PureInsight | December 12, 2005
[PureInsight.org] After I first left home, I began to read many books about religions and the history of folklore and the culture of various societies. I grew up under very strict parents who were part of a Christian group that practiced the "heavenly language" that Master speaks about in Zhuan Falun. Growing up in this very disturbed environment of what was essentially an evil religion, I became very suspicious of all religious things.
Since I became a practitioner, I have insisted on not having a Christmas tree in our house. I did this because I had read books about the folklore of various cultures that suggested the act of bringing a tree into the house was "worshipping" it by decorating it with gifts and putting it an honoured place in the house. I thought that this sort of behaviour was part of the "small worldly path ways" that Master talks about.
This year I read Master's 2003 lecture in Canada, and some part of me enlightened to the fact that having a Christmas tree at Christmas is part of human culture in Western society and something we should conform to as practitioners in Western society. I also have two young children now, and by taking an extreme position I would be making it difficult for them to live amongst everyday people as practitioners. When thinking about this I also read that Master had attended a "Christmas Party" organised by practitioners in New York. This confirmed to me that my reconsidering of this issue was a good thing.
But how to deal with all the books that linked rituals like "Christmas" to pagan religions that practiced human sacrifices and other evil rituals? One of the key books that I had read was The Golden Bough by Sir James Frazer. After some research I discovered that this work was based on the theories of Social Darwinism, one of the key tools used by Communism to attack religions. I came to understand that this period of time, when evolution was becoming popular, was filled with books that made fun of the historical culture of the world and tried to present it in a very primitive light. This is because evolution relies on the premise that the people in the past were less intelligent and less spiritually advanced.
However, from Master's lectures, we know that societies and religions just go through this cycle where they are initially good when they are first imparted by gods, but then gradually decline as more human understandings are absorbed. This doesn't mean that what the gods first imparted was evil, just that this human dimension is filled with evil and things decay according to the old law of "formation, stasis, degeneration." In fact, Darwinism is 100% in the wrong direction when used to study the history of civilisations.
When Western families all over the world put up the Christmas tree in their house, it reminds them on a deeper level of the truth of things in other dimensions. Regardless of what degeneration has occurred over the ages, people at this time still have a part of them the remembers the true reason for things, and is connected to the various levels of Fa that were taught in the human world to save people. By taking an extreme action such as banning Christmas trees, I was making it very difficult for my relatives to understand me and see me as a good person.
For some people it is said that the ever-green nature of the pine trees most often used as Christmas trees reminds us that even though winter is here, that there is still life and that it will spring forth again after the winter is over. As practitioners this can also remind us of the strength and life that sustains practitioners even during this winter of persecution.
