PureInsight | January 23, 2006
[PureInsight.org] The story I am about to describe happened in ancient Rome. For more than three hundred years, Christians who spread Jesus Christ's teaching were ruthlessly persecuted by the villains of the Roman Empire, such as the infamous Emperor Nero. This story is about the one of the hundreds of thousands of families who suffered from the persecution.
One day, a young Christian man was about to leave his parents and the elders to follow the path of his predecessors and risk his life to spread the teaching of Jesus. With a white cloth wrapped around his body, he hugged an elder and said goodbye to his family. He carefully listened to the blessings and words of wisdom of the elder. He knew deeply in his heart that the path of spreading the righteous path was treacherous and difficult. He was even a little scared. The outside world was unknown to him as he had never left his birthplace. But he also knew deeply in his heart that there was a calling and that he had a mission to spread the righteous path. The calling had made him more and more resolute. The feeling of confidence and righteousness gradually replaced insecurity and faint-heartedness. At sunset, he bade farewell to the elders, his relatives and his younger brothers and sisters, and set out, without turning back, on the winding footpath along the Jordan River. Ahead of him was the vastness of a desert. The sky was filled with golden rays. Bathed in the golden sunlight, he gradually disappeared into the horizon.
More than one thousand years later, World War I broke out on the European continent and the war involved Germany, Italy, France and Russia. People had lost their peace, happiness and livelihood and many had died. Sitting on the velvet carpet of green grass on a hill in the French countryside was a young solider and a young girl. They were sharing their last moment together before the war. The beautiful French girl wore a long skirt and had a scarf wrapped around her head. They sat side by side on top of the hill and watched the sunset. The young man was very anxious because he had to leave for the battlefield very soon and he did not want to part with his girl. How he wished time would stop and he could stay next to her forever! Their plan for the future had been to have children and live in harmony and happiness in a cottage. However, the reality was relentless and cruel and he was very anxious. Seeing the sun gradually set, he knew it was time to say goodbye. They hugged and kissed each other time and time again. The young soldier promised the girl: "I will come back to you, my dear girl, you must wait for me!"
The young soldier went to the battlefield and never returned. Life is minuscule and the reality of war is ruthless. Life, nonetheless, never really perishes. Although the young girl had lost her dear love, the experience of falling in love and then losing it made her wise beyond her age. This maturity enabled her to understand the real meaning of life and the inevitability of the cycle of happiness and suffering. The understanding carried her through life and underpinned her later spiritual life.
Although the handsome young man had died in the battle, his life as a French solider was only a tiny of part of his many lifetimes on earth. He had experienced death, fear, joy, honor and so on through his many reincarnations over the long history. He has, however, now come to the most important and final stage of his many lives, the once Christian missionary and French solider is now a Falun Gong practitioner.
In 1999, when the Jiang Zemin Regime started the persecution of Falun Gong, he was one of the first Falun Gong practitioners to step forward and clarify the truth. In the beginning, he was also hesitant and scared. But one day, he accidentally saw his many incarnations in history and it had stunned him beyond words. When he had come to realise that he was once a courageous young missionary, a brave French soldier and so forth in history, he became courageous, calm and more tolerant when faced with the persecution. This great historical period has become a wake-up call to his true self, enlightenment and eternal glory.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2005/12/26/35094.html
