Creating a Compassionate and Vegetarian Global Village

 

Kazakhstan

 


Sowing the Seeds of God’s Holy Love
in Central Asia
By brother-initiate Long, Taipei, Formosa (Originally in Chinese)

Almaty is the most important international city in Central Asia, and prior to 1997, it was the capital of Kazakhstan. In order to deliver the message of God’s holy love and to promote the vegetarian ideal, I decided to travel by myself to this city through mainland China to distribute Alternative Living flyers. From March to July in Golden Year 3 (2006), I submitted three applications and waited in Shanghai for four whole months. Finally, I got the good news in late July and went to the Kazakhstan Embassy in Beijing for a face-to-face interview, where I was granted a visa for a short period of 20 days’ stay.

After arriving in Almaty in early August, I immediately found a hotel and then meditated, praying to Master to arrange everything. Miracles really appeared one after another! Local people only spoke Russian and Kazak. It was even hard to communicate in English, not to mention Chinese. But, on the morning of the next day when I had just walked out of the hotel, an old gentleman taxi driver surprisingly recognized me as Chinese and spoke to me in not very fluent Chinese. This gave me great delight! The driver was almost 70 years old. He brought me to a few Chinese restaurants in the city and always ordered vegetarian food, which he ate together with me and helped with translations all the way. This was the first miracle!

All the streets, big and small, were full of police patrol officers, fully armed soldiers and plainclothes security personnel (KGB). I spent almost a week going through different regions in the city, along markets, parks, temples of the Eastern Orthodox Church, mosques and stores, etc. In the end, I finished distributing all the flyers in Russian that I had brought. Everyone who received the flyer carefully read it through and saved it. No one threw a flyer away. In this country where there are restrictions for distributing flyers, this was surely the second miracle!

On the fifth day, the gentleman driver brought me to a Chinese restaurant. I happily talked to the owner of the restaurant and gave him some sample booklets and Alternative Living flyers in Chinese and in Russian. He quickly became one of the “seeds” of our Quan Yin family in this country. He not only learned the Convenient Method of meditation, but he also cooked vegetarian food for me every day by himself. This was the third miracle!

When I finished distributing the Alternative Living flyers, I asked the restaurant owner to help me contact local media to see if there were newspapers willing to publish the Alternative Living message in Russian. Later, I had a chance to meet with a journalist and an editor from the biggest weekly newspaper in the city. I invited them to a vegetarian meal, and introduced them to Master’s teachings. I also presented sample booklets in Russian to them. They were touched by Master’s love and agreed to publish, at a very low price, a full-page public service advertisement to help us promote the Alternative Living message. In addition, both of them agreed to stay on the vegetarian diet and to practice the Convenient Method. This was the fourth miracle!

On the last day before taking the flight, I invited a female Kazak college student from China who was working in a restaurant, and introduced her to the vegetarian ideal and the Quan Yin Method message. As a result, she sincerely wanted to learn the Convenient Method, so together we meditated for a half hour. And, she became the fourth seed sowed during my trip. This was the fifth miracle arranged by Master!

I only stayed in this totally unfamiliar country for a short period of 20 days. However, Master’s great love quickly started to germinate and disseminate in all directions: through the taxi driver, the Alternative Living flyers, the public service advertisement on the newspaper and the four “Quan Yin seeds.” We are very happy to see that the seeds of love have been sown in this beautiful city, and believe that not long from now they will blossom and bear fruits.