism.
When the books “The Ultimate Goal of Communism” and “How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World” were published, they shook and crumbled my worldview. Little did I know a much greater shock was coming. The evil establishment in the U.S. openly colluded with the Chinese communist regime and rigged the 2020 election. As I read Master’s lecture in 2018, I had the feeling that this chaos was openly presented in front of us for a purpose, that is, to fully expose the evil in the world so as to help everyone decide whether to side with the evil or stand up against it.
“Disciple: Communist doctrine is dominating our world. Since the Fa’s rectification of the human world is about to begin, are people—whether in the East or the West—whose minds haven’t been completely cleansed of the Party’s evil ideas, in danger, even if they haven’t joined its organizations?”
“Master: I can tell you that people in the West generally don’t have a good impression of the wicked Communist Party. Of course, there are some people who aren’t clear on certain things and who advocate for socialism, equal distribution of wealth, and those kinds of things. But that’s not how this world is meant to be.” (“2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C.,” Team Yellow Translation)
“Although the specter is ruling the world, positive gods are actually looking after things as well. Both positive and negative factors and forces are meant to coexist in this world. So when humankind changes in negative ways more and more, and ever more seriously so, the scales tip in that direction, and so it appears as though the specter, or the Devil, is ruling the world. So that’s what accounts for the situation. But the scales will become balanced again once people come to have positive, virtuous thoughts and see the evil for what it is.” (“2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C.,” Team Yellow Translation)
I believe that in the future after the Fa-rectification, even an ordinary person will be more virtuous than people nowadays. Hence not everyone who has quit the CCP is qualified to go into the future. In the past years, many have quit the CCP, some were sincere and others not. Some spoke disrespectfully about Dafa and were indifferent to the CCP’s crimes. Even if these people survived the Covid-19 pandemic, they may not enter the future had they not sincerely quit the CCP.
In the past year I felt that people’s attitude towards the CCP and the persecution changed back and forth. A person I know panicked when the lockdown happened in the beginning of 2020. He was able to listen to what I had to say. Six months later in July, he started to get busy with his life. When I talked to him again, he was arrogant and despised what I said.
People who acted this way normally weren’t terrible people. They just value fame and personal interest more. These people will have to be shown and experience the ugly truth before they will believe it. Didn’t the US presidential election wake up many Americans? Similar events are yet to come in other countries. It’s like a show played in front of people, one scene after another. Master has arranged everything and it is not for us to guess based on what we know.
“Disciple: Some practitioners are privately saying that the Fa’s rectification of the human world is imminent and that the Fa rectification has entered a new phase. They say that this phase is different from the previous one, in that, before, Dafa disciples were supposed to do all they could to expose the persecution and clarify the facts about Dafa, whereas now the Fa-rectification-period Dafa disciples should be leading the human world to…”
“Master: Though you are playing the leading roles here, you aren’t yet able to lead this world. You can’t do so at this time. We can see things with great clarity and save people, but as for leading this world, well, even in the future, worldly affairs won’t be something that cultivators, spiritual practitioners, will want to influence. There are ordinary people in place to do that. All you need to concern yourselves with is saving people; it is people’s hearts that matter to me.” (“2018 Fa Teaching Given in Washington, D.C.,” Team Yellow Translation)
Master told us to concern ourselves with saving people. My understanding is that, to transition into Fa-rectification, evil in human society must be fully exposed and eliminated and only the good is preserved. In the process, the disqualified people will be weeded out.
Master said,
“God, human, ghost, animal, extinctionEach one determines his own position” (“Untitled,” Hong Yin Volume II)
One’s xinxing level determines his final destination. As I just talked about, ordinary people may change back and forth regarding their understanding of the CCP. Everything for them and Fa-rectification is in an ever-changing dynamics. As long as things are not over yet, there is still a chance to save oneself.
The same is true for practitioners. We have seen in the past 22 years that despite the persecution, there were people becoming new practitioners and veteran practitioners who had once given up the practice because of the persecution, returning to practice. On the contrary, there are also practitioners who survived the most difficult times and remained steadfast in the past two decades who chose to quit the practice over a trivial reason in the final stage of cultivation.
Many other practitioners became numb to the persecution and just wanted things to be over. They lived aimlessly and didn’t want to take care of their families and their problems. While some still did the three things, some others carelessly did the exercises and occasionally read the Fa. One even claimed to resume cultivation just so he/she could take financial advantage of other practitioners. This person took everything other practitioners gave him for granted and yet still criticized the practitioners behind their backs.
Master said,
“Those among Dafa disciples who are not diligent or have gone to extremes, hurry and set yourselves straight; study the Fa and cultivate yourselves sincerely because you are amid the gravest danger. Genuine Dafa disciples all carry energy and are themselves beings who eliminate karma and eradicate germs. They are the envoys of salvation at the end times, and they all know to be rational in saving people and clarifying the truth.” (“Rationality,” Team Blue Translation)
My understanding is “Those among Dafa disciples who are not diligent or have gone to extremes” (“Rationality”) also include the secret agents hidden among practitioners. They themselves hold the key to whether they can survive future pandemics or disasters.
I am not exactly a diligent practitioner. Often I did not do the three things well or regard myself as a practitioner. Knowing that Master has the final say, still I am not sure that I will reach consummation after Fa-rectification. During the New Year, the authorities sealed off many nursing homes while parts of the town remained open. Those seniors were my neighbors and the officials just left them there without food and water! I wrote down the phone numbers of those in charge of the nursing homes, officials, and staff members of the community, and forwarded the numbers to the practitioners who make calls to clarify the truth. Perhaps once those in charge knew the truth, absurdity like welding doors and blocking windows would not happen like the year before. This was the best I could do.
We may wonder what human society would look like during the transition to or after Fa-rectification. This is not for us to imagine or to guess based on our political ideology or desired sociopolitical form. We should not be purposely involved in political matters, nor can we predict the future. Who could know anything about what Master has yet to do, such as the Fa-rectification of the human world?
“Question: There have been significant developments in the international arena, and Taiwan’s situation seems quite complex and confusing. Would Master please say a few words to Taiwan’s disciples?”
“Master: All right, so a few words it is. (Laughter, applause) You are most concerned about whether the CCP is going to take back Taiwan, aren’t you? I can tell you that that fortune has not been given to the CCP. (Applause) And as for what will happen once the CCP is gone, that’s something that has long since been planned out by the divine. Once the sinister CCP is out of the picture, no one will be trying to force anything [on Taiwan]. And then if the people [of Taiwan and the mainland] want to unite, they can; or if they don’t want to, then they don’t have to.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference,” Team Yellow Translation)
Master has already talked about the situation between Taiwan and China, and we just didn’t remember it. There is more.
“Question: Misleading news is everywhere in this Internet age, and it’s often hard to tell real news from fake. In the upcoming Taiwan and U.S. general elections in 2020, will fake news cloud people’s judgment?”
“Master: Degenerate things are common in this troubled world, and it’s hard to accomplish good things. That’s how things are in a troubled world. Many people didn’t expect Trump to be elected in the last U.S. election, but he was. Some people believe that things are supposed to go a certain way, but then they turn out otherwise. I have always said that divine beings are in control of human affairs and that it is they who have the say. But if I speak too much about it or get into the specifics, it might negatively impact our saving people, so I won’t go into it.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference,” Team Yellow Translation)
When it is hard to tell the truth from the phony, it is time for us to see whether we judge based on human thinking or the Fa. It is also a test to see whether we believe in Master and the Fa. Why do we obsess over the issue between Taiwan and China when Master has already said, “that fortune has not been given to the CCP”?
I did not stay calm and clear-headed after reading the aforementioned Minghui article, but it no longer moves my heart. I know that I only need to pay attention to what is in the Fa. Politics and prophecies are secular matters. China and the world are as mundane as eating and sleeping and irrelevant to our cultivation. We should calm down and make sure we do the three things well before talking about helping Master to rectify the Fa and save people, and before we reach consummation.
Editor's note: Views expressed in this article represent the author's own opinions, for which the author is solely responsible. Readers should evaluate the article's merits on their own.