(Minghui.org) Greetings Master and fellow practitioners,
I started to write for our media immediately after I started to practice Falun Dafa in 2011.
I was then working on a radio project with another company. Since we were waiting for funding and were not required to travel, I got special permission to work from home. This allowed me to devote more time to the English Epoch Times and I could very regularly write for the India page.
I was also contributing to the print edition and would get stories from wherever I would travel for work. This continued for the next nearly two years. When the funding for the radio station didn’t come through, I found it ethically not good to continue.
Meanwhile, I had left other big opportunities to keep working for the English Epoch Times and my heart was devoted to saving sentient beings. The same energy, mind, and wisdom weren’t experienced for other jobs and I knew to work for the media was a vow that I had made in the eternal past.
We tried a few times to set up India Epoch Times but it didn’t happen. The only way left for me to contribute from India to the media was as a writer. Every story I wrote, every journey I made to write that story helped me to clarify the truth, and helped me to cultivate.
Then I decided to relocate to another city. I took a regular job for 15 days so that I could earn enough to survive and the rest of the 15 days I devoted myself fully to the media. My heart was very devoted to it.
In April 2014 I was invited to New York for training for two months. When I returned to India I once again relocated myself to a new place, this time to India’s capital as the media required a reporter there.
It meant making very big changes in my life. In the first few months, I didn't have a proper place to live and in extreme summers I had to live without an air conditioner and sleep on the floor.
The next nine months I worked every day 18 hours, reporting both for the English Epoch Times and NTD.
It was very engaging, sometimes very fatiguing as I had to carry the big camera bag through the very crowded public transportation in India and travel many times long distances for stories. Lots of times when I slept at night after work, my back burned. I don’t know if it was the impact of the camera bag but for sure it was my cultivation. The very next day at work I would feel extremely upbeat and interviews and contacts would work out very easily.
In a new city, this new assignment meant to start my life from scratch. The living conditions were hard and because there were no practitioners around there was no support. Now when I think about it, it all appears nothing big but at that time it was a hard cultivation setting.
Master said:
“Cultivation is hard. It’s hard in that even when a terrible calamity strikes, even when evil madly persecutes, and even when your life is at stake, you still have to be able to steadfastly continue on your path of cultivation without letting anything in human society interfere with the steps you take on your path of cultivation.” (“Path,” Essentials for Further Advancement II)
After six months our media decided to close down the newswire operations and in the next three months, they decided to lay me off as they no longer needed a reporter in India. Staff was also being laid off because of a certain financial crisis.
That situation made me very sad, my heart was devoted to the media and I couldn't understand why there were suddenly so many changes. I was very far away from New York and I had no chance to interact with anyone or to ask any questions.
But my survival in the new city was at stake and I had bills to pay. With our Master’s help, I was able to find a good job within the next 15 days. My financial crisis was resolved, as payment due for two years unexpectedly arrived at that time.
For the next two years, I worked with a new company that required me to travel almost every month to a new place in India. This allowed me to clarify the truth in new cities and towns and also in trains and airports.
I was almost settling down in my new job when our media once again contacted me and asked me to join full-time again, and there was a discussion about setting up NTD in India.
Because of my bad experience in the past with the media and the many tough situations I had faced during the course of my last assignment, I had harbored resentment and had lost my trust in the management. I was ready to help but I didn’t want to trust the people again. I was worried about facing trouble and hardships and had an attachment to fear of loss. I thought I had gone through enough in life.
Though I was giving leaflets and participating in other Dafa activities, I had forgotten my vows towards the media.
Master said:
“A wicked person is born of jealousy.Out of selfishness and anger, he complains about unfairness towards himself.A benevolent person always has a heart of compassion.With no discontentment or resentment, he takes hardship as joy.An enlightened person has no attachments at all.He quietly observes the people of the world deluded by illusions.” ( “Realms,” Essentials For Further Advancement)
Initially, I started contributing part-time, writing every day after work until midnight. Slowly as I started joining the media group Fa studies and sharing, I started feeling the urgent need for cultivation. I felt the same heart and that deep satisfaction that comes only when one works to save sentient beings—it was like regaining a heart. I again found myself to be aligned with my vows and could feel the difference in my cultivation every day.
In my ordinary society’s job, I could learn a lot but I never felt that will and heart whenever I picked up my camera. Immersed in the power of Dafa once again, I decided to work full time for our media after I finished some pending assignments in the job.
Master taught us:
“Yet as a practitioner you will find the things that people take seriously to be very, very trivial—even too trivial—because your goal is extremely long-term and far-reaching. You will live as long as this universe. Then think about those things again: It doesn’t matter if you have them or not. You can put them all aside when you think from a broader perspective.” (Chapter III, Falun Gong)
When I joined NTD India I had no designation. I worked from home. We had never written for Indians before and how to write for them and gain traffic was an experiment with each article.
One day while walking in a public place in New Delhi, I saw a lot of Faluns (law wheels) falling from the sky and I realized Master wants NTD India for the people of India.
We were unable to bring Shen Yun to India and NTD India was Master’s gift to us to save sentient beings in India. I realized the Fa-rectification is happening with amazing speed, even if we don’t fulfill our vows, it’ll surely succeed and Master has his ways. He has given us these opportunities so that we are able to cultivate and fulfill our paradises.
In a month other practitioners joined the India project, they worked on the company procedures and set up an office space. In three months I moved from New Delhi to Bangalore and we started hiring ordinary people as there were not enough practitioners to work as writers and editors.
Every day was a discovery and cultivation experience because we knew nothing--from hiring to training to setting up an efficient working process. However, I experienced a different mind and energy--I would get very clear-cut instructions in my mind and I felt everything was linked to my cultivation.
We consciously worked to clarify the truth and introduce exercises to our ordinary world employees. However, they faced extreme challenges. Both of our editors faced extreme situations--one editor's parents' house and shops got burned, another kept on meeting small accidents regularly and many family troubles.
I realized I’m responsible for them and I started to care for them with compassion.They were not practitioners and their needs and concerns were ordinary. Then one editor started falling sick often. I decided to encourage her to read Lunyu and start with the exercises.
One day I asked her if she wanted to mediate with me. She was one of the main workers and I decided to support her with righteous thoughts.
Later she told me that she felt like she was enveloped inside a warm blanket when I sat with her in meditation. This strengthened her belief in Dafa and gave her an experience of its miraculous power.
Master has said:
“Your clarifying the truth inevitably initiates a sort of chain reaction. Once a person knows the truth, he realizes, "Oh, so that's how it is. Dafa is so great, after all!" Some people who've learned the truth may think about taking up cultivation, some may be quite sympathetic, and others might offer support in the form of concrete actions. These responses that came about through clarifying the truth spread from person to person, heart to heart.” (“Teaching the Fa at 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IV)
We had set up efficient content operations and a good long-term training plan, however, we faced a lot of xinxing tests internally and were not able to meet our monitory goals. During this time my sister’s engagement broke and family-related challenges also started to intensify.
The regional management then asked us to visit the Vietnam office for training and orientation. The Vietnam office at that time had a big office and their cultivation setting was precious.
During group righteous thoughts, I saw a lot getting cleaned up. During group discussions, I realized that I was full of vanity and had a very high opinion of my professional achievements in the ordinary world. I also had differences to resolve with fellow practitioners who I felt were not diligent. I later realized the entire situation was a reflection of my own state.
Until I visited Vietnam I was more attached to ordinary ways of doing work and more focused on work. In Vietnam, the fellow practitioners helped me to realize that the cultivation standards are getting raised up each passing day and we can’t resolve problems by means of the ordinary world. For us, everything comes to cultivation.
Until then my attitude was that I would let go of sleep and find extra time to work but I didn’t have the same heart to study the Fa and do the exercises. I was okay if for some reason I didn’t find time to do the exercises for two hours and I thought that once I read in the group Fa-study, my job was done.
This manifested in my environment. Whenever I faced problems in the NTD office, managers in Vietnam continuously pointed out to me to devote more time to Fa- study. Until then I had ordinary people's attachments, I wanted time to go to the cinema, and I used to feel bad for myself for having no social life.
Since my responsibilities were so great and because I was daily taking care of so many people and their daily life affairs, I was left with no way but to be diligent. Nothing else would work.
Master said:
“When required, you must be rational and clearheaded like a cultivator, allowing your responsibilities and righteous thoughts to direct you, and only then will your true shan be displayed. That is what's different about a cultivator and a divine being. ” (“Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. IX)
I doubled my Fa-study and most of the days read the Fa for about four hours every day. After I came back from Vietnam my sister got married to the same person she was earlier engaged to. During her engagement and her marriage, I could experience the power of Dafa and an amazing harmony enveloping everyone who attended her wedding.
Many times I experienced the repeating of ‘Falun Dafa Is Good’ in my mind, its sound replacing all other thoughts in my head.
I realized if I’m diligent in doing the three things and if my heart is devoted to working to save sentient beings, Master will take care of everything else.
Sometimes we practitioners get worried about the issues of ordinary life but we forget that it’s linked to our cultivation and the only way to truly resolve it is through cultivation. Everything in our life comes to cultivation.
Master said:
“These are matters of work in human society and work is not cultivation, but your cultivation will be reflected in your work.” (Teaching the Fa in San Francisco, 2005)
My managers taught me that we can resolve any problem by making conscious efforts to save sentient beings. If there’s a problem we need to look within and check if our hearts and minds are aligned to saving sentient beings or have we relapsed into ordinariness.
It was with this intention that I worked to produce truth clarification videos and articles.
Every truth clarification article or video meant saving sentient beings and would bring us cultivation opportunities to the team producing it, and also for the practitioner whose story we were sharing.
Master said:
“Master affirms what Dafa disciples have done. As long as you are doing things out of a wish to validate the Fa and save sentient beings, I will affirm all that you do. And when you go do those things, there will be my Law Bodies or gods there to amplify it and make what you do yet more magnificent and extraordinary, and they will assist you.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2008 New York Conference,” Collected Fa Teachings, Vol. VIII)
Our truth-clarification content helped us reach millions in India, some of our videos had 10 million viewerships, each view meant reaching out to a heart with the power of Dafa. These videos helped cultivators in India reach out to more people, watching these videos some of the cultivators got invited to introduce Falun Dafa in schools and some other places.
NTD India had to close down because of the operational crisis that befell our global media. Before I moved back to New Delhi, I was asked to visit practitioners across a few cities and write their inspiring stories. I realized Master is sending me to these places to save sentient beings.
Just after a month of shifting back to New Delhi, I was invited for a training at the headquarters in New York and after three months of training, I’m currently working as a writer for the web team in New York.
I have often felt that our media is like a special cultivation setting, it’s a special place, the only place where life, work, business, and every little thing is planned, thought about and executed by those cultivating on higher Fa principles.
It’s not a small matter, such a place never existed in the past. Such professionals, with selfless hearts and those working to save sentient beings through the ordinary world media, never existed in the past. It’s a place for the future of humanity to look up to. Let’s resolve differences, let go our resentments and cherish this amazing opportunity.
Thank you, Master. Thank you, everyone.
(Presented at the 2019 New York Fa Conference)
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