The Inner Eye^*

The inner eye (tian-mu) is something that many spiritual teachers have spoken of. However, it should be remembered that the Way reveals itself according to each person’s level of spiritual attainment. And so any individual will only be able to see things that correspond to his stage of progress; higher realities will neither be visible to him nor believable. And so he may think that what he sees, at his level, is absolutely true. And until he has reached higher realms himself, through practice, it will be hard for him to imagine that still higher things exist or are possible. So his level of attainment acts as a limiting factor, as it limits his realm of thought. And this accounts for why there are such widely divergent explanations of the inner eye, which makes things confusing. And so far nobody has explained it very well. This shouldn’t be surprising, though, because the inner eye isn’t something that can be explained well by those at a low stage of attainment. The structure of the inner eye used to be considered the secret of secrets and not something to disclose to the uninitiated, so little has been revealed about it throughout history. I am not going to go into past ideas about it, but instead, will use modern science and the simplest, current language possible to explain it. I will get to the heart of it.

When we use the term “inner eye,” we are actually referring to the spot a little bit higher than the midpoint between your eyebrows, which is connected to your pineal gland. This is its main channel. There are many eyes throughout the body, and in Daoist thought it’s believed that each aperture of the body can be an eye. Daoists call the acupuncture points of the body apertures, while in Chinese medicine they’re called acupuncture points, or “acupoints” for short. Buddhist thought holds that each pore of the skin can be an eye. And this would help explain why there have been people who could decipher words with their ears, hands, the back of the head, or even their feet or stomachs. All of these are possible.

Before going into the inner eye further, let’s first talk about the pair of physical eyes that we as humans have. Nowadays there are people who believe that their eyes can see all that there is to this objective, material world. And so some people stubbornly believe that only what the naked eye can see is real. They don’t believe in the unseen. People like this used to be regarded as “having little faith,” though now people might have a hard time explaining exactly what faith has to do with it. After all, it sounds sensible enough—not believing in the invisible. But it doesn’t seem very sensible to the beings at even just the next higher plane of existence. Other worlds of existence are just as material and real as this one, only their physical makeup and how lives appear there are different.

Let me illustrate it. Spiritual traditions have taught that the phenomena of the human world are illusory, or not real. But how so, one might wonder? Who would say that a solid object right in front of you is not real? The way that objects appear is different from how they actually are. But our eyes have the ability to stabilize the appearance of objects in this dimension so that they look as they do. But that isn’t in fact their true state, not even in this dimension. For example, what would a person look like under magnification? The whole body would seem loosely comprised, with molecules moving all about that are small and round, like grains of sand. Electrons would be orbiting around atomic nuclei and in motion, with the entire body pulsing and moving. And the surface of the body would be irregular, not smooth. The same holds true for any object in the universe—even iron, steel, and stone. The molecules that make up all things are moving, only you can’t see the full picture. Nothing is in fact static. Even this table before me is moving, only our eyes can’t perceive the reality of it. Our eyes can mislead us.

It’s not that we cannot see what is invisible, that we are incapable of it. We have an innate ability to perceive realms invisible to the naked eye, up to a certain point. But precisely because of our eyes from this physical dimension, we are given a false picture of reality and unable to see beyond. And so, traditionally, it’s been said that those who don’t believe in the invisible have, as religious believers put it, “little faith”—for they have been misled by the false appearances of this world and become lost here. People of faith have long seen it this way, and it makes sense from our perspective.

Yet these eyes serve to do little more than stabilize the things in this physical dimension so that they appear as they do. The images that we see don’t actually take shape in our eyes. Rather, our eyes are just like a piece of equipment, similar to a camera lens. When a camera is used to capture a distant image, the lens will extend, just as our eyes will adjust for distances; or our pupils will dilate under dark conditions, similar to how the aperture of a camera expands in poor lighting to ensure adequate exposure. And conversely, our pupils shrink when we walk outside into bright light so that we won’t experience a blinding glare. And the principle is the same for a camera, as the aperture has to similarly contract when flooded with light. So a camera merely captures the image of an object. It’s just a tool. When we see the form of a person or an object, it is actually in the brain that the image takes shape. The image merely enters through the eyes and then is relayed by the optic nerve to the pineal gland, in the rear part of the brain. And it is in this area that it is rendered into an image. This suggests that when an image is rendered and we see something, it actually happens in the region of the pineal gland. Modern medical science has also come to realize this.

We believe that opening the inner eye is a matter of bypassing the optic nerve and opening up a channel between the eyebrows that allows the pineal gland to see outward directly. Some people may think this isn’t realistic, and will object that the physical eyes play an important role, since they capture the images of things, and we couldn’t get by without them. But the medical sciences have discovered through dissection that the frontal portion of the pineal gland has the full structure of the human eye. They take it to be a vestigial eye since it grows inside the skull. Those of us engaged in spiritual practice may have reservations about that interpretation, but, whatever the case, the sciences have come to understand that in the center of the cranium there is an eye. The channel that we open goes precisely to that location. So this is anatomically consistent. And this eye won’t present you with a false picture of reality, as our normal eyes do. It can see past the appearances of things and affairs to perceive them as they really are. Someone whose inner eye has opened at a high level can see beyond this dimension into other space-times, and perceive what is invisible to ordinary people. And if the eye is at a level not that high, it may still have powers like the ability to see through walls and into the body.

Buddhist thought holds that there are five levels of mastery in this regard, namely, mastery of the naked eye, the celestial eye, the wisdom eye, the dharma eye, and the divine eye. These are the five major levels of the inner eye, and each is additionally divided into upper, middle, and lower levels. In Daoist thought there are nine times nine, or eighty-one, levels of spiritual vision. While we will open the inner eye for all of you here, we won’t open it to the plane of celestial eye or below. The reason is, though you have begun spiritual refinement as you sit here, you have only just begun to leave your ordinary self behind, and still have many worldly attachments to let go. Were your eye to be opened at the level of celestial eye or below, you would have what are commonly known as psychic powers and would be able to see through walls or see inside people’s bodies. It would seriously disrupt this world and its ways if we were to impart such powers on a large scale, opening the eye like that for everyone. State secrets might be at risk; clothes would do little to cover people; you could observe people inside their own homes from outside their walls; and you could spot the winning ticket in any prize drawing. These things would really be a problem. It would change the face of this world if everyone were to enjoy celestial vision, wouldn’t it? Anything that seriously disrupts the human world is strictly prohibited, however. Were I to indeed open your eye like that, you might turn right into a chi-gong “master”—something that you might have once longed for. And with your open inner eye you would now be in perfect position to do healings. I would be leading you down the road to ruin, in that case.

Then to what level will I open the eye for you? Straight to the level of wisdom eye. Were it opened higher, your character wouldn’t suffice; were it opened lower, it might severely impact the way of the world. But by opening it to wisdom eye there is no risk of your seeing through walls or into people’s bodies, since it hasn’t that capacity. You will be able to see things in other dimensions, however. The benefit of this is that it can strengthen your faith in the practice. You will actually be seeing things that are invisible to others, and will be able to sense that they are real. So whether you have clear visions or not, your eye is being opened to the wisdom level, to the benefit of your spiritual development. Those who are sincere in their practice of Dafa and strict about bettering their character will experience what I’ve described by reading this book.

So what determines the level of someone’s inner eye normally? Not everything becomes visible to the inner eye once it is opened. Rather, it depends on what the eye’s level is. Three factors determine this. The first factor is what we refer to as an essential energy. This energy fills the range of space spanning from the inside of the inner eye to the outside, and it is needed for the eye to see. Its function is similar to that of the screen in a television set: the screen, which has phosphors on it, is what allows the television to display images; without it the television would amount to little more than a light bulb. It is the phosphors that make pictures possible. The analogy isn’t perfect, of course. We see things directly, while the images on a television are mediated by a screen. You can get the general idea, though. The essential energy I’m describing is exceptionally valuable, as it is refined from virtue and something of utmost quality. Most everyone has a different amount of it; only two out of every ten thousand people might have equal amounts of it.

The level of your inner eye is a direct result of the workings of the Way. It has a spiritual dimension to it and is closely connected to one’s character. Someone of poorer character will have a lower level of inner eye. That’s because his poor character will have cost him more of his essential energy. By contrast, someone of excellent character will go through life without getting caught up in worldly things like status and money, interpersonal disputes, self-interest, or feelings and desires, and so his essential energy is likely to have been preserved better. So once his inner eye is opened he will see with greater clarity. Children who are six or younger have lucid visions after their eyes are opened, which is easily done. One sentence is all it takes.

The human world has a strong corrupting influence on people, and its powerful currents are hard to resist. Under its sway, people often confuse right and wrong. It’s natural to want to have a good life, but that tendency can lead one to deprive others or become more selfish; and one might gain at other people’s expense, take advantage of them, or harm them. But vying and fighting for one’s own gain surely goes against the nature of the universe. So, what people consider right isn’t necessarily right. Parents often teach their kids to “be a little smarter” so that they will make it in life, in a worldly sense. But being “smart” like that is wrong in view of the universe. We believe in letting things take their course and worrying little about how things will turn out for us, whereas someone who has learned to really be clever will always try to come out on top. He might have been taught [to not let things go, and] that if any kid crosses him, to “get them in trouble” with teachers or parents, and to “pocket any money” he sees lying around. And the more he learns such things growing up, the more selfish he becomes in life. And his mistreatment of people will cost him virtue.

When virtue, which is physical, is lost, it doesn’t simply dissolve. It undergoes a transformation and is given to the party that was wronged; one’s essential energy, however, does dissolve in such cases. Someone who is cunning from his childhood up into adulthood, and is very selfish and always puts himself first, will usually find that his inner eye doesn’t work, or work well, after it is opened. But that doesn’t mean it will never work. That’s because we seek to return to our original state of purity through spiritual practice, and the essential energy will be constantly replenished and restored for us as we keep practicing. So your character is vital to all of this, and we stress that your entire person must improve and elevate. As your character is perfected, all things will improve in kind. But if your character doesn’t change for the better, your essential energy, which powers your inner eye, won’t be replenished. You should be able to see the connection now.

There is also a second factor to explore. Some people might find, if their innate foundation is good, that their eye opens when they are practicing, even if on their own. It’s often frightening when the inner eye first opens. The reason is, people usually choose to meditate or do energy exercises late at night, when all is still. They will be practicing away when suddenly a large eye appears before them, out of nowhere, giving them a scare. It’s frightening enough that it scares them away from practicing again. It’s incredibly unsettling—such a large eye, blinking and looking at them, and all of it so vivid. This has led to its being called by some “the Devil’s eye,” though others call it “the Divine eye.” But this eye, in fact, belongs to you. Remember that one only needs to worry about putting in the effort of spiritual practice, and the rest is in the hands of one’s teacher. The elaborate process of developing higher energy for a practitioner all takes place in other dimensions. And not just in one dimension, but in all dimensions associated with the person; his body will be undergoing changes in each. That’s obviously not something you could do. These things are in the hands of one’s teacher; it is he who does them. And this is why it’s said that one only needs to focus on practicing and one’s teacher will handle the rest. It is actually he who handles things, whatever you might hope or try to accomplish.

So some people experience the opening of the inner eye while practicing on their own. While we do consider it to be an eye that belongs to them, it’s not something a person can develop himself. What happens is that a person’s teacher, for those who have one, will develop for them something called a “true eye” once he sees that their inner eye is open. Or in other cases, as you might imagine, the person may not have a permanent master but one in passing. There is a religious belief that higher beings are so abundant as to be omnipresent, or everywhere. It has also been thought that spirits are so numerous as to be right beside you. So a passing-by master might take an interest in someone after seeing that he has practiced well and has an open inner eye, but just lacks a true eye. And so a true eye gained in this fashion does count as a result of the person’s own practice. Beings like these are far superior to any worldly role models or heroes, for they are motivated solely by compassion and a wish to save people from this world; so they give of themselves freely, without terms, and have no thought of being rewarded or recognized for it.

The first time someone’s inner eye opens, his human eyes may be overwhelmed by light and bothered by it. Yet it’s not the eyes that are finding it harsh, but the pineal gland. It only feels as though it’s the eyes that are bothered. This happens when the person doesn’t yet have the true eye; the eyes won’t be bothered by light once the true eye has been bestowed. A portion of us will be able to sense or see the true eye. Its nature is the same as the universe’s, and so it is innocent and inquisitive, and will look inward to see whether your inner eye has opened and can be used to see. It will stare inward at you. If your inner eye has opened, you might unexpectedly catch sight of the true eye staring at you, and be startled by it. But it is actually a part of you now. And it will be this eye that enables you to see into other realms thereafter. Without it you would have no visions, even with an opened inner eye.

Then there is a third factor, which really makes a difference in which level your inner eye is working at; namely, the changes that take place in you across dimensions as you progress in spiritual attainment. When people see through their inner eye, they make use of not only a primary passageway, but also many sub-passageways. Buddhist thought holds that each pore of the body can be an eye, just as Daoist thought believes that each aperture, or acupuncture point, of the body can be an eye. What they mean is that this is possible with a kind of altered bodily state brought about by the Way, where one can see from anywhere in the body.

But we hold that there is still more to the inner eye’s level. There are also several major sub-passageways in addition to the main passageway I mentioned, and these are above the eyebrows, above and below the eyelids, and at the Mountain Root acupoint at the bridge of the nose. Breakthroughs in inner eye level are a matter of whether these passageways can be used. For a regular believer to be able to make use of these passageways is quite an achievement, of course. There are people who can use even their naked eyes to see realms beyond this one, after having developed various powers in them via spiritual practice. But if these powers aren’t utilized skillfully, the person will only see objects in one dimension but not in others, or only in other dimensions but not in ours, which isn’t ideal. And so some people will be using one eye for this dimension and the other eye for a dimension beyond this one. Now, this eye (the right eye) doesn’t have a sub-passageway beneath it, for reasons directly related to the Way: people tend to use the right eye for doing wrongful things. My remarks so far are about the main sub-passageways that people develop while at a point in their practice where they are still subject to the laws of the human realm.

At a highly advanced stage of practice, where one has gone beyond the human realm, a person can also develop a type of eye that resembles a compound eye. A large eye that spans the top half of the face can develop, with countless smaller eyes within it. And some divine ones who have reached very high planes have developed so many eyes that they are all throughout their faces. All of these eyes will see via the one, larger eye, and anything that is willed can be seen; all planes of existence can be seen with one look through this eye. The zoologists and entomologists who research flies have found, through microscopy, that flies have large eyes that are made up of countless smaller ones. And these are referred to as compound eyes. Something like this may come about when someone achieves an extremely high level of spiritual attainment, but it must be a level far surpassing that of tathagata. Regular people won’t be able to see these eyes, however, and nor will the typical practitioner be able to. Everything here will appear as normal, for the eyes are in another dimension. This should offer a sense for what happens when higher levels, or other dimensions, are broken through to.

For the most part I have explained the structure of the inner eye for you. We use an external force to open your inner eye, so it happens rather quickly and easily. Each of you should feel a tightening at your forehead as I explain the inner eye, as if the flesh there were pinching together and burrowing inward. You are sure to feel it. Each of you will sense it as long as you can really set your attachments aside and learn Falun Dafa. And the force that you will feel pushing inward should be strong. We are sending out an energy meant specifically to open your inner eye, and it is doing just that, while we also send out falun to repair it. While I teach about the inner eye we will open it for each of you, as long as you are practicing Falun Dafa. Not everyone will necessarily have clear visions, if any at all. This owes to things on your part. You needn’t be anxious, though. It’s not a big issue if you can’t see right now; it will gradually come with spiritual refinement. Visions will gradually come to you as you steadily progress, and they will evolve from being hazy to clear. As long as you go about the practice with a sincere commitment, all of what you may have lost before will be replenished.

It’s rather challenging for a person to open the inner eye on his own, by contrast. Let’s talk about the ways that it happens. One way involves gazing at the forehead, where the inner eye is, while meditating. At first the forehead will be dark for someone who does this, with nothing there. With time, however, the color will gradually become less dark. And as more time goes into the practice, the forehead gradually brightens until ultimately it takes on a red glow. At this time it will seem as if the forehead is blossoming, with a scene similar to how flower buds open almost instantly in nature films. The red part of the forehead, which originally appeared flat, will bulge suddenly in the center and bloom, again and again. If a person tries to work through this process all on his own, even eight or ten years might not be enough, for his entire inner eye would have started out being completely blocked up.

Some people’s inner eyes are not completely blocked and the person has an open passageway, but no energy is present there since they haven’t ever done spiritual exercises. So when they first start, something dark and round will suddenly appear before their eyes. With continued practice, it will gradually turn white, and grow progressively brighter, to the point that the eyes might be bothered by it. Some people may think that they’ve seen the sun or the moon. But what they saw was neither, in fact; it was actually their own passageway. Some individuals can see other realms as soon as they are given a true eye, as they make quick breakthroughs to new levels. But for others, seeing may prove to be difficult. As they move through the passageway they find that it’s like a tunnel, or perhaps a well, which they rush outward through whenever they do their exercises, or even as they sleep. The experience varies from person to person, and it could seem like anything from riding a horse to flying, running, or speeding along in a vehicle. But it will always seem as if the end can’t be reached. That owes to the fact that it’s really hard to open the inner eye on one’s own. Daoist thought [can help shed light on this, as it] considers the human body to be a micro universe, and if the body really is like that, then we can just imagine how far of a distance it would be from the forehead to the pineal gland. That would explain why some people feel as if they are always rushing forward along a passageway but never reaching the end.

The Daoist idea that the human body is a miniature universe is quite sound. The concept isn’t that the body’s composition and structure are like those of the universe; it’s not about the body in this physical dimension. To understand it, we should consider what the sciences now know the body to be like at a level beneath cells. They have found that there are a variety of molecules there, and smaller than molecules are atoms, protons, atomic nuclei, electrons, quarks, and neutrinos—with the latter being the smallest particles researched so far. But what is the smallest particle, ultimately? It’s really not something research can answer. The Buddha once remarked in his later years that the universe is both “infinitely large and infinitely small.” This suggests that even to a divine being such as he, the universe is at once so large that its perimeter can’t be seen, and so small that its tiniest particles can’t be made out. And this would be what led to his statement.    

The Buddha described the vastness of the universe through his teaching about multiple worlds. He explained that within the Milky Way galaxy of this universe there exist three thousand planets with beings who have carnal bodies similar to ours, and that even in a single grain of sand there exist a great many worlds. This would mean that a grain of sand is like a universe, with intelligent beings like man and worlds like ours, with mountains and rivers. This might sound rather far-fetched, I realize. But assuming it’s valid, you would expect to find sand once again in those smaller worlds, and then inside of it you would again expect to find still more worlds. And then in those worlds you would again expect to find sand, inside of which there would again be multiple worlds. It appeared endless even to the Buddha, with his level of spiritual attainment.

What was said about sand could also be said of people’s cells and their molecules. People wonder how large the universe is. I can tell you that this universe does have a boundary, though to a being at the Buddha’s level it would seem to go on forever, and be incomparably large. Although it may be hard to fathom, the interior of the human body, which spans from the molecular level to that of the tiniest of invisible particles that make up the body, is in fact equal to the universe in size. At the time of a person’s, or any life’s, creation, a composition unique to his being and his innate qualities will be formed in the most micro of realms. These sorts of things are well beyond the reach of modern science—a science which pales in comparison to that of the advanced life forms found on planets throughout the universe. Our science can’t even break through to other dimensions that exist at the same time and place as us, while the spacecraft of other planets can readily travel through different dimensions. Space and time are altogether different there from how we know them, and so those entities can come and go instantly—so fast that it’s hard for people to believe.

I am talking about this in conjunction with the inner eye because you might have had the sense, as you were rushing outward down your own passageway, that it stretched on forever. Some of you might have seen something different. You might have had the impression that you were not going down a tunnel but instead a road that is broad and never-ending, with mountains, waters, and cityscapes off to the sides. It sounds hard to imagine, I realize. The words of one master come to mind: that within just a single pore of your body a city may be found, with trains and vehicles moving about. Some people who heard this were taken aback, as it didn’t seem very believable to them. But consider this: what if research were to go further than just studying particles like molecules, atoms, and protons, and to reveal for us the plane of each such level, and not just any isolated particle—if we could see the plane of the molecular level, the atomic level, the proton level, and the atomic nucleus level—we would see how things really are in other dimensions. Any physical thing, including our bodies, exists in parallel to, and in connection with, various planes of other dimensions in the universe. The research done in modern particle physics merely studies particles in isolation by splitting them through fission, after which it looks to see what matter results from the breaking of the nucleus. If instead there were an instrument that could reveal to us all that exists at the plane of atoms or molecules, and give the entire picture, it would represent a breakthrough to another dimension, and we would be seeing the reality of that world. People’s bodies correspond to other dimensions, which are like I just described.

There are other things that might be experienced when a person opens the inner eye on his own. So far I’ve been discussing the fairly common ones. It’s less common for people to see that their inner eye is turning, but it does happen. This is most frequent in Daoist energy practices, where there is a tai-chi disc that has to be split open before the adherent can see things. But it’s not that the person had a tai-chi in his head. Rather, it was that his master, right at the outset, installed things for him that would make his practice possible, one of which was the tai-chi. His master would seal up his inner eye using the tai-chi. Then, when the time came for the inner eye to open, the tai-chi disc would be split apart. So, having it was part of his master’s designs for him, and it was not something originally in his head.

There is also a small segment of people who want to open their inner eye, but who only make it less likely the more they try. Yet they aren’t aware of what is happening. It doesn’t work out mainly because the inner eye isn’t something you should yearn for, and doing so will only make it less likely to open. Your inner eye won’t open if you long to have it. Instead, a certain greyish material will ooze out of the inner eye and cover it. And if it goes on for long, more and more of this material will leak out, covering a large area. And if you keep wanting the inner eye, even as it fails to open, more of this material will leak out, such that it might encase your entire body. It could even become dense and have a large presence to it. Even if you were to open your inner eye at that point, you still wouldn’t be able to see anything, since your eye would have become sealed up as a result of your attachment. That material will only start to break up and dissolve once you stop thinking about the inner eye and get rid of the attachment entirely. But you will have to go through a long and painful phase of practice to remove that material—a situation that never should have come about in the first place. Some people don’t realize any of this, though, and they repeatedly ignore warnings from their master to stop trying for the inner eye, and end up with the opposite of what they hoped for.

 

The Power of Clairvoyance

One extrasensory power that’s directly connected with the inner eye is clairvoyance. There is a person who has claimed that while seated in one location he could perceive things in Beijing, the United States, or on the other side of the world. It’s hard for people to know what to make of such claims, since there’s no science to support it. So they are left to wonder if it’s possible. There is no shortage of theories for it, but none are that convincing. Part of the problem is that they’ve been working under the assumption that it’s a superpower, which is not the case. People who are in the stage of spiritual practice where they are still subject to the laws of the human realm don’t have truly superhuman powers. What they see through clairvoyance or other powers occurs only within a certain dimension. The furthest reach of their abilities doesn’t exceed this physical dimension where we exist, and usually they don’t go beyond the dimensions associated with their own bodies.

One’s body has a field in a designated dimension. This field is not the same as that of virtue. They don’t occupy the same dimension, though their reach is the same. This field corresponds to the universe, so a mirror image of anything that exists in the universe could appear in it. But these are merely reflections of the real thing. For example, on this earth there is an America and a Washington, D.C., and so a mirror image of either could appear in your field, but they wouldn’t be the real thing. Still, though, these mirror images do physically exist. What appears in your field will change in keeping with what happens in the universe, since the two correspond. So what people call clairvoyance is a matter of viewing things that are present in the dimensions associated with one’s own body. But you won’t see in this manner once you have reached a stage in your practice that is beyond the human realm. You will perceive things directly then, and that is in fact a divine ability that is incomparably powerful.

Let’s take a look at how clairvoyance works during the stage of practice within the human realm. In the dimension where your field exists, there is a mirror at the position of the forehead. It is face-down for those who don’t practice, and turned over for those who do. When a person is about to gain clairvoyance the mirror starts to spin. As you may know, motion picture film looks fluid when viewed at a rate of twenty-four frames per second, while anything less than that gives a choppy feel. The mirror spins at a speed faster than twenty-four frames per second, capturing on its surface the images of whatever is in its trajectory, and turning over to let you see them. As it turns over again, any images that it had captured are erased. It does it again and again, non-stop—capturing images, turning, and erasing. And this is why what you see appears to be in motion. It allows you to see the things that it picks up from the dimensions associated with your body, and the images will be counterparts to actual things in the larger universe outside.

You might be wondering whether such a small mirror could manage to capture everything around one’s body. As we’ve established, when a person’s inner eye is open at a level beyond celestial vision and is about to attain wisdom vision, it is going to surpass this dimension. Right when the full breakthrough is imminent, a change will occur with the inner eye: it will no longer see the physical things of this dimension, be they objects, people, or even walls; they will all be gone. What happens, more specifically, is that when you probe more deeply with your vision in that other, designated dimension, your body will no longer be visible there. Only a mirror will be there, positioned in the space associated with your dimension. And this mirror, while in that space, will fill completely the space associated with your dimension. And that is why there is nothing that it can’t capture as it turns there. As long as what is in the space associated with your dimension corresponds to the universe, the mirror can capture it and reveal it fully to you. This is our take on clairvoyance.

Scientists who research extrasensory powers have a hard time verifying this ability. Here’s why. Suppose they want a clairvoyant to try to tell them what a certain person’s relative is doing while at home in Beijing. They provide the clairvoyant with the relative’s name and some general facts, and soon he begins to have a vision. He provides a description of the building, the path leading to the door, and how the room inside is furnished. And all of it is accurate. Then the researchers ask what the relative is doing, and the clairvoyant responds that the person is currently writing. To verify it, they pick up the phone and call the relative to find out. But he informs them that he had just been eating, which contradicts what the clairvoyant saw. Scenarios like this one have led people to dismiss the ability. But what’s confusing is that the clairvoyant’s account of the physical setting was flawless. All of this can be explained by the fact that there is a discrepancy in time between this dimension, or “space-time,” and the one where this power is. Time as we know it is different in the two places. In the scenario I described, as it turns out, the person’s relative was writing earlier, but was eating at the time of the call. So there was a time lag. If psi researchers keep basing their ideas and research on conventional theories, or current science, they aren’t going to get very far anytime soon. These phenomena reach beyond this world, and so there needs to be a change in thinking in order to understand them. People shouldn’t keep interpreting them as they have.

 

The Power of Knowing Fate

There is another power that shares a direct connection with the inner eye, which has been termed “the power of knowing fate.” Six extrasensory powers are now generally acknowledged in the world, among which are the inner eye, clairvoyance, and knowing fate. What the power of knowing fate refers to is the ability to know another person’s past or future. Someone whose power is well-developed may be able to foresee the rise and fall of a society; or if it’s particularly advanced, the laws of change governing all of the cosmos. All of this is possible with the power of knowing fate. That’s because there are certain principles at work regarding the movement of matter, and so objects that exist in a given dimension also exist simultaneously, in various forms, in many other dimensions. We can illustrate this by looking at what happens when a person moves his body. All of the cells of his body move when he does, and in invisible, micro realms, all of his molecules, protons, electrons, as well as the tiniest of his particles—all that he is made up of—move as well. Although each particle exists independently, the movement of each that happens here is reflected in his bodies in those other dimensions and realms.

Remember the law of the conservation of matter. Whatever a person does in this world has a physical reality in another, designated dimension; and this is true for even a simple gesture, like a swiping motion. Whatever one does will leave an image and information there. They are conserved in that dimension and will exist there forever. Those with psychic powers can know what took place in the past just by looking at the corresponding scenes that are still present there. One day, if you yourself have the power of knowing fate, you will be able to see the class we are holding here today, as it will still exist there; it is already there now. Right from the moment of birth, your entire life already exists elsewhere, in a special dimension where time as we know it doesn’t exist. And for some people more than one lifetime is there.

It might be hard for some people to come to terms with this, as it would mean that their striving to achieve things and to change their lives for the better amount to little. But indeed, the hard work that people put in can only change minor or little things in their lives. And in fact, it is precisely on account of all those efforts to change things that you may have made karma for yourself. If people’s efforts truly didn’t impact anything, there would be no chance of doing wrong in life, and it would be impossible to incur karma. When you force things to go your way it will be at someone else’s expense, and so you will have done wrong. This is why in spiritual practice it is always stressed that you should let things unfold naturally. You might end up harming people if it takes effort to get your way. You will incur a debt to them if you, through your efforts, end up seizing what was meant to be theirs.

Ordinary people can’t change their lives in any significant way, try as they may. The only exception is if they do nothing but evil and have no moral boundaries. But while that can change one’s life, what lies ahead is utter destruction. We can see from higher realms that the soul doesn’t perish when a person dies. How is that? Here’s what we have observed. The body of the deceased that’s placed in the morgue consists only of the cells of this dimension. The entire body, including all of its organs and tissues—that is, all of the cells in this dimension—has been shed. Yet in another dimension this person has a body made of particles smaller than molecules, atoms, or protons that is very much alive, and it lives on there, in that invisible and micro dimension. But what lies ahead for those who do relentless evil is the total disintegration of their cells on all levels, or what Buddhism has called “the perdition of body and soul.”

There is another way to change your life, and it is really the only way to go: to take up spiritual practice. But why would this enable your life to be changed? And who would have the power to do that? What makes it possible is that your intention to practice shines like gold and resonates with higher lives throughout the universe—or what in Buddhist thought is referred to as “ten directions of worlds.” This happens because being human, in the eyes of higher beings, is not the goal of human life. As they see it, your life originated in one of the dimensions out there in the universe, and shared in its qualities; it was good and kind, and imbued with the physical properties of zhen, shan, ren. It is only that as lives like these enter into community and interact with others, they might change for the worse and fall. And upon falling to a lower plane of existence, they might again change for the worse and be unable to stay, and so they fall to a plane still lower. This process of falling can repeat itself again and again, until ultimately they fall to this human world.

Any being that falls to this plane should have been destroyed or annihilated. Yet they have been spared by higher divinities who created this special dimension and human world, out of a great sense of compassion. Here, beings are given an additional, mortal body, along with a pair of eyes that are limited to seeing only this material world. So it’s as if these beings are put under a spell of ignorance that prevents them from seeing the universe as it truly is—which is not the case in any other dimension. By being put into this state of ignorance, they are given an opportunity, however. It is extremely painful here, while lost and confused, and the human body is fashioned to suffer. Yet if a person in this setting wants to find his way back to his true, heavenly home, or return to his original state of purity, as Daoists put it, if he wants to dedicate himself to spiritual practice, it means that his innate divinity has shone through, and higher beings will help him, for they value that intention above all others. It would mean that this person hasn’t lost his way, even in such a trying setting, since he wants to go back. And so higher beings will help him unconditionally and in every way possible. And so this is why we can do so much for those who practice, but not others.

We can’t help you, then, if you are just a regular person who is looking for healing. There is nothing exceptional about a regular, worldly person, and he is supposed to experience the human condition. Many people believe that it is Divine Will to help humanity and be merciful to all. But that shouldn’t be equated with doing healings for people, and there is no scriptural basis for it. It is false energy healers who have confused people about this in recent times. The authentic teachers of energy practices in China, who paved the way, never suggested doing healings for others. They simply taught people how to do energy exercises and improve their own, personal health. It’s really a stretch to think that you, as a regular person, could do healings for people after learning how for just a few days. If you were to try to heal, you would be misleading people. And it would only make you more attached. You would be trying to use higher powers to promote yourself and gain from it, which would never succeed. So this explains why some people never get the powers they hope for; were they to get them, it would undermine the human condition.

A principle of this universe is that if you wish to return to your true home, higher beings will help you. As they see it, your soul is not meant to stay in this world, but to go back. Yet if someone were to free you of sickness and life was all good, then the idea of going to heaven would lose its appeal. You might think it would be great to be free of illness and suffering, and have everything go your way, leading a charmed life. But it was because you turned bad that you fell this far, so it’s not supposed to be pleasant. People, in their state of ignorance, are apt to do wrong here, and for their transgressions there will be what Buddhism calls “karmic retribution.” The ordeals that people go through or the misfortunes they experience are often cases of them paying off karma. People often wonder how come the divine, which some religions believe to be all around us, doesn’t heal all of humanity—especially when doing so would, in fact, take but a wave of the hand. Well, it’s because the ordeals people face trace back to their own misdeeds and debts. So if someone then heals them with supernatural means, it amounts to undermining the laws of the universe. It would mean that they could do wrongful things and rack up debts without paying for them, which is not allowed. Higher beings all try to preserve the human condition, not violate it. If you want to truly enjoy a pleasant, illness-free existence, and finally be freed of the human condition, there is only one way: through spiritual practice! Getting people to do real spiritual practice is something that truly benefits all of humanity.

 Then what explains all of the energy healing that’s being done and taught out there? In most cases it’s that the people involved have gone down the wrong road. True masters of energy practices like chi-gong, by contrast, develop compassion in the course of their spiritual progress, and become sensitive to people’s suffering. And so it is allowed, when that’s the case, for a master to help someone if he feels moved to do so. But what he does won’t cure the person. He can only mitigate the ailment for the time being, or push it off to a later date in the future; or he might transfer it to someone else in the person’s family. He can’t thoroughly dissolve the karma for the person. You can’t freely do that for a regular person; it can only be done for people engaged in spiritual practice. So there are principles at work in all of this.

The Buddhist teachings about “saving all living things” are actually about taking people to higher planes, where they will be outside of the human condition and its pain, liberated and free of suffering. And this is what the Buddha’s remarks about “crossing over” to nirvana referred to. But you wouldn’t be interested in such a spiritually elevated existence if your life on earth were full of joy, overflowing with wealth, and free of all adversity. So the course of your life can be changed, if you are someone doing spiritual practice—but for this reason alone.

The power of knowing fate involves having a small screen, much like that of a television, at the position of the forehead. For some people it is on the forehead, for some at a slight distance from it, and for others inside of it. Some people will be able to see it only with their eyes closed, while some, if the power is strong, will be able to see it with their eyes still open. It won’t be visible to other people, though, since it exists in another dimension that is associated with your body. Another power is still needed, then, to act as a carrier and allow the images that are captured from other dimensions to be reflected onto this screen and seen by your inner eye. With the power of knowing fate you will be able to see people’s pasts and futures, and with great accuracy. Fortune-tellers can’t make out the details of what they see, no matter how skilled they are. But with this power, you will be able to see things with great clarity, including even the time period and the details of how things change. This is possible because what you see will be accurate reflections of persons or things in other dimensions.

I open the inner eye for every practitioner of Falun Dafa. However, I won’t make available to you the other powers we’ve discussed. The power of knowing fate will naturally come to you as you advance in practice; it will be something that you experience down the road. And that’s why I have given this teaching now—so that you will know what’s happening when the power comes to you.

 

Surpassing This Material and Mortal Realm

It’s somewhat delicate to discuss spiritual concepts such as surpassing this material and mortal realm, or [as Chinese thought calls it,] “surpassing the five elements” and “three realms.” Many teachers of energy practices who have broached these topics have had a hard time responding to skeptics. They often get hit with tricky questions like, “Who can you name that’s achieved these things?” Some of these teachers have not been masters, however, even if they fancy themselves so. But they would try to respond to the questions when they should have just kept quiet; they were in no position to answer them. And so they would get tongue-tied. This has hurt the credibility of spiritual practices in general and muddied the waters. And people have used episodes like these as a pretext for discrediting these practices. Terms related to surpassing the five elements and three realms are spiritual in nature and have religious origins; they came out of a religious context. So it’s important for people to be aware of the historical background of the terms.

So what does it mean to surpass the five elements of this material world? The physics of ancient China, much as with physics today, believed that the theory of five elements was valid. And it is indeed the case that the five elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth give rise to all of creation, so we subscribe to the theory. For someone to surpass the five elements means, in contemporary terms, to transcend the physical world that we know. I realize it might sound a bit hard to believe. But bear in mind that true spiritual teachers carry a higher energy, known as gong. I have undergone testing to assess my energy, as have many teachers of chi-gong. There are many instruments now that can detect the material elements of higher energy, which these teachers emit; all it takes is the right instruments. Instruments can now detect radiation including infrared, ultraviolet, ultrasound, infrasound, electricity, magnetism, and gamma rays, as well as atoms and neutrons. True chi-gong teachers emit all of these, and more—only they are things that instruments can’t yet detect. So all it takes is the right instruments, and it’s now established that these teachers emit many types of matter.

True spiritual teachers exude a powerful and beautiful aura, which can be seen with the right kind of electromagnetic field. The stronger someone’s energy is, the larger the aura that he emanates. Ordinary people have auras as well, only they’re really quite small. From research in high-energy physics we know that energy is in fact things like neutrons or atoms. Many chi-gong teachers have had their energy assessed, and that’s the case for most of those who are renowned. I too have been assessed, and it was found that the amount of gamma rays and thermal neutrons I released was eighty to one hundred and seventy times greater than what matter normally emits. And that was only what the equipment could measure, as the indicator had reached its limit. The researchers found it hard to believe—neutrons that powerful. It shouldn’t be humanly possible. So we can say that it has been scientifically affirmed that masters of energy practices do have higher energy.

It takes a practice of both mind and body to transcend the five elements. Practices that don’t involve the body will develop the kind of energy that facilitates spiritual attainment only, and aren’t concerned with surpassing the five elements. Practices of mind and body, by contrast, store up energy in every cell of your body. When most adherents first develop higher energy, the particles of energy that they give off are coarse and low in density, with gaps between them. That makes it not very powerful. At a more advanced stage of practice, the density of energy might be greater than even that of water at the molecular level, by a factor of a hundred, a thousand, or even 100 million. It’s all possible, because your energy becomes more dense, more fine and smooth, and more powerful as you progress. The energy is stored in every cell of your body. And not just your body in this dimension, but your bodies in other dimensions, too. The energy will fill your cells, from the plane of molecules to atoms, to neutrons, to electrons, all the way to the cells at an extremely subatomic level, and over time your body will come to be brimming with higher energy.

This higher energy has intelligence and is quite capable. As you gain more of it and it grows denser, it will fill all of your body’s cells and easily inhibit them, since they are weak in comparison. And as this happens, the process whereby old cells are shed and replaced by new ones will cease, since high-energy matter will replace the matter originally making up your cells. While it’s easy to describe, reaching that point of spiritual refinement is a long process. But when it does happen, your entire body will have been remade at the cellular level with high-energy matter. Then it would no longer be the five elements that make up your body. It would instead be material from beyond this world that forms you—you would have a body of high-energy matter harvested from other dimensions. On another note, virtue, similarly, is made up of matter from other dimensions and not subject to the time of this dimension.

The sciences now hold that time has a field, and that time’s influence cannot extend beyond it. It’s not possible for time, in one dimension, to have influence over things in other dimensions which are ruled by altogether different laws of time and space. So time, here, would have simply no impact on matter of other dimensions. And the same would be true for your body, which would no longer be mortal in any sense. It would have, as the ancients put it, “surpassed the five elements.” But your body would look no different to people than before. That’s because, despite the dramatic changes in you, your practice wouldn’t be done. You would still have breakthroughs to higher realms to make. And to do that you would need to keep practicing in this world. Being invisible to people wouldn’t do you much good.

So what comes next, then? By this point in your practice your cells at the molecular level will have all been reconstituted with high-energy matter. But the atoms one level down have a specific configuration, just as do molecules and atomic nuclei; the configuration doesn’t change for any of them. The molecular configuration of cells makes one’s flesh soft to the touch; the molecules of bone are configured with a greater density, and so they are hard to the touch; while the density of the molecules of blood is very low, so it’s liquid. Others won’t be able to tell from your appearance what a change you’ve undergone, however, since at the molecular level your cells will retain their original structure and configuration. So the energy inside of you will have changed, even if your cellular structure hasn’t. This means that you will no longer be subject to aging. Your cells will no longer decay and die, and you will forever stay young. So spiritual practice can bring you a youthful look that never fades.

It’s only natural that a body like this might still suffer a fracture if hit by a car or bleed if cut by a knife. That’s because its molecular configuration hasn’t changed, even if it is free of aging or metabolic processes. So this is our take on surpassing the five elements. It’s well-founded and can be explained scientifically. It’s unfortunate that terms like this get a bad rap as being religious imaginings when they are carelessly used by people who don’t know what they are talking about. People aren’t familiar with the terms since these have an older, religious background, and aren’t necessarily in the idiom of our day.

Next let’s look at what it means to “surpass this mortal realm”—or the “three realms,” as it’s also known. As I explained the other day, perfecting your character is the key to developing higher energy. The qualities of the universe will no longer limit you as they come to define your character. And as your mind elevates, your material virtue will be transformed into higher energy. Eventually this energy will form into a column as it grows and climbs higher. The higher that the column is, the greater your energy. We like to say that “anything is possible through Dafa.” It all comes down to how sincere and committed you are. Any height is possible if you have the grit and tenacity that it takes. And even if you one day have converted all of your white matter, more can still be had by reworking your black matter through suffering. And if that’s still not enough, you can take on the sins of your close friends or family who don’t practice, and increase your energy that way. But, this only applies to you if you have progressed to an extremely advanced stage. You shouldn’t even think of assuming others’ sins when you only recently came into the practice as an ordinary person. That much karma would doom most people’s practice. The guidance I am giving here applies to different stages of practice.

“Three realms” is a religious term that describes three hierarchical realms of existence—namely, the “realms” of minor deities, this world, and the underworld. Within these three there are nine major planes of existence, and a total of thirty-three planes in all. An accompanying belief is that all things within the three realms, no matter the plane, reincarnate cyclically and may be reborn on any of several possible tracks. So someone who is a human in this life might become something else, such as an animal, in the next. And so Buddhism has taught that you should really make the most of your life as a human being, for the chance to do spiritual practice might not come again. They say this because animals are forbidden from practicing or hearing the Way. Or if an animal did learn to practice, it would never reap the divine rewards of spiritual effort; higher beings would slay it once it built up much energy. You may have waited hundreds of years, or more, for a human body, only to not cherish it now, when you finally have one. If you reincarnate as a rock, it might be eons before you are freed—if ever. You would never be freed if it didn’t break, crumble, or erode away. Human bodies are not easily come by! A person who truly learns Dafa, the “Great Way,” is incomparably fortunate. This should give you a sense for how hard it is to get a human body.

There is such a thing as “levels” of attainment in spiritual practice, and they are simply the outcome of how well you do. If you want to enjoy eternal life, keep on practicing, and when your column of energy reaches to a great height, you will be outside of [the cycle of reincarnation]—or the “three realms.” There are people whose souls leave their bodies when they meditate, and rise to a higher point. One of my students did a write-up about his progress in the practice and described visiting heavenly realms and what he saw there. I told him to try going higher. But he said that he couldn’t go further, and indeed, he wasn’t able to at that point. Why would that be the case, though? It was because he had visited those realms by riding atop his column of energy; it was as high as he could go at the time. Ascending to greater heights, as I had suggested, would mean that he had achieved, to use a religious term for it, “divine standing.” But greater things are still possible for a practitioner. Whatever height you have reached, you can still continue to perfect yourself and advance in your practice. And if, in the process, your energy column breaks through the outer limits of the three realms, then you will have indeed “surpassed” them. We measured it once and determined that the three realms described in some religions lie within the scope of the nine planets; and I should add here that there is no basis for the claim that there are ten planets. I have seen that the energy columns of some past masters had reached great heights and broken through the boundary of the Milky Way, which means that they very much had surpassed the three realms. So it should be clear now that doing so is a matter of spiritual attainment.

 

The Problem with Having Intentions

There are many who come to the practice with intentions. We see all sorts of motives, from wanting psychic powers to hoping to hear new theories, to getting healed, or getting a falun. People have even offered to pay our class fee to get a falun for someone in their family who didn’t attend. Imagine that, expecting to buy a falun—something born of generations of effort over a staggering number of years—with a little cash. But if it’s that valuable, why do we give it to you at no charge? Because you are someone who wants to lead a spiritual existence, and that aspiration is worth more than any sum of money. A falun can only be given in cases like this, where your innate divinity has shown itself.

You should ask yourself whether you are here because of something you hope to get out of it. Whatever thoughts you have are known to my spiritual bodies^* in another dimension. Space and time are different there, and so your thoughts, as my spiritual bodies behold them, are extremely slow to form. And so those bodies of mine know your thoughts even before you could. The point is that you should change any thoughts that aren’t appropriate. Since ours is a Buddhist discipline, we believe in destiny, and I would say that it is the workings of destiny that have brought you to the practice. It could be that you are meant to learn it. So I would suggest that you cherish it and get rid of any worldly intentions that might have initially motivated you.

In religious practice, Buddhists have traditionally stressed the concept of “emptiness,” teaching adherents to keep the mind free of thoughts and to shun the secular world. And Daoists, likewise, have stressed the idea of “nothingness,” asking followers to forgo material possessions and to not want or try to get them. This is similar to how in energy practice you are taught to put your mind on practicing, not on the energy you will get from it. If you can be free of intent as you practice and simply focus on perfecting your character, you will make spiritual breakthroughs and naturally come to have whatever is meant to be. It’s only fitting to call whatever occupies your mind, or that you cling to, an “attachment.” The teachings I offer are quite advanced, right from day one, so I have high expectations for you in terms of character, and this includes my hope that you are here free of intentions.

I feel a sense of responsibility to guide you in the right direction, and that means I need to spell out my teachings in full. As I mentioned, some people have the intention of getting their inner eyes opened, but it only results in their eyes getting blocked up and sealed off. And as I indicated, any powers that come to people while they are still practicing at the human level are no more than innate abilities, even if they are now called things like “psychic powers.” They can only do things in this dimension and affect regular people. So I don’t see any point in wanting or trying for those lesser things. If one day your practice reaches a higher level beyond this world, you will see that they don’t do anything there and aren’t worth all the trouble. At that stage any lesser powers like those will have to be disposed of by removing them to a deeper space, where they will be stored and serve only as a memento of your spiritual journey.

When you progress to a higher stage of practice, beyond this world, your journey begins anew. Your body will be one that has transcended this material world, or “five elements,” as we just discussed, and it will only be fitting to call it holy. Your holy body will need to be cultivated anew and develop new powers, only now they should be referred to as sacred powers of the Way. Their strength is truly extraordinary and they can work in multiple dimensions. And these do have impact. Lesser, worldly abilities should have little appeal next to these. What attracts people to them is always the prospect of using them to build oneself up in this world, or show what one is capable of, as they don’t offer much benefit otherwise. And besides, they’re even less useful than, say, a nice object, which at least could be used for decoration purposes, since it’d be tangible and visible. I can guarantee that if you want them, on some level, it’s to use them for something. And remember that they aren’t like normal skills in this world that you can work honestly towards. Rather, psychic powers are something higher altogether, and are not meant for you to show off with in front of people. Wanting to show off is a strong attachment, a bad intention, and one that someone with spiritual aspirations should break. And it’s all the worse if you want to use these powers to make money or get wealthy, or to achieve some worldly goal that you’re after. You would be disrupting the designs for this world by using those higher means, and that’s an even worse idea than showing off. So for these reasons nobody is allowed to use higher powers freely in this world.

Extrasensory powers usually come to those at two ends of the life spectrum, children and older folk. They are most common among older women, who tend to be of solid character and less attached to this world than others are. When powers come to them they are apt to handle it well, since they’re not looking to show off and promote themselves. Younger people, by contrast, are less apt to develop higher powers—especially young guys. That’s because they still want to work hard towards their goals in life, and they would use any powers they gained to these ends, as if they were tools for achieving things. But it is forbidden to use them like that, and so no powers will come to those people.

Spiritual things like these are sacred, and not to be treated like toys or normal skills. Your mind needs to dwell on a higher plane if you want to get anywhere in spiritual practice. You can just imagine what a mess it would be if someone who didn’t understand these things managed to get the powers he was craving. Spiritual progress would be the last thing on his mind, and there’s no telling what evil he might do, since his thoughts would be wed to this world and his powers would have come to him in the wrong way. He might magically remove money from the bank or hit the jackpot in a lottery. Yet things like that never happen, and it’s worth considering why. I don’t agree with the teachers who claim that unvirtuous people are prone to doing wrongful things when they get supernormal powers. That’s not the case at all. Those who are unvirtuous or don’t try to become better people will never gain such powers. The closest thing to it would be cases where someone with good character gets powers somewhere along the way but doesn’t handle it well, and does something inappropriate. But his powers will be weakened or even lost if he abuses them. And any such loss would be permanent. Yet the more serious risk is that he would get attached to them.

Some teachers have claimed that people can do healings after just three to five days of learning their energy practices. It’s like marketing—as if they were in the business of energy. But let’s pause to think: could the average person heal someone’s ailment just by sending out a little basic energy, [like they advertise]? Both parties, in this case, merely have the basic energy known as chi, with the only difference being that one of them has just started practicing and can take in or project energy since the Palace of Toil acupuncture point on his hand is open. So if one of the two tries to heal the other, there’s no telling who might heal who, since both just have chi! There’s no reason that one of these people’s energy should be more powerful than the other’s. Energy like chi does not heal. And another thing is, a person will be connected with whoever he tries to heal, and it’s possible that the sick energy in the recipient’s body will come over to the healer’s, such that he ends up with just as much of it. Though the root of the person’s ailment won’t be transferred, the healer might still become ill if he takes on too much of it. And it’s easy for a person to get attached once he believes that he can heal. He might set up a practice and welcome all who come. And how happy he’ll be about it—being able to heal! But he hasn’t given thought to what makes it possible. It turns out that false healers like these are getting their energy from entities that have attached to them. And then they turn around and share a little of that energy with those who take their classes, to win their confidence. But these students’ energy will disappear for good after they’ve treated a handful of people. What little energy they had will be gone, since doing that consumes it. It wouldn’t be a higher energy that they were using since they wouldn’t have had any in the first place. A master such as myself will have gone through decades of practice, and it really wasn’t easy in the past. Spiritual progress is very difficult for those who haven’t found a true practice, and it’s hard to get very far in a lesser one.

The well-established masters of energy practices each had to practice for decades to get the higher energy that they have, however little. So it’s a bit naive for people to think that they could get it by attending a brief class and without ever engaging in spiritual practice. And they come out of those healing classes attached. And then, when their attempts at healing don’t work, they get anxious. Some people are so concerned about their reputations when they do healings that, would you believe, they even think about taking on the person’s illness so that he or she can get well. But this isn’t coming from compassion. Compassion can hardly arise in a mind that’s occupied with things like money and reputation. To want to take on someone’s illness just to protect your reputation indicates that there is a serious attachment! And so they get what they asked for. It really can result in the illness being transferred to their own body, and then it sets in. So while the ill person may now be well, those who do the healing will end up suffering for it afterward. And yet they might be pleased with themselves, and delighted about it. They think that they’ve healed someone and people start calling them a “master.” But it should be obvious that it’s an attachment. The fact that they get visibly dejected when it doesn’t go well is a telltale sign that ego and money are motivating them. And as if that weren’t bad enough, as I indicated, they are bringing sickly energy from people onto their own bodies. The pseudo master who supposedly taught them how to heal might have claimed that they could learn to “dispel” any sick energy, but I know for a fact that people can’t do that, since the average person doesn’t have the ability to tell good energy from bad. And over time the insides of their bodies will turn dark from karma.

If that kind of person wants to do genuine spiritual practice at some point, he will really be in a difficult spot, with no simple solution. It’s going to be awfully tough—and painful—for him to rework all of that karma into white matter. Those who have a better innate foundation are more susceptible to landing in this predicament. Some people are just insistent about wanting to do healing. Animal spirits can see that kind of intent and will affix themselves to the person’s body, which is called entity attachment. They see that the person wants to do healing, and they will help out. But they don’t help for nothing, as everything comes at a cost. And this makes it dangerous. You can just imagine how hard it would be to make spiritual progress after bringing animals onto yourself. All of your spiritual efforts would have been for naught.

Some people exchange their good innate foundations for others’ karma, by healing them. Yet people with medical conditions have large amounts of karma. Someone who heals people like that is going to feel wretched afterwards. Many who heal have had that experience; the other party gets well, while they themselves get seriously ill afterwards. And if they keep at it, significant amounts of karma will be transferred to them, at the cost of their virtue. But that would be the price they pay. Even though it’s sickness they want, the laws of exchange still hold: even to get karma, virtue has to be paid. That’s how the universe works. If that’s what you want to do, it’s up to you, and nobody is going to intervene—though it doesn’t necessarily mean they approve. There is something that has been decided in this universe: whoever has a lot of karma is a bad person. Yet the people I just described are trading their own virtuous foundations for karma. It’s going to be very hard to do spiritual practice then, with all that karma. They will have ruined their own foundations. What a horrible prospect. While the people they healed may feel fine now, they themselves have to suffer. And just imagine how dangerous it would be if they healed a couple of cancer patients—the healers might have to die in their place. Most people don’t realize how these things work.

However well-known some false masters may be, it doesn’t necessarily mean they know much. Most people easily fall for hype. Though it might seem like everything is going fine for these false masters, they are not only harming others but also themselves. You will see what becomes of them in a year or two. Nobody is allowed to abuse things like these that are meant for purposes of spiritual refinement. And while spiritual refinement can bring healing powers, that is not what it’s meant for. It is something higher and not an ordinary human endeavor. So it is strictly forbidden to use such powers haphazardly, in ways that undermine spiritual practice. Some pseudo masters are creating a tremendous mess now, using energy work as a way to build a following and make money. These nefarious groups that they’ve formed are constantly expanding in influence, and the so-called masters involved now outnumber the genuine ones by a wide margin. It’s a mistake to think that chi-gong or energy healing is how they portray it—even if others, who don’t know better, are taken in by it. Now you know what’s really going on.

For selfish reasons the average person will do wrongful things in his dealings with others in this world and incur debts to people, which he will have to suffer the consequences of and pay for. Then even if someone did indeed have the ability to heal whoever he wanted to, it surely wouldn’t be allowed. Higher beings are all around us, and yet they don’t do that, do they? You would think it would be wonderful of them to bestow wellness upon all of humanity. And yet they don’t. That’s because people must pay off their own karma, and no beings dare to violate this law. It might be fine for someone who is still developing spiritually to help a person out by alleviating his suffering a little, out of compassion. But even then he is merely postponing the ailment until later. So the person may feel well now, but will have to suffer later; or instead of sickness it might take the form of losing money or some other mishap. A person’s karma has to be purged in one shot if he is to be genuinely healed. And it can only be done for those engaged in spiritual practice, not just anyone. What I am explaining here isn’t true for just our practice, but is applicable to the entire universe. This should give you a sense for what’s really involved in many spiritual matters.

We won’t teach you how to heal here, but we will guide you to something greater—to the great Way, a true path—and raise you up. And that is why I always say in my classes that practitioners of Falun Dafa are not allowed to do healings. You aren’t one of us if you heal people. We are showing you the virtuous course to take, and I am purifying your body again and again. And I will keep doing so while you practice in this world, all the way until you have been completely transfigured by high-energy matter. But if you are always getting dark things on your body, how are you going to get anywhere? That’s karma! You will have no hope of spiritual progress. You wouldn’t be able to bear all that karma, and the pain would prove too much for your practice. So there’s a reason for our rule. You might not have realized how special this practice is, given how public I’ve made it. But I have ways to protect it, even so. If you do healings, my spiritual bodies will take back all of what your body was given for your spiritual refinement. We can’t let you rashly ruin such valuable gifts while you chase after worldly goals. You are not one of us if you don’t follow what Falun Dafa teaches. So your body will be reset to an ordinary state and all of the bad things it once carried will be returned to you, since you are choosing to be an ordinary person.

Beginning yesterday, after class, many of you began to experience a lightness to your bodies. But a few individuals who have serious medical conditions became the first to feel unwell. The majority of you felt wonderful yesterday and completely unburdened after I took the bad things out of your bodies. But there is a law in this universe, that anything comes at a cost, and so we couldn’t remove everything for you; you definitely have to bear something. What we have done is to remove the root causes of any ailments or poor health. But a cloud of sickness will still remain. If your inner eye is open, even at a lower level, you might see lumps of dark, turbid, sick energy inside your body, which are concentrated masses of dense, dark energy. If let loose, this energy would spread throughout your body.

Some of you will find, starting today, that your whole body feels chilly, as if you’ve come down with a heavy cold, and your bones might even ache. Most of you will find that some part of you doesn’t feel good; it could be an aching leg or a dizzy head. Or you might seem to have a relapse of some issue that you thought you’d resolved through an energy practice or healing. That’s because it didn’t actually heal your condition. It had merely been postponed, and was still lodged in its original spot, ready to relapse at a later date. So we have to make it surface and drive it out of you, and remove the whole thing from its root. This might make you think that you’re having a relapse, but what’s happening is that the karma at the root of it is being purged. And so you will have reactions. They could be in any part of your body and could take any form. But it’s all normal. I would encourage you to really try to keep coming to the class, however unwell you might feel. Your symptoms will vanish once you get to class, and you won’t be at risk. A true spiritual teaching is hard to come by, so don’t let whatever you might be going through physically get to you. The worse you might feel, the closer you are to the turning point, and your entire body will be, and must be, fully cleansed. The roots of any ailments that you had, have been taken out, and all that remains is some dark energy that is coming out on its own and causing you a little misery or trouble, since you can’t get off completely scot-free.

You might be living a very competitive life, trying to build a name for yourself or make a good living, and your body might be paying the price for your seldom eating properly or sleeping well; in other dimensions even your bones may have become dark. A body like that can’t help but have reactions when it’s swiftly purified, like we do. So reactions should be expected. For some of you it may take the form of vomiting or loose bowels. Students everywhere have told me in written accounts about having to look for a bathroom all the way home from our classes. That happens because your internal organs need to be purified. A few of you might fall asleep during the class, only to wake up after I finish my talk. That happens because there was something wrong with your head, and it needed to be put right. You needed to be anesthetized so that you wouldn’t feel anything. Yet in some cases the faculty of hearing isn’t affected, and you won’t have missed a word even if you were sound asleep. Afterwards you will feel invigorated, and you might even go on for a couple of days without needing sleep. You might be coming here with any of various conditions. But whatever they may be, they all need to be dealt with since your whole body must be purified.

If you are sincere about practicing Falun Dafa, you will, starting today, experience physical reactions when you leave attachments behind. Some people aren’t able to leave them behind, even if they may tell others that they have, and in that case it’s hard to purify their bodies. There might also be people who come to understand things only at the end of the classes and then get over their attachments, at which point their bodies will be cleansed. Others will have already experienced their bodies lightening, while this group will only then begin to have their ailments removed and feel unwell. In each class there are some who don’t catch on as quickly and who lag behind. So whatever you experience is normal. Wherever I’ve taught, I have always found that there are some who feel so ill that they stay in their seats, hunched over and not wanting to leave. They hope that when I come down from the stage I might heal them. But I won’t do that. If you can’t overcome even this hurdle, I worry what will become of your practice when you meet with serious ordeals down the road. That little bit of discomfort really shouldn’t be a big deal, and surely you can get through it. So please don’t come to me for healing anymore. It’s not something I do, and I’d prefer not to even hear the word “illness.”

It’s hard to save people from this world. In every class there are always around five to ten percent who fall behind. Not everyone can attain enlightenment. It remains to be seen whether those who stick with the practice can keep up their commitment to spiritual development and succeed at it. Divinity isn’t possible for all. You will experience the same benefits from reading this book as you would attending a class, and not miss out on anything, as long as you are sincere about practicing Dafa.

 

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Footnotes:
* inner eye: The Chinese term here, tian-mu, is also commonly referred to as the “third eye,” “spiritual eye,” or sometimes, in earlier centuries, “mind’s eye.” The most traditional term from the Western context (i.e., “inner eye”) is used in this edition.
* spiritual bodies: This is a translation of the Chinese term fa-shen, which is itself historically a translation of the Sanskrit Buddhist term dharmakaya. It should be noted that the use and meaning of the term in Falun Dafa is not necessarily the same as that in other Buddhist traditions (where its interpretation varies widely). The term is discussed in greater detail later in the book.