(Clearwisdom.net) Our son, Xiaobao (alias), is six and a half years old and is just a first grader. Shortly after school started, all the new students in the first grade were required to join the Young Pioneers. Both his father and I practice Falun Dafa, and Xiaobao is also a little Falun Dafa practitioner. After going through all the ups and downs in life with us for so many years, he knows exactly what he should do. He told me, "Mom, I faced a test as soon as I went to school. I will definitely not join the Young Pioneers."

One weekend, the assistant principal gave every student an application form to join the Young Pioneers and asked the students to have their parents fill it out and submit it the following Monday. The following Monday, my husband went to school and saw many parents handing in the application forms to the teacher. My husband said to the teacher, "We are not interested in this. We will not join." The assistant principal looked at my husband, quite puzzled, and then asked again, "You are not going to have your son join?" There were lots of people in the classroom at that moment, but my husband did not have the time to elaborate more before he had to leave.

Several days later, the assistant principal called me and asked, "Your husband did not allow your child to join the Young Pioneers. Did you know that?" Actually, I had been thinking of how to explain everything to him and now here was the opportunity. I said, "I know. Our child is not going to join the Young Pioneers. Whether or not to join the Young Pioneers should be voluntary. It's a matter of personal belief. We don't believe in this. You are not going to tell us how to believe, are you?" The assistant principal said, "All the other students have joined except him. I am afraid that your child will not feel comfortable." I said, "We don't believe in that. He won't be upset." He said, "In that case, it's OK." After that, he did not say anything else. I felt that people were awakening, because the assistant principal did not object to our decision.

Two days later, the instructor of the Young Pioneers at the school called me and asked me why didn't we want our child to join the Young Pioneers. I told her, "We don't believe in this. Besides, isn't the mission of your school 'High Quality, Diversification, and Internationalization?' Are there schools in other countries where little children are forced to join the Young Pioneers?" She said, "You are right. Only China has the Young Pioneers. There is no such an organization in non-communist countries. You don't believe in the Communist Party, right? Actually, I am not a party member myself. But the new rules of the Young Pioneers Working Committee require all children six and a half years old to join the Young Pioneers." When I heard what she said, I used my righteous thoughts to resist it right away, "In the Young Pioneers Working Committee and among the teachers in your school, who really believes in communism? Why do we have to force our children to accept something that we don't even believe ourselves? Our child doesn't wish to join the Young Pioneers. It's his choice, not mine." Her tone became softer, and she said, "OK, just leave it as it is." She accepted the fact that our son would not join the Young Pioneers. I decided that I would go visit them and explain the situation in more depth once I had a chance.

On a different occasion, when my husband went to school to pick up our son, the assistant principal talked to him about this matter again, "Your child has not joined the Young Pioneers yet. This causes many inconveniences to the class and the child himself. There are many activities that are organized in the name of the Young Pioneers. For example, during the flag-raising ritual every Monday, those who are not Young Pioneer members are not allowed to salute the flag." My husband said, "If this Young Pioneers organization demands that everyone join it, this organization must be a bad one. What's more, it's an organization of the Communist Party. The Communist Party is not good itself. Nowadays, there are many people who want to quit the Communist Party. "

The assistant principal did not argue with my husband. We realized that he was a kind-hearted person.

At the same time, we also realized another thing, namely, we should not salute the communist flag.

We found that when our righteous thoughts were strong and we explained the facts in a calm and reasonable way, people understood the truth and stopped helping the party do evil things that hurt others.

When the Epoch Times published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, I used an alias and quit all the organizations that are related to the party with help from other practitioners. At first I thought, since our Teacher had quit, I should quit as well. I did not truly realize the nature of quitting all the organizations of the evil party.

Once, when sharing with a practitioner on sending forth righteous thoughts, he said to me, "How magnificent it is when Dafa practitioners around the entire world send righteous thoughts at the four designated times. However, you are sleeping then." I felt very ashamed of myself, thinking about how I did not send forth righteous thoughts at midnight and how I often found different excuses for myself. When I did send righteous thoughts, I did it as a formality, but with no strong righteous thoughts at all. From that day on, I began to use an alarm clock to wake myself up. In the beginning, I was quite good. But later, when the alarm clock was on snooze mode, I turned it off right away and went back to sleep. It was like this almost every day. Then I put the alarm clock further from the bed so that it was not possible for me to turn it off right away, but the alarm clock either failed to buzz or it rang after the designated time.

After reading the Nine Commentaries and the articles from other practitioners on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website, I realized that the difficulty was caused by the specter of the Chinese Communist Party and that it interferes with us when we want to wake up and send righteous thoughts. I was disturbed by this for quite a while: I've already quit all the organizations of the evil party. Why am I still experiencing interference?

This September, I was tested. The person in charge asked us to check whether the personal information on a particular form was correct as generated by the computer. I saw that "Chinese Communist Party Member" was recorded as my political status. I said immediately, "I am not a party member," and asked that it be corrected. The person said, "Oh, it has no effect on you." At that moment, many people were crowding around, and he was also busy. I left without doing anything. Later, the more I thought about it, the more I found that it was not right at all. "Why did I agree with him? Wasn't this the interference of the evil?" I recalled the springtime activities that county Party members had organized in the area where I lived. Many employees who were non-members were forced to participate in the activities and were deceived and poisoned by the evil party. The malevolent Party spirit could harm people whenever and wherever. At that moment, I knew one thing: the reason why I was being interfered with repeatedly was that, even though I had quit the evil party, I had fear, and my righteous thoughts were not very strong when I quit the party. Because of this, the evil party spirit "tested" me again. I went over my recent thoughts again and again, and strengthened my righteous thoughts. I then withdrew from the Party again. From that day on, I have been able to get up right on time at midnight with a very clear head, join all the practitioners from the entire world, and send forth righteous thoughts.

I have learned from my experience that withdrawing from the party's organizations doesn't necessarily mean there will be no more interference or that we are automatically safe. It is only when we keep our strong righteous thoughts that we will not be interfered with. Being muddleheaded when sending righteous thoughts, or quitting the evil party organizations superficially, are caused by the fact that we do not truly realize the seriousness of cultivation. The evil is looking at us all the time; we should never lower our guard.

November 19, 2005

Posting date: 12/11/2005
Original article date: 12/11/2005
Category: Cultivation in Persecution
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/11/20/114890.html

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