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Using Other Practitioners as Role Models Hurts Them As Well as Ourselves

Jan. 12, 2008 |   By Huang Sang, a Falun Dafa practitioner in Shandong Province

(Clearwisdom.net) Worshiping the efforts of other people is a manifestation of self-pity and a lack of a strong main consciousness. Teacher has warned us on many occasions that there are no role models for cultivation; every practitioner must walk his/her own path. But some people just like to worship the efforts of others. Whether it be a local assistant, someone who has escaped illegal arrest or imprisonment, someone who is more educated, someone who is more knowledgeable, or someone who has certain skills, some of us blindly obey and follow these people, and that, I feel, is wrong. Of course, we should learn from others, but we shouldn't follow others blindly.

There was a new practitioner who had dramatic physical improvements after she started practicing Falun Dafa. It made a big impact on non-practitioners around her. It was a good thing indeed and could have helped save more people. However, quite a few practitioners became misguided and started worshiping her. They used this new practitioner as their role model for everything. At the same time they became very attached to the idea that "Dafa can eliminate illness."

Nobody pointed out this attachment to the new practitioner or helped her to get rid of it. Later, she failed to maintain righteous thoughts. She was confronted with illness karma and was taken advantage of by the old forces; she passed away. This had a negative effect on the local environment. Besides the issue of this practitioner herself, one of the main reasons the old forces took advantage of her was the praise and worship from fellow practitioners, as well as their attachment to the wonders of her previous recovery.

Every practitioner knows that matter and mind are one thing, and that thoughts generated by the human brain have actual substance. Every thought a practitioner has is powerful. When one has righteous thoughts, the substance generated is pure. The energy he/she emits is powerful enough to destroy anything in the universe that is not righteous.

However, stray thoughts and human attachments also produce matter. If such thought or attachment is directed toward another practitioner, it could enlarge that person's attachment and human desire. When one person thinks like that, two people think like that, or more people think so, then a large amount of impure matter is sent toward this practitioner, and results in more tribulations and difficulties for him or her. It could make his/her test harder, and it might even destroy that person. Therefore, when a person has bad thoughts, not only can it interfere with his own cultivation, it can also interfere with other practitioners' xinxing. Isn't this problem very serious?

If everyone could follow Teacher's words in Teaching Fa to Australian Practitioners, if everyone is rational, controls one's main conscience, uses the Fa as the standard for everything including one's behavior, then blindly following others would not happen among practitioners.

These are my personal understanding, please correct me if you find anything wrong.