As for how exactly you are to let go of that past hatred and anger we have been discussing, one aspect is to see clearly these so-called non-humans, to see clearly that their nature essence is that of the devil Satan, their essence is harmful to people, their essence is identical to and shares the same source as that of the devil Satan and the great red dragon, they entrap you, they cause you harm, just as Satan corrupts mankind. Once you understand this point, do you not then let go somewhat of your emotions of hatred and anger? (Yes.) Some people say, “It’s not enough to just understand these things. Sometimes I get sad just thinking about it!” What should you do when you feel sad? Can you be without any sadness at all? Scars always leave their marks, but having these marks is not necessarily a bad thing. It is precisely these phenomena of unfairness in society, and these people, events and things that cause hatred and anger to arise in you, that allow you to sense the unfairness in society, that allow you to sense the malevolence, maliciousness and evil of mankind, and that allow you to sense the unfairness and desolation of the world, thereby causing the desire to yearn for the light and the longing for the Savior to save you from all this suffering to arise in you. So, is there a context to this desire? (Yes.) Does this desire come easily? (No.) If you had never been harmed among mankind or in society, you would think that there are many good people around. If you go out and trip over and someone comes to help you up, or you go shopping but do not have enough money and the person next to you helps you out, or you lose your purse and someone finds it and returns it to you, you will think there are many good people around. In this frame of mind and with you having this understanding of society, how much understanding will you have toward the meaning of God’s salvation of mankind or the necessity of God doing the work of salvation? How great will your desire be for the Savior to come and save you from the sea of suffering? You will not want it much, will you? It would just be a kind of wish, a kind of fantasy. The more someone undergoes hardship and suffering in the world, suffering all manner of unfair treatment, or, to put it another way, the longer someone has lived in this society and among people, someone in whom profound hatred and anger has arisen toward mankind and society, the more they will wish for God to bring this evil age to an end as soon as possible, to destroy this evil mankind as soon as possible, to save them from the sea of suffering as soon as possible, to exact retribution on the evil and to protect the good—is that not so? (It is.) So now, at this point, you ponder, “Oh, I really must thank those demons. I must thank them for their unfair treatment and for discriminating against me, insulting me and oppressing me. It is their evil deeds and the harm they’ve caused me that have forced me to come before God, that have made me not hanker after the world or life among these people anymore, and that have made me willing to come to God’s house, to come before God, to willingly expend myself for God, to devote my whole life, to live a life of meaning, and not to associate with evil people anymore. Otherwise, I would still be just like them, following worldly trends, and pursuing fame and gain, the good life, pleasures of the flesh, and a wonderful future. Now I believe in God, so there is no need to walk that crooked path any longer. I don’t look at them with hostility anymore. I see clearly who they have always been. They are there to render service, foils to God’s work. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to see exactly what the essence of this world and this mankind is, and would still be thinking that this world and this mankind are more and more wonderful. Now that I have undergone this suffering, I will no longer place my aspirations and hopes in this world or in the hands of any great person. Instead, I hope for God’s kingdom to come, and for the fairness and righteousness of God to take power.” By contemplating in this way, are your emotions of hatred and anger not gradually eased? (They are.) They are eased. And have your perspective and views on people, events and things within your heart not undergone a change? Does this not signify that the path you will walk in the future, your choices, and your objectives are gradually undergoing a change, and that you are gradually turning toward pursuing the correct goals and direction? (Yes.) You bring to mind the things that have happened in the past that broke your heart and which have caused you to hate the world and, once you have clearly seen their meaning and essence, your heart becomes filled with gratitude to God. When you become filled with gratitude, do you not then immerse yourself in enjoyment of it? Do you not then think, “Those unbelievers who don’t believe in God are still being deceived, harmed and devoured by the king of devils itself, Satan. It’s so pitiful! If I didn’t believe in God and hadn’t come before God, I’d be just like them, pursuing the world, rushing around trying to get fame, gain, and status, going through so much suffering and it never occurring to me to change course. I’d be immersed in inescapable sin—how sad! Now that I believe in God, I understand the truth and can see through this matter. The path people should follow is that in pursuit of the truth—this is most valuable, most meaningful. Now that God has shown me such kindness so that I no longer have to undergo that suffering, I will set my determination to follow God till the end, to listen to His words, to live in accordance with His words, and no longer live like I did before, when I wasn’t living like a human being at all.” You see, this good aspiration has arisen, right? Have not the correct goals and life direction gradually taken shape within people’s thoughts and awareness? And are they not now able to embark upon the right path in life? (They are.) So, when these positive emotions and aspirations arise, is it still necessary to think about those negative emotions? After thinking them through for a while or thinking them over several times until you understand them, when these matters no longer disturb your mind or control the path you walk then, without being aware of it, you let go of these emotions of hatred and anger, they no longer occupy your heart and, over time, you resolve the issue of your corrupt disposition. Does the matter of resolving your corrupt disposition relate to pursuing the truth? (Yes.) And does that not mean that you have embarked upon the right path in life? It is not difficult to embark upon the right path; first you must let go of all your various views on the world, one’s humanity, and mankind which do not accord with the facts. How can you see clearly these views which do not accord with the facts? How can you resolve them? These views which do not accord with the facts lie hidden within the emotions of your heart, and these emotions direct the judgment and thinking of your humanity, as well as your character, your speech and actions, as well as, of course, your conscience and reason. More importantly, they direct and influence your objectives in life and the path you walk. Therefore, let go of all negative emotions and let go of all emotions that have control over you—this is the first step you should practice in pursuing the truth. First resolve the issue of the various negative emotions, resolve them as you discover them, and leave no trouble behind. When these issues are resolved, you will no longer be shackled, carrying these negative emotions with you in your pursuit of the truth, and you will be able to seek the truth and resolve it when you reveal a corrupt disposition. Is this an easy thing to achieve? It is not actually that easy.

While I have been fellowshiping and dissecting these negative emotions, have you been applying what I say to yourselves? Some people say, “I’m young and I don’t have much life experience. I’ve never undergone any setbacks or failures or experienced any trauma. Doesn’t that mean that I don’t have any negative emotions?” Everyone has them; everyone will encounter many difficulties and will be liable to give rise to negative emotions. For example, because of the background of society’s evil trends in this age, many children are growing up in single-parent households, some without the love of a mother, some without the love of a father. If anyone is without the love of a mother or a father, they can be considered to be missing something. Irrespective of the age you are at which you lose your father’s or mother’s love, from the perspective of normal humanity, it will have an impact on you to a greater or lesser extent. Some people will close themselves off, some will feel inferior, some will become irritable, some will have a feeling of unease and insecurity, and some will discriminate against and avoid the opposite sex. In any case, those who grow up in this particular environment will, to a greater or lesser extent, develop some abnormalities within their normal humanity. In modern parlance, they get a bit distorted. For example, girls who grow up without a father’s love will be relatively inexperienced when it comes to men. They have to learn how to take care of their own basic needs from a young age, and even carry the heavy burden of the family’s finances and the various tasks that need to be performed, just as their mothers do, unwittingly learning early to worry about and take care of things, or protect themselves, their mothers and their families. They have a strong awareness regarding self-protection and will also have very strong feelings of inferiority. Without being aware of it, once they have grown up in this particular environment, they will unconsciously feel in their innermost heart as though they have some deficiency and this is the feeling they have, regardless of whether or not this feeling has ever severely affected their judgment or decisions in the past. In short, once a person is fully grown, there will be some negative emotions that direct their thoughts which have been there for a long time, and there will always be a reason for them being there. For example, if some boys who grow up in single-parent households have no father but only a mother, they learn from an early age how to take on household chores alongside their mothers, their characters become somewhat maternal. They enjoy looking after girls and feel a sympathy with them, they feel inclusive toward girls and enjoy protecting women, and they feel relatively prejudiced against men. There are some who even feel deep inside a kind of faint dislike and aversion for men, they discriminate against them, believing that men are all feckless and irresponsible, and that they do not do what is right and proper. Of course, there are some among these people who are pretty normal. It is unavoidable, however, that there will be some who have some particular, unrealistic or inappropriate thoughts about men or women, and these all have deficiencies and faults in their humanity. If someone discovers that you have a problem like this and they point it out to you, or if you discover and come to know that you have this kind of serious negative emotion yourself through self-examination, and that it is already affecting your choices and practice in how you view people and things, and how you comport yourself and act, then you should reflect on and know yourself. You should discern and resolve this negative emotion in the light of God’s words, strive to cast off the bonds, the control and the influence of this negative emotion, fight to prevent the pleasure, anger, sorrow, joy, thinking, judgment, conscience and reason of your humanity from becoming distorted, taken to extremes or taken beyond their limits. What else? Once you have striven to prevent these things from happening, you will be able to live a normal life with the conscience and reason of normal humanity and with the instincts and free will of normal humanity that God has granted to man. That is, you strive to keep your thoughts, instincts, free will, capacity for judgment, and your conscience and reason within the scope of normal humanity prescribed by God. Therefore, whatever negative emotion is controlling you, you have a problem with that aspect of your normal humanity. You understand this, right? (Yes.)

People’s pursuit of the truth is achieved on the basis of the normal conscience, reason, instinct and free will of normal humanity, and the range of normal human emotions. You see, within the scope of normal humanity given to man by God, there is nothing extreme, nothing excessive, nothing distorted, and there is no split or perversion of personality. How is being excessive manifested? Always thinking you are no good, that you are nothing—is this not excessive? Is this not unrealistic? (It is.) Blindly holding men in high regard, believing that men are good, that men are more capable than women, that women are incompetent, that women are no good, that they are not as able as men and that, taken as a whole, they are not as good as men—is this not excessive? (It is.) How is taking things to extremes manifested? It is always wanting to go beyond what you can instinctively achieve and always wanting to push your limits. Some people see others sleep five hours a night and then go on to be able to work normally for a whole day, so then they must sleep for four hours a night and see how many days they can last. Some people see others eat two meals a day and have an abundance of energy, able to keep working all day, so then they must eat one meal a day—is this not physically harmful? What’s the point of always trying to appear more capable than you are? What are you competing with your own flesh for? Some people in their fifties have loose teeth and cannot even chew bones or bite sugarcane anymore. They say, “Don’t worry, I can lose a couple of teeth, no problem, I’ll just keep chewing! I must overcome this difficulty. If I don’t try to overcome it, then I’m just weak and useless!” Is this not taking things to extremes? (Yes, it is.) You feel you have to achieve that which you cannot achieve and which your humanity cannot instinctively attain. You cannot attain them with your talent, wisdom, or stature, or with the things you have learned, or with your age and gender, but even though you cannot attain them, you still feel you must. Some women exaggerate their strengths, saying, “Us women can do what men can do. Men can construct buildings, and so can we; men can fly planes, and so can we; men can be boxers, and so can we; men can carry two hundred pounds in a sack, and so can we.” But in the end, they are crushed so much by it that they spit blood. Are they still trying to appear more able than they are? Is this not extreme? Is this not excessive? These manifestations are all extreme and excessive. Absurd people often consider problems and view people, events, and things in this way, and this is also how they approach and solve issues. Therefore, if people want to resolve these excessive manifestations, they must first make an end of and let go of those extreme things. The most serious of these things are the various extreme emotions within their innermost hearts. Under certain circumstances, these emotions frequently cause them to have extreme thoughts and use extreme methods, thereby causing them to go astray. These extreme emotions not only cause people to look foolish, ignorant, and stupid, but they make them go astray and suffer loss. God wants a normal person who pursues the truth, not an absurd, excessive and extreme person to pursue the truth. Why is this? People who are absurd and extreme are not capable of understanding things correctly, much less of purely understanding the truth. People who are fallacious and extreme also use extreme ways to understand, approach and practice the truth—this is very dangerous and troublesome for them. They will suffer great loss, and it also seriously dishonors God. God does not need you to push your limits, or to use extreme and radical methods to practice the truth. Rather, under circumstances wherein your humanity is normal in all respects, and within the scope of humanity of that which you can understand and achieve, He wants you to put God’s words into practice, practice the truth, and meet His demands. The final goal is for your corrupt disposition to change, to gradually rectify and change all your thoughts and views, to increasingly deepen your understanding of the corrupt dispositions of man and your knowledge of God, and thereby make your submission to God more and more concrete and real—this is how you will attain salvation.

Is it meaningful for Me to fellowship on how to let go of the various negative emotions? (Yes.) What is My purpose in doing so? It is so that, regardless of whether these various negative emotions arose a long time ago or whether they are arising right now in the present, you are able to take the correct approach to them, to dispel and resolve them in the right way, to leave these wrong, negative emotions behind, and to gradually come to the point where you no longer become mired in these negative emotions, no matter what happens. When the various negative emotions arise again, you will have awareness and discernment, you will know the harm they do to you and, of course, you must also gradually let go of them. When these emotions arise, you will be able to practice self-restraint and apply wisdom, and you will be able to let them go or seek the truth to resolve and handle them. In any case, they should not affect you adopting the correct ways, the correct attitude, and the correct standpoint in how you view people and things, and how you comport yourself and act. In this way, the obstacles and blockages along your path in pursuit of the truth will grow ever fewer, you will be able to pursue the truth within the scope of normal humanity required by God without disturbance, or with ever fewer disturbances, and you will resolve the corrupt dispositions you reveal in all kinds of situations. Do you now have a way forward regarding how to resolve the various negative emotions? First, examine yourself regarding the corruption you reveal and see whether these negative emotions are influencing you inside and whether you are bringing these negative emotions into how you view people and things, and how you comport yourself and act. In addition, examine the matters that are deeply etched in your memory within your innermost heart and see whether these things that have happened to you have left any scars or marks, and whether they are constantly controlling you to use the correct ways and methods to view people and things, and to comport yourself and act. In this way, when the various negative emotions that arose when you felt hurt in the past are uprooted, then what you should do next is to dissect, discern and resolve them one by one according to the truth. For example, some people have been promoted to become leaders several times, but have several times been replaced or reassigned, and a very negative emotion arises in them. Throughout this process of being promoted and then replaced and reassigned over and over, they never realize why it is happening at all, and therefore never know their own deficiencies and shortcomings, their own corruption, or what the root cause is of the transgressions they commit. They never resolve these issues, and an impression is left deep inside them, and they think, “This is how God’s house makes use of people. When you’re being made use of, you’re raised up, and when you’re not, you’re booted out.” People with this kind of feeling may have a place in society where they can vent, but in God’s house you feel that there is no place where you can vent, no way to vent, and no environment in which to vent, and so all you can do is swallow it down. This swallowing it down is not a real letting go but rather it is you burying it deep inside. There are some people who think that one day they will perform their duty well and, if their brothers and sisters see this, they will select them to be leader again; there are also some who wish to get on with their duty quietly and do not want to be a leader again, and they say, “I won’t be a leader no matter who promotes me. I can’t afford to lose face, and I can’t bear that pain. It’s nothing to do with me who becomes leader, nor who gets replaced. I won’t be leader again, and so I won’t have to endure the hurt and the feeling of being attacked that comes from being replaced. I’ll just do my work well and take on this responsibility, and as for what destination and end lie in wait for me, I give that over into God’s hands—that is up to God.” What kind of emotion is this? It is not entirely accurate to say it is inferiority; I think it is appropriate to call it depression—depression, despondency, being closed off and repressed. They think, “God’s house is a place where justice is upheld, and yet I’m frequently promoted and then replaced. I feel so wronged, but I have no way to argue against it, so I’ll just submit! This is God’s house, where else could I go to argue my case? I’m used to living like this. No one in the world thinks much of me and it’s the same in God’s house. I just won’t think about how things will be in the future.” All day long they are in low spirits, they cannot get interested in anything, they just muddle through everything they do, they do a little of what they can do and nothing else; they do not study, they make no effort, they do not think deeply about anything, and they are unwilling to pay the price. In the end, they run out of energy very quickly, the enthusiasm they had in the beginning cools off, they think nothing has anything to do with them, and who they were before is dead. Is this not despondency? (Yes, it is.) Someone asks them, “How do you feel about being replaced?” They answer, “Well, my caliber is poor. How should I feel? I don’t understand it.” And the other person asks them, “If you were to be chosen again to be leader, would you like to do it?” And they reply, “Oh, what would I want to do that for? It’s not practical! My caliber is poor and I cannot satisfy God’s will.” Saying they are in despair and have given up is not entirely realistic. They just always feel in low spirits, depressed, closed off and despondent. They do not want to say what is in their heart to anyone, they do not want to be open, and they do not want to resolve their own problems, difficulties, corrupt states and corrupt dispositions—they just keep on putting on a brave face. What emotion is this? (Depression.) They also cling to an idea: “I’ll do what God asks me to do and work hard at whatever job the church arranges for me to do. If I can’t finish the job, don’t blame me as it wasn’t me who made me of poor caliber!” Such a person does, in fact, truly believe in God, and they have aspirations. They will never leave God, they will never abandon their duty, and they will always follow God. It is just that they pay no attention to life entry, or to self-reflection, or to resolving their corrupt disposition. What kind of issue is this? Can they gain the truth by believing in this way? Is this not troublesome for them? (Yes, it is.) It is not possible for them to say they do not believe in God, even if they were to be beaten to death. However, because of some particular circumstances, because they have experienced some particular situations and scenarios, and some particular people have said certain things to them, they have been ground down and have wilted so that they cannot stand up again and cannot muster any energy. Does this not show that they have negative emotions? (Yes.) Having negative emotions proves that there is a problem, and when there is a problem, you should resolve it. There is always a way and a path to resolve problems that ought to be resolved—they are not unresolvable. It just depends on whether you can face up to the problem and whether you want to resolve it or not. If you do, then there is no problem so difficult that it cannot be resolved. You come before God and seek the truth in His words, and you can resolve every difficulty. However, not only can your dejection, depression, despondency and repression not help you to resolve your problems but, on the contrary, they can cause your problems to become ever more serious and to get worse and worse. Do you believe this? (Yes.) Therefore, no matter what emotions you are clinging to right now or what emotions you have fallen into now, I hope that you will be able to leave these wrong feelings behind you. No matter what reasons or excuses you have, the moment you fall into an abnormal emotion, you have then fallen into an extreme emotion. When you have fallen into this extreme emotion, it will certainly control your pursuit, and your aspirations and wishes, as well as, of course, the goals you pursue in life, and the consequences of this are severe.

Finally, there is something I would like to tell you: Do not let a minor feeling or a simple, insignificant emotion tangle you up for the rest of your life so that it affects your attainment of salvation and destroys your hope for salvation, understand? (Yes.) This emotion of yours is not only negative, to be more accurate, it is actually in opposition to God and the truth. You might think that this is an emotion within normal humanity, but in God’s eyes, this is not just a simple matter of emotion, but a method of opposition to God. It is a method marked by negative emotions that people use to resist God, God’s words and the truth. Therefore, I hope that, assuming you want to pursue the truth, you will examine yourself thoroughly to see whether you are holding onto these negative emotions and stubbornly, foolishly resisting God and competing with Him. If you have discovered the answer through examination, if you have come to a realization and arrived at a clear awareness, then I ask you to first let go of these emotions. Do not cherish them or hold onto them, for they will destroy you, they will destroy your destination, and they will destroy the opportunity and hope you have in pursuing the truth and attaining salvation. Here is where I will end this fellowship for today.

September 24, 2022