(Clearwisdom.net)

First, greetings to Master!

My name is Gabriel, and I am originally from a village near Midyat, Mardin, in Turkey. At the age of 9, I moved to Sweden with my family. I grew up in Sweden and finished high school there. Right after high school I went to the U.S. to study, and afterwards I continued traveling around the world. For the past four years I lived in Australia, where I finished my bachelor's degree. That was where I learned about Falun Dafa. I am currently living and studying in Istanbul.

Before I began practicing Falun Dafa about two-and-a-half years ago, I had had three nearly fatal accidents within a two-month period. First I almost drowned, then I had a motorcycle accident, and finally I fell 10-15 meters (32-48 feet) from a cliff while rock-climbing. I should have died or at least ended up in a wheelchair, but to my surprise I survived and sustained only minor injuries. However, these incidents made me look at my life and try to understand what I had been doing wrong. I realized that I had been focusing on the wrong things in life and that it was time to change my ways. Since I could not walk for a month after the climbing accident, let alone participate in any of the sports activities I used to do, I thought I might do some Tai-Chi again. They would have been almost the only exercises I could have done at that point in my life. A few months after the last accident, we had summer holidays at the university, so I went to Sweden.

When I came back to Australia, a friend of mine gave me a flyer about Falun Dafa. She explained that she had seen a group of practitioners demonstrating the exercises at the city mall. She had thought of me, since she knew I was interested in Tai-Chi. She told me it was very important that I read the flyer, even though she was not interested in the practice herself. I did not pay much attention and put the flyer in my jacket pocket. A few weeks later, I found the flyer and started reading it. To my surprise, I found it very interesting and thought it would be worth a try.

The first time I went to the practice site I felt very relaxed and enjoyed the environment, and this kept me going back every Sunday. But two years earlier, my health had deteriorated to the point that I could barely stay alive. I had gone to an herbalist to find out what was wrong with me and learned that I was on the verge of death. My body had become toxic, and many of my organs had almost stopped working, especially my small intestines. This made it impossible for my body to absorb any nutrients from the food I ate. At the same time I had developed allergies and an intolerance for different foods. On top of that I had been suffering from depression for several years before my health had given up on me. This made my life a nightmare. Life went on, and with the help of the herbalist I was able to sustain myself on a very strict diet. If I deviated from it, I would pay right away by having diarrhea and chronic fatigue, which were the usual symptoms of my poor health.

After about two months of doing the Falun Dafa exercises and reading the teachings, something started to happen to my body. I started to feel very ill, even though I was strict with my diet. I had the same symptoms for about five weeks, but they were a lot stronger than usual. Right away, I understood what was going on. The teachings explain that your body must be cleansed before you can start to cultivate, and that was exactly what was happening. After those five weeks, I noticed that I started to regain my strength, my energy increased, and my depression subsided. Just a few months later I could eat anything, and my allergies, intolerance, and depression had disappeared. I found both physical and mental balance in my life.

Later on I realized that I should spread the Fa to more people so they too could be blessed; I should clarify the truth to everyday people, as this is helping to save them.

I also realized that I should return to my native Turkey to spread Dafa to the people there, so I returned to Turkey this year. In addition to my graduate study, my agenda includes studying Turkish as hard as I can.