In an extraordinary New Year message that has captivated spiritual seekers worldwide, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, has published a remarkable discourse titled “How Humankind Came To Be.” This profound teaching, released on January 20, 2023, offers his perspective on humanity’s origins, purpose, and destiny during what he describes as turbulent end times.
Mr. Li Hongzhi stands as one of the most recognized yet controversial spiritual figures of our era. The four-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee founded Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that combines meditation, gentle exercises, and moral philosophy centered on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Since introducing the practice publicly in China during the early 1990s, an estimated 100 million people worldwide have embraced its teachings across more than 100 countries.
Despite its global reach, Falun Gong faces severe persecution in China, where the Chinese Communist Party has launched extensive campaigns of suppression, hate propaganda, and censorship. Mr. Li, who has also been nominated for the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought and received Freedom House’s International Religious Freedom Award, authored the foundational text “Zhuan Falun,” now translated into 40 languages.
A Message Born of Urgency
Rather than offering traditional New Year pleasantries, Mr. Li’s latest article carries a tone of profound urgency. “I am seeing imminent danger approaching humanity, and have been called upon by divine beings to pass along, for this reason, several things to everyone in this world,” he writes, promising to reveal “higher, closely guarded secrets” to provide humanity with “another chance at salvation.”
According to Mr. Li’s teachings, the universe progresses through four cosmic stages: Formation, Stasis, Degeneration, and Destruction. He asserts that humanity currently exists in the final period of the Destruction phase, when “everything has changed for the worse” and “destruction is thus imminent.” This cosmic timeline, he explains, drives the current state of global turmoil, moral decline, and spiritual confusion.
The Divine Plan for Human Creation
Mr. Li presents a unique cosmological narrative about human origins. He teaches that the Creator, cherishing all heavenly beings and good lives throughout the cosmos, established Earth at “the outermost plane of the cosmic body” during the beginning of the Degeneration stage. This location, he explains, exists outside the Divine Realm in what higher beings call the “Three Realms.”
These Three Realms comprise increasingly elevated planes: the Realm of Desire (containing earthly life), the Realm of Likings, and the Realm Without Likings. Humanity resides in the lowest realm, described as “the trash bin of the universe,” composed of “the lowest, crudest, and filthiest of particles—molecules, atoms, and the like.”
Regarding human diversity, Mr. Li explains: “When divine beings made man, they did so at the Creator’s behest, and He instructed them to each make human beings in their own unique image. For this reason, there are the white, yellow, black, and other races. While their outward appearances differ, the souls within them were given by the Creator.”
The Purpose Behind Human Suffering
Central to Mr. Li’s teaching is the concept that human suffering serves a divine purpose. He argues that Earth’s harsh conditions—described as “the most grueling of places”—provide necessary opportunities for spiritual elevation through enduring hardship while maintaining kindness and virtue.
“It is certain that going through hardships can help people to atone for their sins and karma,” Mr. Li writes. “And anyone who manages to stay good-natured amidst painful situations and interpersonal troubles is going to build up merit and virtue and, as a result, will achieve the elevation of his or her soul.”
In modern times, he teaches, the Creator replaced the majority of human souls with those of higher beings who incarnated in human bodies to “reduce their karma and sins by enduring hardship.” These beings can achieve salvation by “holding fast to the higher truths taught by God and persevering in goodness and kindness.”
Karma, Virtue, and Universal Justice
Mr. Li’s discourse extensively addresses the concepts of karma and cosmic justice. He teaches that all life circumstances—wealth, poverty, happiness, suffering—result from actions in previous lives. “Everything that happens in one’s life—whether it seems warranted or not—is, in reality, the karmic consequence of what one did in one’s past lives, for better or for worse.”
This perspective directly challenges what he calls “the diabolical nonsense that sinister communism spouts about equality between rich and poor.” Instead, he advocates for universal laws of cause and effect: “Those who do good are blessed for it, while those who do bad things will face payback—if not in this life, then in the next.”
The Path to Salvation
According to Mr. Li’s teaching, humanity’s ultimate purpose transcends worldly achievements. “The purpose of people’s lives on this earth isn’t to accomplish something in the world,” he states. Rather, people came to Earth “to atone for their sins and karma, and to make significant spiritual progress” while awaiting the Creator’s salvation.
He emphasizes that with “the end times now upon us,” the “Heavenly Gate that leads out of the Three Realms has been opened, and the Creator is choosing such beings for deliverance.” The key to salvation lies in maintaining virtue, traditional values, and belief in the divine despite modern challenges.
A Message for Troubled Times
Mr. Li’s article concludes with practical guidance for spiritual seekers: “No matter whether you are rich or poor in life, you should be sure to do good, refrain from doing bad things, stay good and kind, be spiritual and devout, and be happy to help others.” He emphasizes that building blessings and virtue serves not merely to improve current circumstances, but to “pave the way for you back to heaven.”
The Epoch Times, which published this exclusive article, noted in its editorial statement that despite Falun Gong’s practice by over 100 million people worldwide, it remains “largely underreported” as a cultural phenomenon. The publication emphasized its commitment to religious freedom while acknowledging the controversial nature of the content.
As global uncertainty continues to challenge humanity, Mr. Li Hongzhi’s latest teaching offers his followers and spiritual seekers a comprehensive framework for understanding current world conditions through the lens of cosmic purpose and divine intervention. Whether embraced as spiritual truth or examined as cultural phenomenon, “How Humankind Came To Be” represents a significant addition to contemporary religious discourse during an era of unprecedented global transformation.
