Path of Life Book Club, Raleigh, NC

November 2015 — Patty Pace

I grew up in a church, hearing the Bible taught since birth, and then read it for myself as soon as I was able. This experience led me to be comfortable with the things, experiences, and beings of the spiritual world. I believed that mysteries existed in the Universe that we could not understand or explain. I believed in a Creator who interacted with the world, desired relationship with us, and wanted us to overcome evil with good. These past experiences helped and hindered my reading of the Path of Life. I had some knowledge and beliefs to help me embrace the “out of this world” kind of ideas and mystical and spiritual concepts represented in the Path of Life, but I also was fettered by my former beliefs. The troublesome part has been “Can there be another God, other than the God I know in the Old and New Testaments?” The Bible warns repeatedly to not follow any other God. However at this point it seems to me that the information in Path of Life extensively lines up with the information in the Bible.

In the past, I have been taught that God is all-powerful, omnipotent, an only good and loving God. The biggest shock to me was to learn that Pangu is a real man who feels every emotion, struggles daily as we do, and has worked his entire existence to overcome darkness with light. It has been enlightening and comforting to realize that God struggles as we do, only so much more, to the point of dismemberment and dying for us, as the Bible teaches that Christ did.

Currently in my reading of the Path of Life, I still sometimes become worried that Pangu will fool us again, because of his unmerciful teasing and testing of Master Ou. Pangu consistently seems to tell the truth about the development of the Universe for eternity, and then deceive Master Ou about day-to-day details. However, by practicing Pangu Shengong over the past three years, I am now so much more kind, gentle, patient, tolerant, loving, and physically healthy than I have ever been able to achieve in my life before beginning this practice.

Master Ou once said to me “Seek truth, beauty, and kindness,” and this is exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, marching towards the future human world.