“Is it just me?” he thought. After reading the article, Mr. Ranck, who works in mergers and acquisitions, realized he was not alone in the world. Far from it, as Falun Gong, the spiritual discipline founded by Mr. Li, has been spread to more than 100 countries around the world since it was made public in the 1990s.
In fact, many readers of the article have experienced exactly what Mr. Ranck felt.
A Small, Small Drop
The article describes the stages of life and the universe, and the topic struck a chord with many readers.Rosina Yriart, a retired pilot, said as a Christian, she could see the process described in the article clearly.
“Nobody knows when the end times will come, but it seems to be near, because of all the wrongdoing,” Ms. Yriart said. “There’s no respect for life ... killing, being inhuman, we can’t continue on this path and expect to survive. So unless we change course—there are signs that the end is near.”
To this, hopelessness is one response. It might even be easy to feel that even if one is a good person, it will not have an impact. For several readers, however, the reminder pointed out in the article only served to stir their compassion and strengthen their faith.
“I think in the core, us humans, we believe we were created in God’s image. Truly, we believe we are spiritual beings,” Ms. Yriart said. “I love the idea of stressing compassion. Seeking the truth—imagine that!”
In a world where people are bombarded with media and culture that turns them away from God, Ms. Yrirat said she felt optimism in learning about Falun Gong. As a grandmother, she has been disheartened to see the way organized religions turn young people away from spirituality, and modern culture prevent them from learning about God. But when she read the article, she was inspired to take a line from it for her 15-year-old granddaughter’s birthday card, and the way the young woman’s expression turned thoughtful upon reading it made Ms. Yriart realize this was a way forward.
“[Falun Gong] could bring in the spirituality that we so dearly need in attracting young people,” she said. “It seems to give people an opportunity to become better people. To become compassionate, how important is that? It’s a simple way of teaching spirituality without the complexity of big rituals. ... You become a superior person where you understand us, and our relationship to the universe.”
Reading the article made her “hungry for more,” Ms. Yriart said.“What kind of meditation? What kind of practices? Now I’m going to do a little research.”
Spirituality and religion have been important to Ms. Yriart all her life; she tried her best to attend church every Sunday and listened to Mass on the radio when she could not. She came to the United States for the Constitution, only to see churches being closed for political reasons in recent years. Learning about Falun Gong gave her hope that a “spiritual revival” in society is within grasp. She shared it with a friend of hers who replied to tell her she would need to read it at least three times.
“There is a superior being, there is a Creator, and we cannot just keep ignoring that in society,” she said. “Then that makes us better people. Then we’re not the biggest, strongest, smartest creatures in the universe.”
“We certainly need spirituality if we are to survive as a civilization, that is my view,” she said. “I was very grateful that the article was published.”
Thomas Brandow, a grandparent as well, said his first takeaway was the same: “Be good to other people.”
Mr. Brandow and his wife support their three professional high-performance ice skating grandchildren, and live in a small community that he described as “close to rural.” He retired early, and they now live quiet lives and just “watch the world go by.”
For him, the article reaffirmed his faith in his mission, no matter how small others may think it.
“If you connect to the universe in a way, you’re a small, small drop, but you still have a mission,” he said. Mr. Brandow said it resonated with his deep belief that “we’re all souls, and having to get through the grind of what life on earth represents.”
“I don’t think it should be a party, I think there is a grind to surviving day in and day out and being in service to you, your family, and your community,” he said. “That grind on earth, it’s not only the accountability day to day, but for that soul you’re carrying around as well.”
Mr. Ranck felt the article also gave clarity to his mission on earth.
He shared that he had a rough childhood, and previously would have thought about why that had to happen to him.
“But maybe this is my test. Maybe I gave myself that test,” he said. He felt he had lived other lives before, and that he, his soul, came to earth deliberately. “I feel that either I put myself here and this is a test, and I’m here to grow, to be good, rather than just try to do something here.”
Old Souls
A more widely held belief in the East, reincarnation can be a foreign concept to people in the West. It is generally defined as the rebirth of an existing soul in a new body.The article also put into words what many readers said they could only previously describe as some sort of feeling, dreams, deja vu, a “tap on the shoulder,” or other mysterious things they could not define.
“I’ve always understood there was something bigger and brighter,” said Mr. Brandow. “I grew up on the Great Lakes and I sat on the shoreline looking up in the sky a lot, and it just opens your curiosity.”
“Even as a kid, and my brothers and I used to experience this a lot, we‘d look at each other going ’something tells me we’ve been here before,’ and we knew we‘d never been here,” Mr. Brandow said. “But then we’d find out that great-great-great-grandpa used to be captain of a ship that used to tie up at the stack where we were standing, and we didn’t know that.”
“I always think of it as that ’tap on the shoulder‘ that says that ’hey, we’re watching you,'” he said.
Even coming to read the article was a “tap on the shoulder” moment, Mr. Brandow recounted. He'd been renovating the house, and a song called “The Wheel of Karma” was on loop in the background. Suddenly, he felt a pressure in his head as if telling him to “pay attention.” Not long after, he saw the translated article as soon as it was posted, where it noted that the translation for “Falun” was “The Law Wheel.” The little instance prompted him to share the story as well as the article with a friend of his, also an “old soul.”
Arthur Glenn Maynard, a broker in the finance and insurance industry, says his whole life has been a long and intensive study of religions and philosophy, sometimes through his own study, sometimes from conversations with friends and acquaintances with widely varied spiritual backgrounds, and sometimes by the way of his own lived experience—in this lifetime or a past one.
“I am and have always known that I am an old soul. I can remember several of my past lifetimes for thousands of years, one of those many lifetimes was in China, the eastern part of China, Imperial in nature,” he said. Mr. Maynard isn’t the only one; his friend and martial arts teacher can remember similar experiences, and the two of them knew each other as warriors several lifetimes ago. Mr. Maynard and his son were father and son centuries back on the Scottish highlands as well.
And the purpose of these many lifetimes was something described in the article, Mr. Maynard said, of “going through lifetimes and working through the process of ascension.”
“And what is key to Mr. Li’s article is his discussion of karma, and how a person lives their life, and the deeds they take, and the manner in which they take the matters of reality on earth, and the corruption on earth,” he said. “It’s clear to me that this is my purpose in my lifetime.”
“I have been saying for over 20 years to my life, I am here for atonement, and I can do no harm to anyone. Every action that I take must be positive in interaction with others, because I am here to put away stuff that happened in past lifetimes,” Mr. Maynard said. “And when I read Mr. Li’s article, it was like he’s just said what I’ve been thinking for 20 years.”
“I run my business and my life on the premise that I am here to do no harm, that I am here to improve the human condition, and that that is an atonement. Just as Mr. Li stated,” he said. “And so when Mr. Li’s article came across my desk, I read it five times. I passed it to certain friends ... Mr. Li is a profound speaker.”
Mr. Ranck also felt the article’s contents, and the reincarnation it describes, holds this reminder for him to better himself.
“I know I’ve been here before,” Mr. Ranck said. “I also think I’m going to be somewhere else when this is all over.”
“I existed before my birth, and after my birth I’m going to go somewhere else, and this is just a temporary place that I’m at,” he said. “We’re here for a reason.”
