PureInsight | November 18, 2006
[PureInsight.org] (New England Fahui 2006)
I obtained the Fa in India in November 2000. A group of practitioners
from the USA and Europe came down to India in the summer of 2000 and
began spreading the Fa in the capital, New Delhi. One day I saw a photo
in the newspaper of people practicing some exercises and there was an
article titled "China's Banned Falun Gong is Here." This aroused my
interest and I read the article a couple of times. There was another
article in another newspaper which I read too. I wanted to find out
more about this, so I went to visit another friend on her birthday.
After the visit on the way out I remembered to check about Falun Gong
and I went to the place where they were residing. I reached the place
and I rang the bell. The door was opened by this little Chinese girl
smiling and asking me to come in. I went in, introduced myself and she
taught me the first exercise. She patiently answered all my questions
and later she told me that there was another practitioner living there
who had gone out and would be back later. I thanked her and left for my
place.
The next day, I went back to the same place. This time the door was
opened by another Chinese girl who smiled and invited me up. She went
through the exercises with me. I had several questions which she
answered. This continued for many days as I went there every day to
learn more. I had already read the first book Falun Gong by then and soon we were reading the main book Zhuan Falun lecture by lecture. When I went home I would read more by myself as I was intrigued and the book seemed very interesting.
The book Zhuan Falun,
though written in a simple and unique style made a deep impression on
me. It seemed so real and relevant throughout. Although there were
certain portions I could not understand, I had no problem accepting
anything Teacher was saying in the book. Since I am from India, we do
have some understanding what a Teacher, great enlightened person, guru
or a Buddha means. I also had been in several practices before I
obtained Dafa. At that time I was doing fairly well in a Buddhist
practice for over a year. Before that I had been in another practice
which focused on healing and fitness and I had gone through other
practices, but the quest, thirst never ended as nothing seemed to hold
me. There were many lines, phrases from Zhuan Falun which held me spellbound, some of them being:
Lecture 1: "Cultivation depends on one's own efforts, while the transformation of gong is done by one's master."
I could relate to these lines then from my understanding of being
totally responsible for one's actions. We cannot expect others to do
everything for us and have to walk the path ourselves, step by step.
Also I could easily see the importance of the role of the master in the
whole process. Having deep reverence for the Master was already well
ingrained in me.
Also in Lecture 1. on page 28, 29 where Teacher talks about Xinxing and Zhen-Shan-Ren,
those lines had an impact on me because as a child I understood the
importance of morality or character because our parents would talk
about this with us. In school, sometimes I would think to myself, "This
morality is really important, I really need to increase my morality as
much as I can." I did not or could not translate these intense thoughts
into action. The good intention was always there. Also from previous
understandings, the fact of everything being interconnected and that
there was life in everything was already there, but Teacher says it so
clearly that I kept reading it again and again. I was so mesmerized.
Teacher was revealing the way to ascend.
In Lecture 4, Upgrading Xinxing, Teacher talks about sentimentality.
"Cultivation practice must take place through tribulations so as to
test whether you can part with and care less about different kinds of
human sentimentality and desires."
"If this sentimentality is not relinquished, you will be unable
to practice cultivation. If you are free from this sentimentality,
nobody can affect you."
The reason for this passage having an impact on me was due to my own
sentimentality. People from India, I think are sentimental anyway. I
saw myself in the passage. To transform from a sentimental state to a
benevolent one was very striking. Teacher asks us to relinquish
sentimentality. It was remarkable, a secret had been revealed in a
straightforward manner.
Lecture 8: Whoever Practices Cultivation Will Attain Gong.
Teacher says, "The Main Spirit that we are mentioning here refers to
our own minds. One should be aware of what one is thinking about or
doing-that is your real self."
The understanding of awareness was already there, I also then
understood it from "being a witness" witnessing ourselves and others.
The sentence about the main consciousness is said with simplicity and I
memorized it to recite in my mind.
In Lecture 9, People with Great Inborn Quality, Teacher says,
"Cultivation practice itself is not difficult, and neither is upgrading
one's level itself difficult. It is because they cannot give up the
human mind that they call it difficult."
Teacher asks us to give up the human mind. One could cultivate but the
obstacle standing in the way was my mind full of my own things. I was
stopping myself from cultivating.
Towards the end of November it was decided to have the 9 day video
lecture series. On the first day I had a unique experience. When the
lecture started and I heard Teacher's voice I felt that my whole body
was enveloped and flushed by some energy. By the second day I had to
visit the toilet a few times since my system was being cleansed. I was
surprised that how easily I had taken to Dafa and there seemed no
regrets within to leave everything and embrace Dafa. I kept asking
myself, "Why am I coming here every day?" It was the enormous power of
Teacher and Dafa which held me. The two practitioners told me about
'predestined relationships' and 'good inborn quality'. I was also
touched and moved by their simple, kind and righteous conduct. By now I
had also drawn closer to one of the practitioners, Susie on a personal
level. I then thought within, "maybe this is it, this is where I need
to be and go now." I had arrived and was a practitioner of Falun Dafa.
After staying in India for six months, the two practitioners Susie and
Anna from Boston, left for the USA.
The next one year and four months passed by. I would go to Delhi at the
practice site once a week on a Sunday and practice there with the other
practitioners. I did not need an alarm clock to get up early in the
morning on Sunday as I would wake up energized. I realized that
Teacher's fashen was always there to help me. I was also regularly
reading Zhuan Falun,
as well as other lectures of Teacher and articles from the Clearwisdom
and PureInsight websites. I maintained communication with Susie by
email and by phone. Though she was far away in the USA, she always
seemed close to me in my heart.
One day when I was coming back from group study at a practitioner's
home, I walked to the bus stop which was on a very busy road. The width
of the road was first wide and then narrow as I walked and I found
myself in about the middle of the road. A bus was coming straight at me
and to avoid it, I had to go more to the middle rather than the side of
the road. I thought that it was going to hit me and I heard a few
people scream as it passed by. I had escaped unhurt with not a scratch
on my body. When I looked back at the episode I recollected that at the
crucial time of the bus bearing down on me, I was calm inside. I
realized that my life was being protected by Teacher.
Though I had been in several practices before I obtained Dafa, I could
never sit in the double leg crossing position for long as it was very
painful. When I was introduced to Dafa by the two practitioners from
Boston, I started sitting in the position for the fifth exercise. In
India, through Yoga, this is called Padmasana. In the beginning, I
could not sit more than a couple of minutes, after a few days it became
15 minutes and then I struggled all the way to 30 minutes. I was not
tranquil or calm during the ordeal. Later when Anna and Susie left for
the USA, in the month of March 2001, I made up my mind to reach the
one-hour barrier. I started increasing the time slowly 5 minutes every
two days. At the 40 to 45 minute stage it became difficult to continue.
It took a few days for me to break through this. When I reached 50
minutes, the pain was such that I thought my legs were going to break.
The stiffness in the legs made me more uncomfortable than the pain. One
day when I was trying very hard to reach the one hour mark, I had a
thought, "What if something happens to my legs". Then I built up my
resolve, and said to myself, "Well, Teacher is with me, and if these
legs cannot bear up for the meditation, what use I have for them, let
them break". I had broken through the one-hour barrier in the fifth
exercise by the third week of April 2001.
In India, the cultivation environment is not the same as here in the
USA and Canada. The practitioners are fewer, and sometimes I would feel
that I was the only one around though there were a few of them in
Delhi. I started developing a notion that perhaps I was more diligent
than other practitioners and more serious than them in reading, sending
forth righteous thoughts and in clarifying the truth. This caused some
uneasiness among the others and I could sense it. I would find it
difficult to consider myself as one of them and thought that I was
better because I was more serious in the practice than they were. I
failed to look within and kept looking at others. Once when
practitioners from Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore got together at
Hyderabad to meet, this part of my personality was more visible. One of
the practitioners from Hyderabad in a group discussion once got very
upset with me saying, "Tony, we know you read a lot, don't keep
referring to the book". I was calm at his outburst and could actually
be compassionate at his state. The other practitioners present there
did not like his behavior and saw it more from my side, because I had
the capacity to forbear. Looking back it was obvious to me that the
outburst pointed out my show-off mentality and my acting better and
superior than others.
In 2002, Susie decided to come to India and stay here for six months.
Her trip here was for us both to make a decision about our future
together besides her doing HongFa activities wherever possible. Every
day we spent together was a unique one for me. To sum it up the entire
six months she spent in India was for me a big test of my endurance
with trials and tribulations in abundance along the way. Susie and I
were married on 12/09/2002 in the court of the City Magistrate in
Noida, India. My sisters attended the wedding from my family. I was
fortunate that there were practitioners from India, Taiwan and
Australia and a few of my close friends at the wedding. In the
mid-nineties I had seen Susie's smiling face and laughter through my
third eye or Tianmu. All this had proved true and it manifested in
reality. We both had a predestined relationship, we had to meet in this
manner. Falun Dafa and Teacher brought us together.
In the last week of December, we both went to the US embassy to file my
papers for immigration. The interview went off smoothly with the
immigration officer. I got my immigration visa after a period of three
months. My family members were not happy to see me go, but inwardly I
could tell they all wished well for me. I was getting on with my life.
The evening of the flight arrived and I bid farewell to my family
members, my parents, my sisters and my brother. It seems just like
yesterday when I remember them standing there in the front porch of the
house seeing me go, with tears in their eyes. After spending thirty
nine years of my life in the country of my birth, India, I was about to
begin the next part of the journey of my life in the USA.
Some of my Cultivation Experiences in the USA
I arrived in Boston, USA on the 1st of July, 2003. My wife,
Susie had come to the airport to receive me with Anna. After getting
over the initial shock of leaving my country and coming to another
country where everything seemed different as if I was on another
planet, I started participating immediately by accompanying other
practitioners and standing on a float and doing exercises in the 4th
July parade in Winslow, Maine. The first month and a half passed by and
I tried to get used to the new environment as best as I could. There
were many practitioners in the New England region and the cultivation
environment was good, with practitioners getting together 2 to 3 times
a week to read Fa together.
The first Falun Dafa Conference I attended was the 2003 Fa Hui in
Washington, DC. There were over 5000 practitioners. I was happy and
felt privileged to be in the midst of so many practitioners. In the
conference, revered Teacher came and taught Fa to the practitioners.
The whole conference hall seemed different when he walked in. I felt
that we were all part of him and that I was like a little child being
looked after by Teacher. I understood there that these conferences were
not ordinary gatherings. They were totally supernormal and sacred.
I got a sales job in an electronics retail chain in the last week of
August 2003. The next few months, I worked and tried my best to settle
down in this country. My wife also had a full time job. In my job, I
would try to clarify the truth to customers, Chinese or Western as and
when it was appropriate. I would try to maintain a righteous state
while working, though it was easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle
of sales. I quickly found out that even though I was by no means an
electronics expert, after a couple of months I had no problem in
becoming good at the job. I did not have to exert much on the floor as
sales would come to me. Every day at work, I would always try to be my
best. In a job like mine when one deals with a lot of people every day
the competitive mentality shows up easily and I recognize it all the
time when it shows up, but I treat the job like a job even though I am
a practitioner.
Once when I was clarifying the truth to a young Chinese man about the
persecution in my store after I had helped him, I said a few strong
words about the persecution and the evil vile nature of the CCP. There
apparently was a communication gap and the customer was not pleased. He
asked my name from the other associate on the way out and walked out. I
shrugged the incident off. The next day when I walked in the store, my
store manager informed me that I had been taken off the schedule and
could not work till I had a meeting with the District Manager. The
young Chinese man had complained to the corporate office in Fort Worth,
Texas about me and so this action was taken against me. I got a jolt at
this development. Though at the time I did not care whether I would be
fired or not, I felt that this was very unjust and I had to clear
myself. I spoke about this with other practitioners about this for
their feedback and advice. After keeping me waiting for about a week, I
was granted a meeting with the District Manager. The meeting was very
cordial and he heard my side of the story. I denied the incorrect
interpretations which the Chinese man had leveled against me. He also
showed me a hand written letter full of fabricated lies and
exaggerations against me that had come into the office. It looked like
a woman's handwriting and I said that to him. I clarified the truth to
the DM. I thought he believed me completely. He advised me to be more
careful in the future and not get proactive on this while at work. He
also made the correct observation that the persecution will continue
till a new regime is there in China. This was in mid-2004 and the "Nine
Commentaries" had not been published yet. The DM then spoke with the
store manager while I was there. I was reinstated with immediate effect
and with full pay for the hours I had lost while not at work. I
realized there how powerful the effect was in clarifying the truth and
the tremendous effect of the righteous support of fellow practitioners.
During the great Manhattan project in New York which to my mind had the
effect of clarifying the truth to the entire world, one day when I was
standing in New York on an assigned street to the practitioners from
Boston, distributing flyers, brochures and talking to people, I
received a call from a fellow practitioner. I answered the phone and
the practitioner on the other end said, "Tony, have you heard about
your father?" I asked him to repeat and I heard the same words again. I
wondered why anyone from India would or could contact him about my
father. I had a sudden thought that maybe my father had died or
something had happened to him. It took me a couple of seconds to
compose myself and I asked him again what had happened. There was a lot
of noise around and then I heard him say, "Have you heard about your
apartment?" I then understood what had happened because my wife had
already received a call from the practitioner who stays on the third
floor of the building where I live about the electrical fire caused and
the damage to the bathroom. It was not serious and was under control.
Ordinarily if someone had said something like this about any of my
family members, before I had entered Dafa, I would be in deep shock for
some time and would not even be able to react properly. My thought at
that moment was something like, "Well, I am standing here clarifying
the truth in this period of time, if he has gone, well, let me see how
best I can handle this." I was being tested for sure. I realized again
that so much had been done for me by Teacher, a lot of my fears and
anger within had been eliminated.
After being in a few practices before Dafa and practicing Dafa for
about two and a half years before coming to the States, I thought that
there were many attachments I had overcome along the way. This was not
the case however as after I came here and became exposed to this
culture and the new environment, many of my attachments came out and I
failed a number of xinxing tests along the way. I understood a little bit why this happened after reading Teacher's lectures especially the lecture from the Fa Hui in Singapore
1998 and the lecture from the more recent Fa Hui in Washington DC. Also
I was not reading enough Fa everyday and not maintaining a righteous
state of mind as much as possible. My uncultivated parts were coming
out and being pushed out from the deep inside so I could temper and
upgrade myself. The sad part was the inability to overcome some of
these tests even though I was mostly in charge of my main
consciousness. Whether it was competitive mentality, greed, lust,
jealousy, laziness, looking at others and failing to look within, fame
and self interest, show off mentality, not having as much consideration
of other people as required, inability to struggle and endure, being
complacent and not urgent enough and various other attachments, I could
see them all dancing in front of me and sucking me in. I know that I am
such a small pitiful person when I am not strict enough with myself and
let myself get overcome with these filthy human attachments. This
place, Earth is a dirty enough place anyway without me having to add
karma to myself and not preserving my good things.
I am perhaps the only practitioner who wears a turban in North America,
so this became a topic of discussion among practitioners and an issue
for some practitioners. Even though I was born in a Sikh family, since
I obtained Dafa, I have not read the Sikh scriptures or any other for
that matter. I think that I am clear about 'Practicing Only One
Cultivation Way'. I could visit a Sikh temple if I wanted, but I have
never felt the desire or entered one since I came here in the States.
Teacher has said in the book and in his lectures according to my
understanding that in cultivation we only look at the person's heart
and mind. I have been wearing the turban for over 22 years now and the
smaller version of that, the patka, eight years before that. For a
total of 30 years, I have been covering my hair and it has become a
habit, a comfortable habit. Practitioners have said that people think
that I am a Sikh when they see me in HongFa activities or practicing
exercises. I don't think that it is a problem for it only symbolizes
the diversity of Dafa where people from different faiths, backgrounds
can practice. Practitioners have told me that there are things in the
'other dimensions' that I cannot see. I agree, I cannot see and I
believe them too. For some time now, I had developed the thought that I
am not making any progress in my cultivation and something needs to be
done. On August 10, this year, I made a sudden decision, took a scissor
and started cutting my hair. I called my wife over who remarked, "what
are you doing, stop, let's go to a barber, he will do it properly." Not
wanting to get distracted in any way, I kept cutting till it was short
enough for the barber to finalize it. My wife and I then walked down
the street and I received my first hair cut of my life. This was the
first important step I took to overcome this deep rooted habit of mine.
I remembered the issue of eating meat in Lecture 7, where in my
understanding when Teacher talks of eating or not eating meat, the key
is whether you can abandon the attachment. One can eat meat after one
does not eat meat for some time and is unaffected. The same could be, I
think for a piece of cloth like a turban, it may not matter whether I
wear it or not, the key is whether I can abandon the attachment. I have
tried to understand it from this principle. There is an inner
resistance in taking it off, a feeling of nakedness when I would walk
around without the turban. There is also admittedly the smugness within
to be the only one with a turban and the desire to be unique and
different. In time, I will take the next step.
Taking responsibility and assisting for this Fa conference was also a
conscious effort on my part to try and improve and be more diligent. I
reasoned it out, that to help out for an important event like a Fa Hui
would require me to be a certain way and might enable me to push myself
in a forward direction. I have also tried to step out and practice more
outside in recent times so more people can learn about Dafa. Teacher
has been most merciful all along and I have been given chance after
chance to improve. After obtaining Dafa, I have never felt the need or
urge to look elsewhere, such has been the enormous power of Teacher and
Dafa. Since the year 2000, I have always tried to validate Dafa where
ever possible. I can also say that my total and unconditional belief in
Teacher and Dafa never diminished. I will strive to be diligent in
doing the three things well and march forward. This is a solemn promise
I make to myself and to all of you here.
Let us all walk this magnificent path together and fulfill our eternal promises.
