(Clearwisdom.net) Teacher has repeatedly taught Falun Gong practitioners to completely deny the old forces and all of their arrangements. Practitioners from all over the world follow Teacher's words, but we all have different levels and different ways of understanding. As a way to illustrate my personal understanding on the subject, I would like to share my thoughts about some of the incidents that have happened around me and how I responded to them.
It turned out that I didn't have a clear understanding about the old forces' arrangements although I had been denying and eliminating the old forces and all of their arrangements when I sent forth righteous thoughts. Because I had been doing it mechanically, the results had not been obvious. I would also send forth righteous thoughts to eliminate and disintegrate the old forces when practitioners close to me or I myself encountered difficulties or suffered from persecution because I was convinced that it must be the old forces' interference. However, interference continued to pop up here and there.
A few things that happened lately led me to form a new understanding on the subject. On the evening of December 6, 2006, the local police harassed a few practitioners, ransacked their homes and confiscated their PCs, printers, Falun Gong truth-clarification materials, cash and other personal property. In addition, two practitioners were illegally arrested. Afterwards, the practitioners were released due to their family members and fellow practitioners' joint rescue efforts and righteous thoughts. However, the police continued to monitor and harass them.
Because of this incident, I identified my lack of righteous thoughts. First, when I heard that fellow practitioners were harassed, their homes were ransacked and they were illegally arrested, I didn't have stable or strong righteous thoughts. I was selfish, and failed to regard their plight as my own, so I failed to stop the evil crimes with righteous thoughts. Although I sent forth righteous thoughts and tried to deny the old forces' arrangements, to some extent I had acknowledged the old forces, dark minions and rotten demons, as well as their persecution of practitioners.
Second, in the spring of 2006, my mother's illness improved after three months of medical treatment, but it got worse in October and deteriorated over the winter. After she came to stay with me, her illness grew much worse. At first, I took her to various different doctors, but I realized later that this must be the old forces' interference. I started sending forth righteous thoughts to eliminate it. Once when I was sending forth righteous thoughts, I clearly saw a radiating golden heart slowly floating towards my mother and then entering her body. The opening did not bleed and it healed quickly. Next I saw my mother's body levitating in front of me. All the bad things happening to my mother were eliminated that day while I was sending forth righteous thoughts for her.
That night my wife and I sent forth righteous thoughts every hour to eliminate all the interference and the old forces' arrangements. I did not focus on just the interference caused by the old forces. Instead, I kept expanding the scope, searching for and eliminating all the old forces' arrangements, including the small interference with my mother.
The next evening when I returned home from work, my mother appeared to have made a big improvement. Even my second eldest sister (not a practitioner) and my mother were astonished by the miracle. When I briefly explained what I did for mother, they began to admire Teacher and Falun Gong. They both said they would have steadfast belief in Teacher and the Fa from then on.
Third, influenza has been particularly rampant in some regions of China for a few weeks. Many of my coworkers and acquaintances came down with it. Most of them have been very loyal to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) or have not withdrawn from the CCP, its Youth League or its Young Pioneers. Very few practitioners or those who know the truth about Falun Gong and the CCP were infected with the flu. At first, my wife and I thought this is a warning to those people who have not accepted the truth about Falun Gong and the CCP. We believed that these natural and man-made disasters have nothing to do with practitioners or those people who have accepted the truth about Falun Gong and the CCP. In other words, I believe they were protected. Little did I expect that practitioners close to me and some others who have accepted the truth were infected with the flu a few days later. My daughter even had a fever and suffered from severe symptoms. After an exchange of thoughts on the subject and searching inside for warped notions, I was able to send forth powerful righteous thoughts. All the physical discomfort that my daughter experienced disappeared at around 8:00 p.m.
After these three incidents, I came to realize that I had a few loopholes in terms of denying and eliminating the old forces and all of their arrangements. First, I sent forth righteous thoughts to solve a specific problem. I denied and eliminated interference only after I encountered it. I failed to search inside for hidden attachments and the root causes of bad notions when there was no interference. As a result, my righteous thoughts became limited. Second, I was selfish and had a strong attachment to fear. I was oblivious to the plight of fellow practitioners' because I wanted to protect myself. Third, I thought those natural and man-made disasters were karmic retributions to those depraved people who were loyal to the CCP. But it did not occur to me that those disasters were also the old forces' arrangements to weed out the world's people. I had acknowledged the old forces and their arrangements. Now that I think of it, I regret and fear for the consequence of my bad notions and biased opinions about the world's people, as well as the interference and damage I might have caused fellow practitioners. Fourth, I believed in and relied on fate. In terms of my mother's illness, I gave up on her at first because she had given up practicing Falun Gong and relied on modern medicine. I thought it was her fate and as her son there was nothing I could do to change it. Little did I know that the so-called fate was precisely the old forces' arrangement and their interference with my role to assist Teacher with His Fa-rectification.
This concludes the sharing of my loopholes in completely denying the old forces and their arrangements. I hope that my new understanding on the subject may be of some help to fellow practitioners.