Falun Gong founder Mr. Li Hongzhi’s article “How Humankind Came To Be” offers original spiritual understanding outside organized religions, readers say. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, encourages adherents to live by the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, and teaches meditative exercises.
“It’s about time people started voicing the truths from a different perspective than religion,” Mary Bevan, a Utah resident, told The Epoch Times. “I felt it was a good article emanating the same truths that Jesus propagated and people misinterpreted. And it’s just basic, and it’s about time the world woke up to that.”
Bevan, a 73-year-old public school substitute teacher, said she had studied the hexagrams and I Ching—an ancient Chinese divination text known as the “Book of Changes”—for 20 years. But, to her, this knowledge, in the intersection of science and spirituality, has nothing to do with religion.
She said that Mr. Li’s article resonated with her as truth. “There are basic truths that have to be taught before you can live with what that article is implying, or not implying, but actually stating,” she said, adding that karma and reincarnation were two such concepts she called “hidden reality from the mainstream religions or the Western culture.”
She said if children were taught karma and reincarnation, they would learn, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
‘Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance’
Debi Preston, 59, said he “really, really loved” Mr. Li’s article. “The most important thing is truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, especially of what’s going on today,” she told The Epoch Times. “It’s palpable what’s going on with people.
“You can see their anger, which comes out of frustration, because they’re basically focusing on the things that they have to do that are very difficult now for them to do, like buying groceries, or buying gas, or dealing with the school system. I mean, people are just so involved and all that, and I think they forget what’s really, truly important is God’s grace.”
The Florida resident found Falun Gong’s tenants of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance reflected in Mr. Li’s article: “And in this place that is devoid of truth, they could, by holding fast to the higher truths taught by God and persevering in goodness and kindness, achieve the elevation of their souls.”
She said truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance didn’t come across as slogans. It’s actionable to her, she added, saying that anyone can use them in how they behave. “I don’t think it’s just a slogan. I think it’s a way of life. Health-wise, it’s very beneficial as well.”
Over the past 23 years, millions of Falun Gong adherents have been held in labor camps, mental asylums, drug rehabilitation centers, unofficial black jails, or other detention facilities. However, the followers’ peaceful resistance to the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution persisted. Many attributed their courage to stay steadfast to their beliefs and the power of faith.
Preston said she believes “even though you go through really hard times, you still have to keep your joy in your faith.” And Mr. Li’s article solidified these thoughts of hers.
She considers herself a Christian but doesn’t care for religion. “Manmade religion is not really my thing.” “The church wants to tell you what to believe in. So it’s all interpretation.” She added that some religious texts were even an interpretation of another interpretation.
Yet, Mr. Li’s article came across to Preston as an original, not an interpretation. “I thought it was almost from a higher calling, a power that he could see and put into practice that would help people be open,” she added.
“I love how he [Mr. Li] defined the planes that people are in—the hardest and the lowest is where you go through all the suffering to try to get through this to get to heaven,” she said.
