PureInsight | May 21, 2002
Immediately after I studied Master Li's The North America Lecture Tour, I picked up "The Effect of Righteous Thoughts" again. This time, I finally understood the relation between Dafa disciples and the old forces. Prior to this, whenever the evil old forces were mentioned, I had always thought of only the evil lives manipulating the corrupted people in Mainland China and overseas who partake in the operations that damage the Fa. In other words, I had always looked externally for the evil old forces, not realizing that the evil had been right under my nose all this time. Many evil lives lurk within the corresponding dimensions of Dafa disciples. The evil forces can manipulate the thoughts and behaviors of Dafa disciples in order to fulfill their secret arrangements.
Master Li told us in "The Effect of Righteous Thoughts" of Essentials for Further Advancement II:
"Before the Fa-rectification, the old forces crammed the lowest-level section of each of those tens of millions of remote cosmic systems into the Three Realms of the central cosmic system where we are. Seemingly, this was to prevent them from being left out of the Fa-rectification, and was to show that they took part in Fa-rectification, when in reality they were using Fa-rectification to reach their selfish goals.
The old forces are just as twisted as their arrangements; therefore, they both need to be eradicated during Fa-rectification. Master Li refuses to recognize any arrangement made by the old forces, so we should take it as our biggest challenge at present to detect and thoroughly eliminate the arrangements upon us by the old forces.
The only way to eliminate the arrangements by the old forces is to study the Fa and to send forth righteous thoughts. Only the Fa can purge all attachments and offer salvation to mankind, and only righteous thoughts can eradicate the wicked beings. The soon-to-be eradicated old forces represent the high-level lives who refuse to accept the Fa that Master Li has been teaching, and continue to make arrangements by their own rules. Similarly, if we do not study the Fa or do not accept the Fa from our hearts, we would comply with the arrangements by the old forces and become obstacles to Fa-rectification. What awaits us would be self-destruction. These are horrible and dangerous consequences of not studying the Fa and not sending forth righteous thoughts.
How can we truly study the Fa? Master Li clarified the first paragraph of "Lunyu," "In order to explore this domain, humankind must fundamentally change its conventional thinking (From Zhuan Falun).' Apparently, we wouldn't be studying the Fa if we study the Fa with attachments. This is echoed by a philosophical quote of an everyday person, "Only when you have emptied the cup of your soul will it have room for new elements." Studying the Fa is comparable to self-cleansing. To purge the filthy elements from our karma field, we must study the Fa each day. Each day gives us the opportunity to eliminate the arrangements by the old forces and to offer salvation to sentient beings. We must study the Fa each and every day!
The tragic flaw of the old forces is their selfish wish. Amidst the Fa-rectification period, they all want to change others instead of themselves. Teacher stated, "Nobody wants to change himself. They even try to preserve the things that they are attached to and refuse to let go of them to the maximum extent possible (The North America Lecture Tour).' We share the same selfish wish with the old forces when we search outwards instead of inwards in our individual cultivation. But when we look inwards for areas of improvement, we are beginning to eliminate the arrangements by the old forces.
This is what I understood from Master Li's The North America Lecture Tour and "The Effect of Righteous Thoughts." I appreciate feedback from everyone.
Translated from:
http://www.zhengjian.org/zj/articles/2002/4/14/15476.html
