Depression completely turned around #falundafa #falungong

I was like 16 years old. I was already expelled from some schools. I had many problems and I was already doing drugs, smoking, drinking. And I went to the first grade. The teacher there gave us the first practice book to write. I had a very steady hand. I knew how to do it and I started to do it just perfectly. You didn't even see that I touched it. And then this teacher, he became very angry because he thought I wasn't doing anything. And I couldn't express at that moment as a child. And then I started to look beside me and I saw that they were really messing it up and I started to do it also like that. So I was not recognized in many, many ways and I was always misunderstood. I felt very alone in this world. I just couldn't trust the world anymore. So I started to really resent it. At a certain point in the elementary school, I became the bully of the school. I don't think they saw it that your mom was depressed. They saw a trouble child. I was always holding everything in, you know. I didn't really share. This is when we would go and take a walk with the whole family. You would also always see my parents, myself, and then my brother would always be either 20 meters ahead or 20 meters back, but never with us. It's maybe very typical also to the relationship in general. My brother had a constant feeling of being criticized with every step that he took. There was a lot of attention towards my brother when he had problems and they really guided him and they just expected me to follow. As children, it seemed that we did not have much in common. And when we grew up, it was like I was the person who was really trying to become a small part in that big hole that we call society. And I was really trying to find my way in there. And my brother was different in that way. He didn't do that. And I think this led us both to separate already there and then go completely different directions in our lives. So things escalated when I got older. It got to a point that I just stopped school. I didn't care anymore. I just let it go. I didn't see a lot of friends anymore. I had a lot of anger in myself. I saw it very dark, listening to very extreme music. And I was even suicidal at that moment. The kind of music you listen to, the NC, Hengwet. For me, it was a whole new world. I was raised very strict. That's me. I think I was about 14 or 15 years old. I knew perfectly what I could and what I couldn't do. And in Johan's world, it was completely the opposite. You love him and you want to help him, so you move on. Even still, I was doing drugs. I still drank. It was very hard for me to get all these habits and bad notions to make it vanish. It was almost impossible, but at least I tried. He was very unhappy. He did things he had to do, but you saw he was smoking, drinking a lot and not taking his responsibilities. He was looking for other things in life than what he was normally doing all the time. So we got in discussion about this. One day, he actually told me that there was a book and that this was something very profound. The way he talked about it, I knew I had to read that book. I repeatedly actually asked him to bring the book. Then even I saw a little hesitation in himself. It was very precious for me, but I also knew that it was serious for him to read it. And then at one point, he gave me this book, but he still saw me as like a little bit of a strange guy, you know, long hair. I didn't have much hesitation to give it to him, because I knew the questions he had would be answered in this book. When he gave it to me, I remember him saying, you have to take good care of this book. He was a little bit afraid. What really attracted me in Falun Gong was the way that these principles were explained, very simple, very pure. The basic principles like truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Then I got to the part somewhere in the middle of the book where it describes the word fashion. After I read that part, that evening, supposedly, I fell asleep on my couch. And then I had a dream. In this dream, my phone was ringing. The phone was lying on the kitchen table under a pile of mess. And I was sliding inside all this mess and papers and all kinds of things. And when I saw the phone, I picked it up and I looked at the screen of this phone, I saw fashion in this phone. So I picked it up, I pushed the button, I put it to my ear. And when I did that, I just... I was awake. Like in the movie, like... What's happening? That was so intense. It was like a shock. Because it was so powerful and vivid. Then suddenly I saw this word, fashion, in my mind. I said, what is this thing in my dream? And the screen of the phone said fashion. And then suddenly it hit me. My memory came and I said, this is this person from the book, which was actually on the phone. When I realized this, I felt like there was an energy flow through my body from head to toe, like I was floating. And I felt like, okay, this is powerful stuff, this book. This is something I had never experienced before. So it was literally a call from the author of the book on the phone. So calling me and telling me, you know, this is what you should do. If you want to do it, just do it. That changed my life really from one day to the other. Because that's when I started cultivation. I didn't recognize my Johan anymore. It was a completely different Johan. It was more caring, more helping. As a Johan, I haven't seen much. Bas, the one who is pretending she always helps. With Falun Dafa, it was a complete turnaround. Not as much in the couch, I'm depressed. A lot of his annoying habits he had in the past are gone. He's completely another person. Also, employees at work, they say, Johan, you should change a lot in a good way. He's always trying to help others. The moment he understood things, why things are happening this way, he changed a lot. You saw he was more enthusiastic about it. I was really reborn into this fa. I wanted to become a better person, so I started to be very diligent at home. One morning, I finished a lot of chores even before I went to work. I remember I came at my workplace, which is a very big parking lot. And I remember I looked at the sky and it was a very beautiful sunrise. A lot of colors, like pink and everything was very beautiful. But then I noticed something. And then straight above my head, there was a line. And when I looked left and right, I saw it was endless there. And it was endless there. There, there was a sunlight coming up. And then when I looked behind me, I noticed that there was just a sea of black clouds behind me. I see that I am really leaving darkness behind here. And I'm walking towards the light. And when I realized it on a deeper level, then I felt again this energy rush through my whole body. I was like floating to my workplace, really. And it was very powerful. I had tears in my eyes at that moment. I didn't visit him often. Only when it was really necessary. And when I would go there, I always had this feeling of, you know, when someone opens the door, like, what do you want? Yeah, he wasn't welcome. He was welcome on functional occasions. If there was something broken or I needed help, then he can come in. And otherwise, I'm like, stay out. It was not possible even to be in a very relaxed way, I think, in the same room. And sometimes it puzzled me. I thought, why is this like, why is our relationship like that? How did it get this far? My thought probably was at that moment that whatever it is that comes from him, it's probably not related to me anyway. Because I'm too different. Once I got drunk following the book in my hand, in the process of reading the book, this also gave me a very strong feeling like, wow, this is it. This is what I've been searching for. In one way, he's very, very, very bright. He is very bright at math. He's very bright at remembering things. He's like a computer. He has a fixed agenda in his head of everything. But on an emotional level, he lags far behind. We told him a thousand times, ten thousand times, how you should make a sandwich. He's 14 years old. If you see him do it, you think he's about three or four years old. And it doesn't get better. They just denied it, questioning us, actually, as parents. They didn't see it as we did. But we had another boy then, and I saw the difference between the two boys. They didn't. This is how I saw it, is that my brother had a constant feeling of being criticized with every step that he took for his boy. But I saw also my parents having only good intentions. My father is the kind of person who always analyzes everything. If the news would be on at our home, on the television, and the reporter would say something, then my father would immediately start to talk over it and already give his view and his analysis of everything, where we would say, Daddy, please be quiet. We cannot hear anything anymore. And my brother, when he first talked about following along to my father, I think he had expected a very tough analysis of this. It got to a point that he really asked about, you know, then give me this book. And when I handed it over to him, I said, you have to read it in one piece, just from A to Z. And then after that, whatever you think about it, whatever you feel, I will definitely take note of this and listen to whatever you have to say about it. After my father finished reading the book, he came back to my brother and then he said, to the big surprise of my brother and myself also, he said, This book, he said, is the first book that I read where I can say that everything that's in there is true. And that's it. So when we saw each other, my brother, my father, and me, we were always talking about what we had experienced and what we learned and this and that, and how we were handling ourselves and our environment according to these principles of Zen Shan Ren. This is what made us very happy to see each other suddenly, which was before not the case. I think we didn't really ever started talking about our problems and put it on the table and fix it. It was, everyone started to look inside themselves and fix it in that way, you know. And then at the surface, things just became very relaxed. We see each other, we crack jokes all the time. That's probably why I don't remember a lot of these things, because the way it is now, it feels like it's always been like that. They really understand that he has almost like a manual that you have to follow, because he is this kind of person. And try their best to meet our demands also a little bit of how to treat him and how to approach him. And I always had this picture where my father was chopping this big piece of wood that was almost half his own size. And he would just chop them in one swing. And no one could do it. My brother couldn't do it, I couldn't do it, only my father could do it. And then suddenly my father started becoming older, also mentally a little bit depressed. And I remember looking at the picture and sometimes thinking, you know, this is how my father used to be. My father couldn't do that anymore also. And after he started practicing, he changed not only mentally but also physically, he changed a lot. And it became very clear to me after one time when my uncle asked him to go and help in the woods. Later on he showed me the pictures of that day. And then suddenly I saw a picture again of my father chopping those big pieces of woods again, which I hadn't seen for a very, very long time. And I thought to myself, wow, he's back. I feel that your energy goes up. It feels like you have really given up something and endured and you become stronger. When I think about it, in the end I'm very grateful actually. Not only for obtaining the Pha and being able to cultivate now, the feeling that I am doing what I came for in this world, to just improve myself and practicing these three principles, truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. But also grateful for actually everything that happened in the past, everything that made me realize and made me more and more learn from my mistakes and from everything that I had to go through. It was a very bumpy way before and now I can understand what it all meant. So I'm very grateful actually. I feel very strong and very positive for the future and for everyone around me. When I see how myself, my family and so many people in so many countries all over the world have benefited from this practice, and then to see that the people of China have lost this opportunity simply because of the persecution and because of so many lies that have been told to them throughout the years. I mean, this is really the saddest thing. I am very, very grateful that Master Lee has taught us Dharma and brought Dharma to the human world. I'd like to thank Master. Thank you for teaching us Zhen Shan Ren and Dharma.