Starting Spiritual Practice
Why reconsider wanting spiritual powers to gain friends or make money?
English translation draft · Based on the Chinese article. This is not a word-for-word translation approved by Master Shengyuan.
First ask why you want spiritual powers. Cultivation is about returning to your original spirit. Spiritual powers and abilities are additional capacities, not shortcuts out of reality. I have met friends who thought that if they could communicate with spirits, people would gather around them, they would no longer be excluded, and they could earn money helping clients. Such thinking needs adjustment. Neither motivation nor actual ability can be overlooked.
Claiming to be a deity’s spirit medium is not established by imitating a child’s speech and constantly playing. In the understanding I discussed, a deity descends to deal with or communicate something and has corresponding virtue and ability. A title alone cannot justify transferring the pressures of living and earning money to family members.
While learning, keep examining your heart. If you find realities you do not want to face, willingness to acknowledge them begins correction. A special identity cannot replace the life you still need to live.
Feeling cared for in a group and finally belonging is understandable. But if you then merely wait for spiritual powers to make you special, you still have not learned what relationships, work, and daily life require. The issue is willingness to face things and change, not adopting an identity and waiting for everything to become different automatically.