Readers Say They Get a Sense of God and the Universe From ‘How Humankind Came To Be’

Donna Showalter, a nurse who just retired in December, said she got “a sense of God” and “great hope” from Falun Gong founder Mr. Li Hongzhi’s recent article “How Humankind Came To Be.” She added that by “great hope,” she meant the “hope of faith,” “hope that God is real and that God is what he says he is, and God is present.”

To her, the article “How Humankind Came To Be” offers “great comfort” without sugarcoating the current world. In addition, she said she believes that it will become worse before any improvement. However, she told The Epoch Times that she found hope in the article that “there is something stronger than this evil force.”

“I did not feel that evil was going to win,” she added that it was her overall feeling, although no part of the article said that specifically.

Moreover, Showalter shared her understanding of God: “I think a lot of people think of God as some obscure old man with a white beard in the sky. And that’s not who God is. God is a force. He’s an energy.”

“That’s a really hard concept to understand because we are kind of stuck in this time thing. We are very linear. But God, I believe, doesn’t know time. God does not have to exist in that realm,” she added. “God is bigger than what we realize. We limit God because we’re limited in our thinking.” She described God as “a benevolent force.”

While reading Mr. Li’s article, she said she felt “this force, this power is present.” “I just got the feeling that he [Mr. Li] really knew God. That’s what the article did for me: he really had a sense of God and a power in that might.”

Surprising Connection to Eastern Teaching

A retired elementary teacher, Eileen Guss, was pleasantly surprised that Mr. Li’s article articulated a belief close to her own.

Hence, she wrote to The Epoch Times: “I unknowingly have been following this practice on my own. While this sets out definitively how the universe works, I have not reached this concrete knowledge yet on my own.”

“It is astounding that my ideas, thoughts, and beliefs are so close to his [Mr. Li’s],” she said in an interview. “I held a belief of my own in the universe. We are all part of the bigger picture. We are a part of this universe,” she added. “And that’s what really resonated with me because no other religious denomination talked about the universe and how we were all interconnected.”

Guss appreciated the explanation of the four phases in Mr. Li’s article: creation, stasis, degeneration, and destruction. “When he talks about creation, stasis, degeneration, and destruction, you can see that in nature. You do. In human beings, you see their birth, development, degeneration, and, ultimately, death. So everything that he has been talking about, I can relate to.”

“I can’t explain how I came to the idea that God was the universe, we were part of that universe, and being part of that universe is our soul because your soul does not ever die,” the 61-year-old former teacher said she couldn’t explain the “coincidence” that she found such resonation in an Eastern teaching from Mr. Li.

For Showalter, 68, China magically appeared in her thoughts in her 20s and 30s. “A struggle that I had in my earlier life was how come I was born in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. And I was raised in a Christian church. So therefore, because of that, I get to have eternal life and go to heaven. But somebody who’s born in China—and I did think about China—who never had any knowledge of this, who never learned about this are destined for eternal damnation? I couldn’t reconcile that. I just couldn’t understand how a truly wonderful benevolent God would do that.”

She said she thought of China because it was exactly opposite to America. Later, she briefly looked at Buddhism and other religions and discovered a common thread. “That [Mr. Li’s] article just cemented it for me. I thought it was a great article. I thought it was wonderful!” she added.

‘Eye-Opening’

Heidi Larsen, a house renovator and former teacher on an Indian reservation, said Mr. Li’s article was “eye-opening.” “The article was very interesting and enlightening, explaining the practice of Falun Gong in a simple yet concise manner,” she wrote in her comment to this newspaper.

She added that she could now see why the Chinese Communist Party persecutes Falun Gong: “If people lead a spiritual/religious life, they are happier and have hope for the future. Taking this away from humanity is a way that these regimes can take down freedom and control the masses.”

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, encourages adherents to live by the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance and teaches meditative exercises.

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. In addition, the vilification, torture, and organized killing through forced organ harvesting arising from the persecution has led to an untold number of deaths.