(Clearwisdom.net) "The next step will begin once you are all mature in your cultivation." This is the last sentence in Master's comment on a fellow practitioner's article Don't Be Self-Indulgent and Draw Demons to Ourselves. I was sad upon reading this because I could feel the burden that Master has been carrying for us to save the beings in the universe. He has been guiding disciples' cultivation and waiting for disciples to become mature.

Some fellow practitioners had run certain websites to assist Master in rectifying the Fa and saving sentient beings; however, the websites did not work or serve the original purpose. Master provided them with guidance and pointed out their behaviour that had deviated from the Fa, hoping those practitioners would soon mature in their cultivation. I feel that was Master's expectation for all of us Dafa disciples, to quickly become mature.

We all have various attachments to certain degrees, and these in turn have slowed down the progress of Fa-rectification. Those with fewer attachments might have slowed the progress for several days, while those with more attachments, especially when it's an attachment shared by many practitioners, might be responsible for a delay of several months, or even years.

Is it not so? A few years ago, many practitioners were attached to the results of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) 16th Congress. Master said:

"A little while back a lot of students were thinking: "The CCP is going to hold its 16th Congress soon. If that head demon in China, that wretch of the earth, steps down, then won't our Dafa's good name be restored?"

[...]

"and the old forces saw it, too. The old forces thought, "Wait a minute, what's this?" So they made the outcome of the CCP's 16th Congress worse." (Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia, U.S.A.)

And Master continued, "as I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts."

In the case of the CCP's 16th Congress, it was disciples' human notions that brought us negative results. Later on, in 2007 and 2008, many disciples wished that the Olympics could not happen in China and that the CCP would collapse around the time of the Olympics. However, the old forces saw Dafa disciples' attachments again, so they allowed the CCP a showy Olympics despite its cheating and deception being known to the world. Moreover, a lot of practitioners were harassed and arrested during that period. Such were the bad results caused by disciples' attachments.

If all of our disciples had been doing the three things well, had gottten rid of our attachments, and had only righteous thoughts and actions as Master told us, the persecution might have already ended, because the old forces would not have any excuses to continue it any longer. Dafa disciples' human hearts have attracted and nurtured the evil, and the evil has used it as an excuse to extend the persecution. Master said in Fa Teaching at the 2009 Washington DC International Fa Conference:

"I had really hoped that you would quickly mature and grow rational, thus allowing this affair to be concluded in a short time."

But there are still so many disciples who haven't eliminated their attachments, and they would thereby lose the only opportunity of returning home, which they have awaited for thousands of years. Thus, Master is extending the process at the price of more suffering and more waiting! Nevertheless, time cannot wait forever! In his comments entitled "Cleaning Up," Master said: "Time has waited for you too long."

I am thinking: we really should study and become mature. Although Master complemented us several times that we were "mature" in our cultivation, there have often been times that we haven't met this standard. Of course, in the early days of the persecution in 1999, we were not mature, and it was a natural course of cultivation. But now Master has taught the Fa to us thoroughly, so we cannot stay in the same cultivation state as in 1999.

I am also thinking: we should know how to cultivate now. When human notions emerge (because we are still human beings doing cultivation, it is unavoidable to have human notions at this point), we may become attached to them for a while due to not being clear on the Fa right from the start. We are cultivators, we study the Fa, and the Fa can help us penetrate the hard shell of the human heart to realize our attachments. In turn, we rectify ourselves with the Fa teachings and get rid of our attachments, and this is cultivation. Sometimes we follow our human concepts and become so attached to them. I think we are not cultivating ourselves if we do not use the Fa to rectify ourselves, or in other words, we don't know how to cultivate. If we could become mature sooner, Master may not have to suffer so much and might be happier for us.

Lately some practitioners in mainland China have become attached to the 60th anniversary of the CCP regime, just like they were attached to the CCP's 16th Congress and the Olympics. Out of fear, they have been doing things in a way that deviates from what a Dafa disciple should do in the Fa-rectification period: some told each other to be cautious about safety, some put away and hid Dafa materials, some stopped going out to talk to people about Falun Gong, and others would not greet or talk to fellow practitioners in public. Even a few Fa-study sites stopped studying the Fa altogether.

This is a serious question: do we listen to Master or the evil? If we listen to Master, we should rectify ourselves with the Fa and strengthen our righteous thoughts, which are able to eliminate the evil. Once the evil beings and factors behind the persecutors are cleaned up, they won't be inclined to commit wrongdoing, and they may even be saved. The heart of fear makes one have doubts and causes demonic interference from one's mind, which in turn causes the insignificant evil factors to look even bigger than Divine Beings and Buddhas. We should not perceive the evil to be more powerful than it is, and should not become the blindfolded person Master describes in Zhuan Falun who died when he heard the sound of water dripping and thought it was his blood.

As long as we have righteous thoughts, Master can do anything for us. Our experiences have proved that the old forces do not dare to persecute the Dafa practitioners with righteous thoughts and actions.

The 60th anniversary of the CCP regime is drawing near. Will we ask the old forces to persecute us with our human hearts like before? No. Rather, we should learn to be mature in our cultivation. Of course behaving rationally and wisely is necessary for the sake of safety in ordinary society.

As Master's disciples, none of us would want to delay Master in concluding the persecution and commencing the next step.