(Clearwisdom.net) Recently a practitioner discussed sending righteous thoughts as a group for her daughter, also a practitioner. Her daughter had just graduated and was working in a large city. Two days ago her daughter had a strong manifestation of illness karma. It lasted for two days, and on the third day her daughter was able to drag herself to work. However, her daughter still felt unable to eat, so she asked other practitioners to send righteous thoughts for her daughter.

I shared with this practitioner about her daughter's situation, and asked if it was a normal case of dissolving karma or a case of persecution by the old forces. I knew that her daughter had last month faced a xinxing test surrounding looking for work, and owing to her cultivating herself well, was able to quickly pass through this barrier. This time, the situation very quickly turned for the better, and there were no apparent signs of old force interference.

I brought up an example of another practitioner who had also experienced a case of sickness karma. This practitioner every year went through a month of serious coughing, but persisted with the three things all the same and naturally passed through the test. Usually, if illness karma persists for a long time, it often involves factors of the old forces. Recently she again experienced this state, which persisted for three days and was very serious, but this time she found her attachment. For the initial two days I had not sent righteous thoughts for her, because I saw that she had not gotten rid of her attachment and hoped she would enlighten to it. But when she looked within and found her problems, everyone sent righteous thoughts for her, and she fundamentally recovered in a day. This was really magnificent.

We realized that our fellow practitioner's daughter's state of illness very quickly turned around and the old forces' persecution did not exist in her daughter's situation. This was a good thing for her daughter but was a test for her, requiring her to put down her sentiment towards her daughter. If she is unable to let go of this sentiment, the old forces will find an excuse to intensify her daughter's state of illness and make the test even harder to break through. Letting go of this heart of sentiment is, in fact, the biggest help she could give to her daughter. We do not need this sentiment as a motivating factor behind sending righteous thoughts for her daughter, and in fact we should not send righteous thoughts with this factor present. However as a mother and as a practitioner, she could of course care for her daughter by helping her with her life and work, offer her suggestions, share openly with her and improve together, and strengthen righteous thoughts with which to face off the tribulation.

After letting go of sentiment, she returned home relaxed and at ease.

That evening when discussing the matter with two other practitioners, the question came up as to whether or not to send righteous thoughts. A practitioner whose sentiment seemed to me to be a little too strong replied that if a fellow practitioner asks others to help by sending righteous thoughts, then we should just do it. Another practitioner said that her daughter's condition rapidly became better, so it was not necessary to send out righteous thoughts. I replied with my understanding that a cultivator's righteous thoughts cannot be casually utilized, especially when a relative or close acquaintance meets with hardship. If it is not interfering with Dafa practitioners' doing the three things, we cannot casually use them. Otherwise we are misusing our abilities by using them to cure illness for people.

The practitioner with the strong sentiment had a five-year-old grandson who had developed a high temperature in the past few days. Her grandson became sick once every two or three weeks, with either an abnormal temperature or a cough. Whenever it fired up again he would listen to the Fa and recover naturally within two days. But this time it had persisted for four days before becoming better again, despite listening to the Fa every day. I thought it was because this practitioner had long been unable to give up sentiment towards family. Under the influence of sentiment her main consciousness was not strong. She would passively go along with her grandson's demands. Master is compassionate towards Dafa practitioners' relatives because Dafa practitioners have righteous thoughts, not because Master is taking care of ordinary people or removing hardship for ordinary people. If Dafa practitioners' sentiment is too strong and for a long period they are unable to get rid of it, the old forces will strengthen their persecution of relatives in order to disrupt their doing the three things.

That evening she and the other practitioner sent righteous thoughts for her grandson. The practitioner who had said it was not necessary to send righteous thoughts for such matters also joined in and sent righteous thoughts. I shared with that practitioner and pointed out that both of them were sending righteous thoughts for ordinary people out of their attachment of sentiment, in the hope that this person would recover from illness and avoid hardship. Why did this practitioner think that we should not send righteous thoughts for the other practitioner's daughter? It was because this practitioner was not led by sentiment and could use the Fa to judge things. But now she is acting under the influence of sentiment and sending righteous thoughts for that practitioner's non-practitioner family member, in the hope of having his illness recover, and even finding excuses such as that this grandson was interfering with her night's rest and in this way interfering with doing the three things. In my understanding, their so-called "righteous thoughts" would not achieve any effect, and the illness remained.

These matters did not happen for no reason. They occurred to remind Dafa practitioners that at any time, especially when relatives and good friends meet with hardship, we should always use Dafa to judge things. We should judge whether or not it is appropriate to send righteous thoughts, to use divine powers. We absolutely must not casually send righteous thoughts under the influence of sentiment, or to deal with things that aren't related to doing the three things. Otherwise, after a long period of fruitless effort, we will have clung to attachments without letting them go, and may even begin to doubt the power of sending righteous thoughts, or do bad things and drop in level.