What Makes A Country Great

THE MASTER'S LECTURES

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
March 8, 1993. Singapore

Thank you for your love and welcome. I like Singapore. I think the people in Singapore are already in Heaven,[Master smiles]so what do I have to teach you that you want to hear so much?

I’m very happy to see Singapore develop better and better each day. I love to be in Singapore. In fact, this morning I thought that maybe I would stay here, but I don’t think that I have the fortune like you to stay in Singapore all the time and enjoy this luxurious surrounding. I have learned so much from your country, which is so much like most of our meditation centers. We plant trees, big ones with leaves, roots, branches and everything, and then we manage the space so that everyone doesn’t feel so cramped even though we have a lot of people.

Yes, I feel…

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The Purpose of Meditation – Realizing Your Self and Attaining Inner Bliss

Spoken by Master Ching Hai

“All the pain, sorrow and misery come not from the outside, not from other people. They come from our inner ignorance. We expect too much from everyone and everything, and then we’re disappointed. So the only source of happiness is inside. Whenever you meditate, try to get in touch with that source. For your sake, for your own happiness, contentment, satisfaction, you must always try to get in touch with that joyful center which is inside all of you. That is where the Master power is. That is where every miracle in the universe can manifest. That’s all loving kindness, that’s where all loving kindness is born. That’s where all the Virtues, beauty and the Truth laying dormant there for you to discover.

Otherwise, sooner or later we all die and go where, who cares? At least when we’re living, we must live a very worthwhile human life. We should be happy and be able to carry on our life in a joyful way. Because that befits our dignity as a human being, as the “Top Ten” of all the animals in this world. We’re the top of physical creation. We don’t know if we’re the top of the universe yet. Maybe not, but at least here, we’re the top of creation. So we must carry on our life as dignified as a human being should be, and not be fearful of everything and stupid and in misery, especially when we have the treasure inside that we can always use.

That’s the only purpose of meditation: that you know yourself and know what true happiness is, not because the Master says so and you have to obey the Master. You obey the Master because it’s good for you, but you must know why. You must know it’s for you, not for the Master.

Everything Is Created By The Mind

Spoken By Master Ching Hai, Hsihu Center, Formosa. Dec. 29, 1994
(Originally in Chinese)

A long time ago, two friends took a trip together to visit and tour around. As they passed by an Indian temple, they heard someone reciting the Bhagavadgita inside. The Bhagavadgita is a very famous sutra in India. One of the friends said to the other, “Come on! Let’s go inside to listen to the sutra.” So both of them went inside; however, only one stayed to listen, and the other took one glimpse and went out to look for girls in a brothel.

The one that went to a brothel soon felt bored. He regretted what he had done and felt quite ashamed. He thought, ‘Gosh! This is really nonsense! I am so ashamed. Why did I come to such a place instead of listening to the holy teaching? My friend is listening to the sutra now and receiving boundless merits while I degraded myself at a place for prostitutes. How demoralizing!” He felt repulsive and ashamed, so he went back to the temple to listen to the sutra. But when he arrived there, it was already over. He was truly sorry and repented for several days afterwards.

While he was feeling ashamed at the brothel, his friend in the temple was unable to calm his mind to listen to the sutra. His mind kept wondering to the brothel and thought, “Gosh! This is really boring! Why do I stay here listening to the sutra? My friend is now eating and drinking and having a good time, while I sit here listening to some sutra. How boring!” As he thought about it, he got into a bad mood.

After a long time, both of the friends died. The angel of death pulled the friend who listened to the sutra to hell, and dragged the friend who went to the brothel to heaven. Do you know why? It is because everything is created by the mind. God does not look at our conduct alone. He looks into our hearts. Sometimes, we see a person’s behavior but we don’t really know if he is that way. Unless we can measure from within, it is very difficult to judge the inner person. He may appear very kind, but his heart is not kind; or he may have a very loving heart, but it doesn’t seem like that from his outer appearance.

The same with some of our fellow initiates. You know that they were not so virtuous in the past; some were big gangsters and some were lady gangsters. (everyone laugh.) Some have killed others or have committed some deeds that were not acceptable to society. But after they repent, they try to purify themselves and practice self-cultivation sincerely. Eventually their sins will be eliminated. While there are some others who may not have committed any crime during their life time, but they roam around, refuse to learn meditation, and take only half a glimpse at the Master and feel nothing. They leave to look for other masters. They are always ‘shopping” around; we might say that they are “shopping around the mountains” because most of the enlightened masters lived in the mountains. (Master laughs.) They jump from one mountain to another because the other seems greener and prettier. Due to their lack of sincerity in spiritual practice, they are not successful in the things they do.

Therefore, we cannot fool God by our seemingly kind outer appearance. We cannot fool God because to fool God means to fool ourselves. We are fully aware of what we want; and whatever we do, whether we are sincere or not, we know it clearly.

You have also read some stories of the ancient masters. Some of them were pretty weird, like Jigong (a Chinese master). We heard that he was always drunk and falling down without dignity. Then there was the Chin-Shan living Buddha. He was also a weird monk (Master laughs.) He was always very sloppy and undignified. But they practiced and knew their own level of spiritual attainment; and the Buddhas knew as well. Therefore, even though it is not easy to judge from the outside, but as spiritual practitioners, we know from the inside whether we are sincere or not. Even if we don’t know, God knows. It is not due to our outer performance that other people will believe in us, not necessarily so. God makes the judgment.

Being truly sincere is the most important in spiritual practice. At group meditation, some people may sit there quietly, but their mind is not focused. That’s why I often tells you that when you go to group meditation, you must keep your body, speech and mind clean. Otherwise, you receive no merit from sitting there; it is worse than those who meditate sincerely at home. They are very sincere and humble when they meditated every day; thus they receive more merit. But of course we will receive a lot of merit when we attend group meditation anyway, because the sincerity of the others will affect us. For example, when we come here and see hundreds and thousands of people meditating intently and sitting so seriously, we might feel ashamed and try to sit quietly for a while , thus very naturally we will receive merit through concentration and purification of the mind.

Meditation transforms roughest San Francisco schools

by David L. Kirp

At first glance, Quiet Time – a stress reduction strategy used in several San Francisco middle and high schools, as well as in scattered schools around the Bay Area – looks like something out of the om-chanting 1960s. Twice daily, a gong sounds in the classroom and rowdy adolescents, who normally can’t sit still for 10 seconds, shut their eyes and try to clear their minds. I’ve spent lots of time in urban schools and have never seen anything like it.

This practice – meditation rebranded – deserves serious attention from parents and policymakers. An impressive array of studies shows that integrating meditation into a school’s daily routine can markedly improve the lives of students. If San Francisco schools Superintendent Richard Carranzahas his way, Quiet Time could well spread citywide.

What’s happening at Visitacion Valley Middle School, which in 2007 became the first public school nationwide to adopt the program, shows why the superintendent is so enthusiastic. In this neighborhood, gunfire is as common as birdsong – nine shootings have been recorded in the past month – and most students know someone who’s been shot or did the shooting. Murders are so frequent that the school employs a full-time grief counselor.

In years past, these students were largely out of control, frequently fighting in the corridors, scrawling graffiti on the walls and cursing their teachers. Absenteeism rates were among the city’s highest and so were suspensions. Worn-down teachers routinely called in sick.

Unsurprisingly, academics suffered. The school tried everything, from counseling and peer support to after-school tutoring and sports, but to disappointingly little effect.

Now these students are doing light-years better. In the first year of Quiet Time, the number of suspensions fell by 45 percent. Within four years, the suspension rate was among the lowest in the city. Daily attendance rates climbed to 98 percent, well above the citywide average. Grade point averages improved markedly. About 20 percent of graduates are admitted to Lowell High School – before Quiet Time, getting any students into this elite high school was a rarity. Remarkably, in the annual California Healthy Kids Survey, these middle school youngsters recorded the highest happiness levels in San Francisco.

Reports are similarly positive in the three other schools that have adopted Quiet Time. At Burton High School, for instance, students in the program report significantly less stress and depression, and greater self-esteem, than nonparticipants. With stress levels down, achievement has markedly improved, particularly among students who have been doing worst academically. Grades rose dramatically, compared with those who weren’t in the program.

On the California Achievement Test, twice as many students in Quiet Time schools have become proficient in English, compared with students in similar schools where the program doesn’t exist, and the gap is even bigger in math. Teachers report they’re less emotionally exhausted and more resilient.

“The research is showing big effects on students’ performance,” says Superintendent Carranza. “Our new accountability standards, which we’re developing in tandem with the other big California districts, emphasize the importance of social-emotional factors in improving kids’ lives, not just academics. That’s where Quiet Time can have a major impact, and I’d like to see it expand well beyond a handful of schools.”

While Quiet Time is no panacea, it’s a game-changer for many students who otherwise might have become dropouts. That’s reason enough to make meditation a school staple, and not just in San Francisco.

David L. Kirp, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, is the author of “Improbable Scholars: The Rebirth of a Great American School District and a Strategy for America’s Schools.”

from http://www.sfgate.com

Q & A (Con.)

Q: For enlightenment, is service in love to humanity as important as meditation or is service more important than meditation practice?

M: Both have to go hand in hand. We meditate because we want to do service better, we want to be clearer in what we do. Therefore, we’ll be more efficient in our work and more service to others. Without meditation, sometimes we have very best intention and we are willing to serve people, but we don’t know what is the best way. Therefore, meditation is a helping factor to true selfless service.

Q: Is it possible to live a life completely free of doubt and fear forever and if so, what does one need to do or not do?

M: Fear and anxiety comes only from darkness, from ignorance, from the fear of the unknown.

Once we get to know the stable side of nature, the real side of our life, our fear and anxiety disappear. We only fear because we thought after this life, we have nothing. We only fear because we know only the ephemeral existence of this world. If we know that life is eternal, if we know that we are the greatest beings in the universe, we have no fear at all.

So I invite you to get to know yourself through the means of initiation (into Quan-Yin practice).

Q: I love my original master very deeply and usually recite his name. If I continue to do this, will I lose Your love and blessing? I love both of you. No difference because without my original Master I would not be alive to sit here and listen to Your lecture.

M: I’m not in competition with anyone. You can love ten more masters if you wish. No problem. Just be enlightened. That is the best way to pay, to show the gratitude to your previous master. Don’t need to even be grateful to me or anything. Whatever you do, I love you all the same. It’s you who probably do not love yourself, because you would think, “I do that very bad, I do this very bad.” And it’s you yourself, stop feeling being loved.

Q: How long must one meditate to reach enlightenment?

M: Enlightenment comes immediately. As soon as you sit down with the Master and sincerely want it, it comes immediately. Even sometimes before initiation; sometimes I have not finished the instruction, and people already got enlightenment. Some people are in a hurry, you know, they have no time to wait.

But the meditation takes place daily, because we always want to be in the enlightened state, and we always want to renew our acknowledgment of enlightenment. Or also we want to strengthen it, to strengthen, to expand until infinity. Otherwise, even if you meditate for one hundred years, you don’t get any enlightenment.

Meditation doesn’t bring enlightenment, the Master power does, because during initiation, or during so-called meditation in our method, you do not meditate, because meditation means effort, but in our way, it’s effortless. You might sit there sometimes even sleepy and then enlightenment even comes, even then. Or you will be enlightened during sleep because the Master power will wake you, wake your soul during your sleep. While your mind is asleep, your body is at rest, your soul will be awaken into the world of light and wisdom.

Therefore, meditation is not a means to enlightenment. But for lack of vocabulary in this world, we have to call it meditation. Actually, you just sit there and receiving the grace of God and acknowledging your own supreme power. There’s no meditation actually that is involved, because anything that is earned or it is a result of some kinds of action, it is still the worldly production. It’s still within the material framework. Therefore, our meditation is a non-meditational meditation, effortless meditation.

Q: What makes you the equal of other great masters?

M: The same thing that makes you equal with other great masters that makes me equal. All of us are equal. You are as great as Jesus and Buddha, if you want to be, if you want to know, if you know where your greatness is. I know. That’s what makes me great. If you don’t know, okay it’s fine. If you want to know, you will be as great as any.

God Almighty Takes Care Of Everything

Master Ching Hai tells story

There was once one very conscientious Indian yoga practitioner. One day his very old and sick mother died. He became very happy and immediately ran to the big hall, kneeling there he thanked God Almighty! He was there prostrating and saying, “Thank you God! I had not asked and had not prayed to You, but You had already given me a great blessing. Now that my mother had been taken away by You, I am very free and I’m able to think about You wholeheartedly everyday without any encumbrance. Thank You!”

He was there joyously dancing and singing. The neighbors felt it very strange: How come? His mother has died, and he did not shed a tear, and he has even dancing and singing. I mean he was dancing a type of dance as to make an offering to God, not that he was going to a karaoke, it’s not the same! Perhaps it was about the same, moving and shaking, they looked the same. But his mother would not be sad because his mother was also very pious spiritual practitioner, just like himself. They both knew that the world is ephemeral. Thus his mother was very happy when she passed away, and he was also very happy after she passed away. They were both strange people!
After burying his mother, he went to the bank of the Ganges everyday reciting the God five names, meditating, and communicating with God Almighty. It had been three days and this person did not eat or drink anything. He totally forgot about it. He was sitting on one very secluded bank of the Ganges where no pilgrims pass by, thus he did not get anything to eat. Every day he was very happily recited the five names and meditated, so he forgot about hunger.
God Almighty spoke to the people beside Him, “Alas! What a pity! My disciple down there is dying of hunger and it seems like I am not being responsible; not giving him anything to eat. He is there, remembering me every moment of the day, yet I am here forgetting to protect him.” Then God told the angel beside Him to bring some good food to the riverside for him. A lot of blessed food was put on a gold plate: chapatti, milk, apple etc. and brought to that person. That angel had never seen a human being before, not mention a boy. She was a girl and a bit shy to see a boy, so she silently put the plate beside him and flew away.

That person saw the food but did not see anyone come. He thanked God thinking it must have been sent by Him. He finished the food and continued to recite God’s name, meditate, and enter Samadhi. Suddenly a lot of people surrounded him and woke him up. They were carrying sticks and broad swords wanting to arrest him. Very puzzled he said, “Why? What is the matter?” They said, “You thief. You dare to steal this gold plate from God’s temple. We want to take you to the King to punish you.” No matter how he tried to explain, the soldiers would not believe him. Because they saw this poor boy in tattered clothes sitting by the river, they could not imagine that he could possess such a precious gold plate, thus they assumed that he must have stolen it. The plate looked like the ones used in the church to make offerings to God, so they were to take him back to be punished.

After taking him back, the King was very angry. He told his subordinates to beat him. He was beaten for a long time, very hard and very seriously, but that yogi did not feel anything at all, and continued to laugh (Master laughs). Not laughing like I am, but about the same. He was not only laughing, he was also very happy like being tickled. They got tired of beating him; their hands were sore. (Master laughs.) Then they stopped beating him and let him go. The King also felt strange, feeling as if God was protecting him, thus he dared not continue with the beating. But he was very curious and ran to the temple to see if such a plate that had been stolen.

When the king went to the temple, he saw blood flowing from God’s statue. He was very surprised, “How could it be so? How could an idol bleed?” Not only that, the places that were bleeding were exactly the places as on that person which had been beaten. Therefore, he knelt there repenting not knowing what sins he had committed. Later he realized that perhaps that person was innocent, beating him was like beating God, thus God’s statue was bleeding. At that point, the King and his ministers were all very frightened. They all hurried to the riverside, knelt, and repented to that small, penniless yogi; they also offered him food every day. When they went back to the temple, they saw that God’s statue was no longer bleeding, hence they knew the reason.

Because this person was very earnest in his meditation, he thought only about God every day, so God felt guilty because he did not have anything to eat. If it was because of the food that he was beaten, then of course it was God’s fault. Thus He bore the punishment himself. Understand? It is not that after being God or Buddha you care nothing. If we truly practice sincerely then God will take care of everything. This is the meaning of the story.

The World Is The Best School For Practicing

Spoken by Master Ching Hai

Q. Master, when I meditate, I cannot keep my mind concentrate at here (between eyebrows). It runs all over the place and it talks about all kinds of different subjects. How do I concentrate and meditate better?

M. Some people can concentrate right away; some people take a longer time. I have mentioned previously in the lecture. Also forgive yourself. The situation in this world is not conducive to our tranquil meditation and calm thinking, but try again and again. In this world, we have an advantage, that because this world is so difficult for us to practice, God’s blessing is with us many folds. So we walk one step and the Master Power will walk a hundred steps to help us.

If we are in Heaven and practice, it’s not that lucrative. Therefore in Heaven if you want to practice, it takes a longer time. For example, here we practice one day it is equal to one hundred days in Heaven. That’s why many divas, heavenly beings, they like to be incarnated into human bodies, in order to practice faster. It’s because here we have all kinds of rubbing force, like karma and situation and disaster and war and suffering and happiness, all these mixing. It’s a kind of a high degree fire to forge us. These fires will forge us into a strong, useful tool for ourselves and for the world.

While we are practicing here, we have also the opportunity to help our fellow beings and, therefore, we gain more merit as well. For example, you meditate alone at your home, so you have only one personal merit. But, if you, through your effort or through your eloquence, you offer your place, for example, for a hundred persons to meditate, then you have a hundred more merit to add up to your personal merit. So you have a hundred times more quicker, you understand what I mean? Or you get another hundred persons to come in to get initiation, these merits are also yours. Because after all we are one, the more we connected with more people, the more expand we become and the greater we become, in terms of merit. Mathematical wise speaking, it is like that.

So it is better than in Heaven. In Heaven everybody is having a good time and so they take it easy. They don’t have the motivation behind them to push them to concentrate. That is why I say when you are in deep sorrow or when you are despair you pray better, and sometimes you meditate even better. At that time you remember God more; And then you get better experience that day, bigger light, stronger sound or feel more elated, more near to God. So it is good to practice in this world even though it is difficult.

I am happy that many of our fellow initiates practice very diligently. Some come to the center just to look around but later… Well, they don’t look around that long because everybody closes their eyes. So they feel embarrassed after sometime and they also close their eyes, and then they see something inside, instead of looking at pretty girls outside. So there is a very good advantage of having a temple or having a center, where people come together and do the same thing, concentrate and thinking of God; that helps very much. So you take your time. You can look around for a while, and then when you are fed up with it, you close your eyes and meditate with all the people. Okay?

The mind is always having trouble to be controlled; that’s why we have to practice every day. Otherwise, I would tell you, “Get initiation and you are the Buddha.” No more work! Right? It is because our habit is long term. It has been many thousands of years of time, maybe more! So to take one lifetime to clear all these is hard work, but it’s worth it. Or you want to stay here a thousand more years to continue to do that? Well, it’s fun! So that is why I tell you to have to meditate longer time, two and half hours or three hours, because the first twenty minutes is struggling. Just go on, go on with it and after about twenty minutes, it begins to settle down. After half an hour, you begin to enjoy, and forty minutes, you are gone! (Laughter)

The Story Of Shiva

Master Ching Hai Tells Stories

There was a story about Shiva. Do you know Shiva? Shiva was one of the past masters. He was supposed to be the god of destruction. He destroyed negativity, not people. Some people misunderstand so they worry that he’d destroy them so always keep blackmailing him with all kinds of fruit and cakes (Master laughs). So in the past, he meditated very deeply in the Himalayas. He never woke up from the meditation. Nothing stirred him. This is a legend from India. I don’t know if it is true. I just tell you the power of God.

He meditated all the time in the Himalayas, deep in the meditation, never stirred. But some of the gods in heaven were afraid that he didn’t have a wife, so he would not pass down other generation, the holy seed or something like that, the sacred bloodline, so they worried very much, because he was so holy and they wanted to have another generation of this kind. So they sent out a beautiful fairy. Her name was Parvati. She was very beautiful and her figure was enough to make all the men fell down. But she couldn’t stir him. She tried all her best all kind of dances around him or make all kinds of things, but he never stirred out of meditation. So finally she was fed up, so she went to the other side of the mountain, a little bit longer way, selected a mountain range and she sat there and meditated. She said, “Now, all this is nonsense! I meditate on God and I get liberation and eternal bliss. That’s better than to chase a man who is like a stone, and have no feeling!” (Laughter) “And me, so beautiful like this and he never stirs!”

She was fed up, angry and frustrated, so she went to the other mountain, Mountain Kailash, which is the most famous and holy mountain according to Indian belief. It is very high and it has also a very beautiful lake in the vicinity, called Mansarouar. So she stayed there and meditated, and after sometime she attained the blissful state. So Shiva, suddenly, during his deep meditation, he felt something stirring him. There was some very strong, powerful feminine energy. It was kind of made him feel good and excited somehow. So he opened his third eye, had a look and said, “Wow! There’s a beauty over there.” So that was how the romance started. You know the rest. So that’s the power of meditation, the power of God. It even makes the god stir. Do you know what I mean? It made the most ascetic yogi excited. (Master laughs.) Well, if you want to get a good husband, may be a good advice! (Laughter.) Actually, when you don’t want it, you get it.

Parvati was trying her best to charm him but she did not succeed because she tried with the ego, with the limited power of possessiveness and mundane thinking. But when she became holy, her attraction became different. Why? Because his vibration was very holy, his standard was very high. If she used her mundane vibration and energy to attract him, how could he come down? You know what I mean? You have to be at least equal in order to attract the opponent.

Actually it’s like that. Many people have no attraction before, then suddenly after initiation and meditate for some time, they begin to attract people. You know, not necessarily physically, just attract them. They just love them and they just want to be near them. It is because of your vibration, your loving God energy. You cannot conceal it. It just radiates out and then attracts people like magnet, because the souls in themselves are also Godlike. So they just feel attracted to you, the same that people are attracted to the masters, but that is by no means a crutch. It is just a self attracted to a higher self. So after sometimes they just realize that both of them are one. Therefore, who is there to get the crutch? Who is there to rely on whom? So actually that is also the answer to that question about master and religion are crutch. It depends. Okay?

Dr. John Hagelin: Look Within to Understand the Universe – part 1

Many decades ago, a great scientist, Albert Einstein attempted to formulate the “Unified Field Theory,” also known as the “Theory of Everything” – a formula that marries all of the forces of nature into a single doctrine. However he was ultimately not successful in reaching his goal during his lifetime.

Now in this Golden Age, scientists have continued Einstein’s noble endeavor to further explore the very nature of existence. One of these individuals is Dr. John Hagelin.

Dr. Hagelin is a world-renowned vegetarian quantum physicist, who received his Ph.D. from Harvard University, USA. He is currently the Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy, a leading science and technology think tank, and International Director of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace, an organization of leading scientists throughout the world dedicated to ending nuclear proliferation.

He has led studies on the nature of consciousness, and is a leader among those working to bring together science and our spiritual heritage. Dr. Hagelin has developed the “Grand Unified Field Theory based on the Superstring,” a formulation he says achieves Einstein’s vision and the application of which can bring about peace in our world.

His work is an extension of string theory, which says everything is based on one-dimensional, unimaginably small loop-shaped particles that vibrate like violin strings. The particular vibration determines the characteristics of an object and the things that it will experience. Let us now learn more about his findings.

Would you give us a brief overview of the Unification Theories in physics?

Modern science has explored deeper levels of reality, more fundamental space-time scales; starting at the macroscopic sensory level, getting onto the molecular, atomic, nuclear, sub-nuclear levels, to the electro-weak Unified Field Theory – for which several Nobel Prizes have been given – to grand unification.

And now super unification, where all four forces of nature, including gravity, electro-magnetism, radioactivity, and the nuclear force become one. And all those so-called particles of nature also become unified in the single unified universal field of intelligence at the origin of the universe, at the basis of space and time. That’s what the Unified Field Theory is.

We next asked Dr. Hagelin to further explain the nature of the universal field of intelligence.

Physics has discovered something beyond matter, something non-material, because the material world really stops at about the atomic level. Sub-nuclear particles like photons, quarks, these aren’t particles at all; they are expressions of intelligence, they are vibrational modes of a universal field or a superstring field. So we’ve gone beyond matter into quantum mechanics, then Quantum Field Theory, and today, Unified Quantum Field Theory.

We’ve left matter behind in physics. We’re now about the study of intelligence. And so we have this fundamental field in physics, which is a field of intelligence, not dead intelligence, dynamic intelligence, self-interacting, self-aware intelligence. So, physics has really encountered, stumbled upon the field of consciousness, pure subjectivity at the basis of the objective reality of matter.

Physicists have really probed beyond the limits of matter, and are into the exploration of the fundamental intelligence that gave birth to the universe, fundamental intelligence that governs the universe.

So what is the relationship between unity, diversity and individuality?

Our true Self is our deep inner Self, field of consciousness, field of subjectivity, the “I” within all of us, that which experiences. It’s different from your beliefs. It’s different from anything specific about your life. It is the non-specific field of pure subjectivity; that which knows, that which sees, that is beyond the mind, beyond the intellect, even beyond emotion; that is the true Self.

That pure consciousness within is the unified field, now being explored by physics. So, individuality, this field of course is universal, field of universal consciousness at our inner core. But from that ocean of universal consciousness, swells up waves of individual consciousness. From individual consciousness, ego, comes individual mind, individual senses, individual body. Individuality is just a localized wave on the Universal Ocean of being, Universal Ocean of consciousness.

In meditation, for example, I mean effective meditation, that takes you all the way to that level of universal consciousness, in meditation, you experience the universal, unbounded nature of consciousness, our universal Self and you experience the emergence of individual mind, individual self, individual thoughts and body from that universality.

So modern science is in a position to say, “Yes, that’s true, that’s how it works.” But long before the superstring, the ancient sciences of consciousness and the deep philosophical and spiritual traditions of the world have talked about the fundamental unity of life, and have even given techniques of prayer or meditation, not any prayer, not any meditation, but specific techniques of meditation that actually take the awareness so deeply within, that our inner universal silent Self is opened to direct experience.

How can one access the unified field, the super unified field?

Even though we all have consciousness, by virtue of which I can see you and hear you in this, consciousness is necessary for any experience. But consciousness itself is un-experienced; it’s the experiencer. Consciousness rarely, if ever, has the experience of itself. It is always outwardly directed to one thing or one person or another; a thought, an idea, an emotion, an object, a person; that’s not consciousness; those are objects of consciousness.

So, it’s interesting, in order to experience our own subjectivity, in order to know our own consciousness, our own Self, you need a technique. You need a technique to take the outwardly directed attention and turn that attention powerfully within, to experience and explore deeper levels of mind, deeper levels of human intelligence, deeper levels of consciousness. Absolute universal consciousness remains; consciousness aware of itself; Self-awareness.

That’s the meditative state. And for that a technique is necessary. Just because we have a lifetime of habit of the attention flowing purely without, we need to turn it around and teach it basically to go within.

Dr. Hagelin says that Transcendental Meditation, a meditation technique developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, can take one into this deeper level of consciousness. Many scientific studies have concluded that heightened states of awareness can be achieved during meditation. Those who are regular practitioners of meditation report that the experience of an intense, restful state of mind causes constructive psychological changes and improved quality of life.

And interestingly enough, that experience is a fundamental importance, even for education, for example, because that experience alone engages the total brain. It brings what’s called, “global EEG coherence,” maximally expanded comprehension, which becomes more and more stabilized.

And we have that broad comprehension, stabilized, global EEG coherence, permanently established, that leads to increased intelligence, creativity, memory, moral reasoning, academic performance, learning ability, reaction time, alertness; everything good about the mind depends on its systematic development. And that development occurs not so much through reading, writing, arithmetic; that development occurs most rapidly and most completely through the experience of unbounded awareness, the meditative state.

You have mentioned the benefits and implications of the super unified field and you mentioned education. Why isn’t it applied?

It’s a very interesting question, because scientists are talking about the unified field today. Finally, they’ve gotten to that level of ultimate reality. But in terms of applying it, right now today, even with particle accelerators, as sophisticated as they are, there’s no real technology to utilize that most fundamental and powerful level of nature’s functioning, except to the human nervous system, through a subjective technology of consciousness.

That experience of expanded comprehension develops the brain holistically. Not in a fragmented way. You can study like I did, 15 years of physics. You can develop this sliver of the brain here. Or you can study music and develop this sliver over here.

But in terms of holistic development, which is enlightenment, higher states of consciousness, you need this more fundamental experience of the big Self. So the application of the unified field is a side effect of experiencing it. And the experience of the unified field is what develops the total brain, what develops enlightenment.

Dr. Hagelin strongly believes that all educational systems should include meditation practice in their curriculum to enhance students’ level of performance and overall lives.

There are maybe 700 studies published in the world’s top scientific journals, showing that this experience, the meditative state, develops the total brain, develops IQ, improves learning ability, gets rid of ADHD (Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), which is a terrible epidemic today.

We’ve got to have something that will really work and to give our children a chance, especially children who are locked in these pressure cookers of stress, give them a chance to really succeed in life. It has been in place long enough to have done a lot of published research already showing improved academic performance, radically reduced suspension rates, increased graduation rates, better self-esteem, less violence, less fights, less disciplinary infractions and so forth.

In fact, there’s one school in San Francisco (USA), which was notorious for its violence. That school turned around so profoundly, through a number of innovative improvements including implementation of TM (Transcendental Meditation), what’s called a quiet time program, time out twice a day.

That school improved so much that the principal of that school was awarded by former (US) President George W. Bush with the Middle School Principal of the Year Award. Most successful principal of the country, awarded that because of his ability to turn that school around. And TM was a critical component of the transformation of that school.

Q & A After Lecture

Excerpt from Master Ching Hai’s lecture

Q: Some people say that it is import ant to be a good-hearted person, but it is not necessary to be a vegan. Does this make sense?

M: If one is truly a good-hearted person, then why does he still eat another being’s flesh? Seeing them suffer, he should not be able to bear to eat them! Flesh eating is unmerciful, so how can this be done by a good-hearted person?

Master Lien Chih once said, “Kill its body, and eat its meat. In this world there is no one more cruel, malevolent, atrocious and evil than this person.” How can he ever claim that he himself has a good heart?

Mencius also said, “If you see it alive, you can’t bear to see it die, and if you hear it groaning you cannot bear to eat its meat; so the real gentlemen keep far from the kitchen.”

Human intelligence is higher than  animals, and we can use weapons to make them unable to resist us, so they die with hatred. The kind of person who does this, bullying small and weak creatures, has no right to be called a gentleman. When animals are killed, they are terribly stricken with agony, fear and resentment. This causes the production of toxins that stay in their meat to harm those who eat it. Since the frequency of the vibration of animals is lower than that of humankind, they will influence our vibration, and affect the development of our wisdom.

Q: Some meat-lovers say that they buy meat from the butcher, so it’s not killed by themselves, therefore it is all right to eat it. Do you think this is right?

M: This is a disastrous mistake. You must know that butchers kill living beings because people want to eat. In the Lankavatara Sutra, Buddha said, if there was no one eating meat then, no killing would happen. So eating meat and killing living beings are of the same sin. Because of the killing of too many living beings, we have natural disasters and human-made calamities. Wars are also caused by too much killing.

Q: A long time ago, I heard another Master say, “Buddha ate a pig’s foot and then got diarrhea and died.” Is this true?

M: Absolutely not. It was because of eating a kind of mushroom that Buddha died. If we translate directly from the language of the Brahmans, this kind of mushroom is called the “pig’s foot”. It’s just like when we call a kind of fruit “longan” (in Chinese this literally means the “dragon’s eye”). There are many things that by name are not vegetables but actually are vegetarian foods, such things as the “dragon’s eye.” This mushroom in Brahmanic language is called “pig’s foot” or “pig’s joy.” Both have a connection with pigs. This kind of mushroom was not easy to find in ancient India and was rare delicacy, so people offered it to Buddha in worship. This mushroom cannot be found above the ground. It grows under the ground. If people want to find it they must search with the help of an old pig which likes very much to eat this kind of mushroom. Pigs detect it by their smell, and when they discover one, they use their feet to dig in the mud to find and eat it. That was why this kind of mushroom is called the “pig’s joy” or “pig’s foot.” Actually these two names refer to the same mushroom. Because it was translated carelessly and because people did not truly understand the derivation, the following generations have been caused to misunderstand and mistake Buddha for a flesh devouring man. This is really a regrettable thing.

You Make God The Way You Want Him To Be

Spoken By Master Ching Hai

There are all kinds of material attachments to religious orders, just to satisfy their mind. But it cheats them out of their precious time, by not letting them think of anything better, or try to find anything better. The Buddha said, “Buddha is inside you.” And then Jesus said, “God dwells within you. You are the temple of God.” What did they mean by this? It means you make God the way you want Him to be. You make Buddha the way you want Him to be. According to your realization, your level, your power, the Buddha is that, God is that.

For example, I teach you the Quan Yin Method, without a method, but we have to call it a method. Otherwise, If I said to people come here and I’ll give you nothing, no method, nobody would come. But, after a while you realize that there is truly no method. It’s only the  power that helps you.

Now, after I give you the Quan Yin Method, for example, then you meditate. You try to search within yourselves to find what kind of power that you have, what kind of capability that you have forgotten, how much intelligence that you have not used, who you are and what kind of position you have in this universe. You search and search, and you’ll find it. And then, you find up to the first level, then you’ll find that you are very loving now. You are less stressful than before, and so you think, “Oh God is that. God helps me. God can help me to heal stress and to heal my sickness.” You get cured from some disease, at the first level. Sometimes, when you touch somebody, that person gets cure too, and you have healing power! You’ll say, “Oh! God has healing power. God is that. God has love. God gives me love. I feel loved now, and I feel I love someone else.”

But that love is still on a weak level. And by eating vegetarian you feel your body is better. You can think better than before, and you love your neighbor better now. So, you begin to declare that your Buddha is love; your Buddha is healing power; your God is healing power and magical power.  He can make a lot of magic and things like that. You know God is there. You know there is a God, and that He has such and such qualities. And for a little while longer, you practice and you get up to the second level. Now, suddenly, whenever somebody asks you a question, you can talk with eloquence. You can reply to them in a way that they never have heard before, in a way you never dreamed you could reply before. You understand all the sutras and all the Bibles in the world.

You can also sometimes see into the past, into other people’s past and future. You know why you are connected with each other like this. You can regulate, invisibly or visibly, some of your karmic ties with other people, so suddenly your relationships smooth out. Suddenly, two enemies may come back loving each other, because, invisibly, in your practice your power has smoothed the past enmity out of your life and your relationship. So you begin to declare, “God has intellectual power! God is eloquence! God is that!” So your God has grown a little bit taller. (Laughter) That’s how you make God and how you make Buddha.

Then you begin to listen inside, and you can hear the sound of thunder or the sound of many waters. So it declares in the Bible that God speaks in the voice of thunder, and like the sound of many waters. That’s how they declared their God. When they saw the big flame of light, they said, “God comes in a big flame. God is like a big flame.” So their God differs. Your God now differs from the God before, or differs from another initiate who has only reached the first level, or differs from another initiate who has reached the third level. His God is different from yours, but it is the same God, whom, pitifully, is being seen by different eyes and different angles. Just like when the Buddha was alive, he told the story of the four blind people who touched an elephant; who described the elephant. The one who touched his ears said, “Wow! The elephant is like a fan, a big fan.” And the other one who touched his trunk said, “Oh! The elephant is like a big pillar.” And the other one who touched his nose said, “Oh! The elephant looks like a water hose.” And the one who touched his tail said, “Wow! The elephant is like a broom stick.” This is how ordinary people see God. And this is how practitioners and people at different levels see God and make their own God.

Therefore, it is said that God is within you; that Buddha is in your mind. That is the meaning of it.  Now, you know that you can make Buddha and you can make God. So I would advise you to make the best God out of it. Our God must be the supreme, the Most High, to be worthy of our time, energy and attention. Time is money! We might just as well buy the best God. (Laughter) Now you understand why God is not there for you to worship, but demands us to make use of His power it. If we don’t make use of this God by our own power, then when we pray and nothing is done, we cannot blame anyone else. From the top of the hierarchy to the lowest level of hell, you have only yourselves to blame. You’ve gone the wrong way. You walk the wrong path. You approach things in the wrong direction, with the wrong method.

A KING WITH A LOT OF DESIRE – part 3

The King was thinking with his throat center; his Adam’s apple kept coming up and down, and the God saw it. (Master and everyone laugh) When he saw his throat center activated, then he knew. He kept looking with his wisdom eye into the throat center, and he saw the black market going on there, (Master and everyone laugh) Mafia organization going on there, ah, all kinds of criminal records written there. So, God knew what was going on in this King’s mind, but pretended not to know anything. He didn’t say anything. He tried to be even more pleasant, friendlier, and offered more things.

After that, God was just in the front mountain and tried to tell the King, “Okay, I am busy. I have initiation going on in the back mountain, five hundred foreign disciples in the meditation hall, and five or six sites of construction going on. So, would you please excuse me?” (Master and everyone laugh) And “Sayonara.”

The king was very desirous to stay in the Kingdom of God. But then the God made sure that the king knew that he must go. When he tried to stay there longer, many of the guards, god’s guardian angels, with the eyes as big as the sun, shining like atom bombs, stared at him, and said nothing. (Laughter) The God said to him, “Either you go voluntarily and soon, or you go involuntarily and soon.” (Master and everyone laugh) The king saw that he had only a handful of generals, soldiers, and a small chariot; and with all these guardian angels with very big umbrellas, powerful eyes and arms; he had better move. So he had to move. He went back to Earth again.

Since that day, God didn’t favor him anymore. So he began to be ill, suffered a lot, and then started to die. Before he died, he called his ministers and other officers to his deathbed and said that he was very sorry now. Very sorry because he knew why he was dying. He knew God was punishing him. God withdrew eternal happiness or the eternal life-force from him, and now granted him a big favor which was the death sentence. He was very sorry and very repentant. He also said, “After I die, if anyone asks you why I died, you tell them it was because of greed.” And that was it. He closed his eyes and meditated forever in the grave. Good-bye. Finished! (Applause)

See, we could be materialistic practitioners as well. This story serves to remind us that even though we follow a so-called spiritual practicing path, we must check ourselves all the time. We must be sure that we don’t follow materialistic spiritualism. Yes it is called that. Because we follow a path in order to gain more power, then we can control others or we can take things from the universe, from other people without ever knowing. Sometimes you don’t know it, but you do follow materialistic spiritualism. For example, you come here or you go to a Master anywhere expecting that she or he will heal you of your sickness because you don’t want to go see a doctor. You think you have the right to demand such things. You come here with a very grave illness and throw yourself, throw the responsibility onto the ashram, wanting to be healed overnight; or you want to be richer, more powerful in some way and then you expect the Master to fulfill your wish in such a way. This is no good.

Even if you practice the Quan Yin Method, you follow the spiritual discipline and meditate, if your mind is not pure of material need, then it’s no good. Of course, when you are in trouble, you are bound to ask for help. Like I don’t have a job now and I need to pay the rent and all that. Master can you help me to find a job. That is different. When you really need, you may ask.

Also if the people come to initiation, expecting that after that, she will have this and that material gain or more position in the society, etc. This is disgusting. We should not come to any Master expecting such things, because we are bound to feel very disappointed. Or even if we are not disappointed, the Master might grant us our wish. But then, the more we want, the less we are satisfied and then we keep wanting, wanting to no end. And then our attention, our energy is always focused on these material aims and we forget the Almighty Power inside.

After we attain the Almighty Power, anything will come to us when necessary without asking. But we don’t come for that, we don’t come for material fulfillment, or any other magical power. These are astral desires. Also material in other senses, not only that you wish for money, then it materializes, but if you wish for magical power or any kind of control over other people, the weather, or the surroundings, these are also material wishes. These are even worse. Like business people, we go to do business and we want to gain money and all these kinds of things. We should practice for the sake of wisdom alone, for the sake of knowing ourselves, for the sake of knowing the origin of our Home and to be free, loving and happy. That’s all there is. And everything else comes or does not come; it is just by the way.

Everything I told you, don’t forget. But sometimes you know but your practice is different.  So we have to always check up. We are bound to make mistakes, but we have to check and correct it.

A KING WITH A LOT OF DESIRE – part 2

Doesn’t matter how many thousand years you live, still one day you must end, and there’s nothing here you can take with you. And nothing physical will ever, ever satisfy you forever, every day of your life. Satisfaction comes only from inside. If you seek anything else except satisfaction from inside, you will always end up frustrated and miserable. Every time you try, every time like you knock the wall, you have to return and reshape your actions again. Even love, children, husband, wife, anything that you think that will bring you the most beautiful feelings of human life, still it never lasts. Today it is good. Tomorrow it brings you heartache, problems, consequences, and all kinds of sorrow and worries.

It takes a lot of effort to keep someone you love. And it takes a lot of effort to keep someone who loves you. Any little so-called wrong or insensitive move may break the relationship immediately, and sometimes it’s irreparable. So every effort we spend in this world to repair our friendships, to build up the kingdom on Earth, everything always brings us trouble, even though we are successful in the end, or sometimes in between. Still it takes us all energy, time, youth, and attention in order to keep that alive. It doesn’t matter what kind of relationship, or what kind of treasure that it is.  Have you experienced that? If you have not, you may try. Go and fall in love somewhere and then tell me what happens.

All right, so let’s go back to India, to our greedy king. So now he was bored after running around the world. The king was bored after four thousand years of invading the four corners of the Earth. Now, he was bored to death because he had nothing to play with anymore. All the things, all the countries that he had conquered, he knew by name. All the games in the country, all the beautiful women, he had seen everything he knew. Now, he was bored with the Earth – nothing to do. One day he sat there. He couldn’t meditate on money either because he was fed up. He had enough. He couldn’t meditate on anything else because everything in the world belonged to him. So he sat there. He thought of God and meditated on God.

Ah, finally, my God. Can you believe that? He actually did meditate on God. Then, he was thinking: “Oh, I wish I could see God. How I long to see God. If I could just see God, it would be good, beautiful. Oh, God! How can I see God?” (Laughter) As he wished, his dream came true. God, moved by his sincere desire, perhaps materialistic desire, invited him to the Kingdom Perhaps, the god of the Astral world, Vishnu god or Shiva god, we don’t know what kind of god that was.

Well, by the way he was thinking, perhaps he ended up in the Astral kingdom, because he was so materialistic. Not that he wanted to see God for reverence or longing in his heart, but he wanted to see God because he desired to see the Kingdom of God. He wanted to see whether the Kingdom of God had any differences from his kingdom, and anything else he could learn, he could look at, he could play with etc. It was just pure materialistic curiosity.

God was very generous and loving. Anyone who meditated on him attained his attention. So, that was God. He was compassionate, loving, even though he was only an Astral God. An Astral God is also the representative of the highest God. He has some qualities of the Almighty.

Now, very lovingly, cautiously, hospitably, he invited the king to come to the Kingdom of God. Then his UFO, airplane, or whatever, chariot, took him into the sky and up to the Kingdom of God, to the throne of the deity. Then, the God, whatever kingdom that may have been, Astral, intellectual, or akashic Buddhi God, I don’t know, invited him to sit next to him. He had a very long sofa made of gold, studded with diamonds and precious stones glittering like the sun in the morning. So he invited him to sit next to him even – very cautious God. Very politely, very hospitably, he offered him all kinds of biscuits, candies, grapes, apples. Anything that was available in the Kingdom of God, was offered to him, as well as to his accompanying horses, elephants, queen, chariots, managers, soldiers, generals, ministers and everything that he brought up. Then God talked, chatted to him in a very friendly way.

The king, the one who was never satisfied, sat there talking to God, but at the same time looked around. Wow! The lamp is made of diamonds (Laughter) Wow! And that lamp is made of rubies, and the other one is make of pearls. And everything here is more precious and beautiful than anything we have on Earth. Even the diamonds are different; gold is different, silver is different. It seemed to be a thousand times more beautiful, more real, more precious, more pleasing to the eyes and, of course, to the heart of the king.

Now he sat there and thought. When he was looking, he thought with the sole. Later, he thought with the knees, then he tried to think with the solar plexus, and then he tried to reason with the heart. (laughters)That didn’t work either. And then he tried to reason with the throat. But that was all he could come up with. It didn’t work either, because he wanted to swallow everything. So the most concentrated chakra for him was the throat center. He wanted to eat anything that he saw. He wanted to swallow, possess everything that he ever laid eyes on.

He was thinking, when it comes up to the throat, he wants to swallow the Kingdom of God. Now, he said, “Wow! This is very beautiful. What if I get rid of this old man (Master and everyone laugh) and then become the king.” Ah, hah! So he was sitting there and thinking like that with his throat.

Forgive Yourself part 4

So we all come from God, whether Masters or not Masters. The Master is the one who knows God, and the “non-Master” is the one who doesn’t know God yet.

I told you about the story of the cup, the ocean water in the cup. So at the time of initiation, you know already, the “button” is pushed open so that we can get in touch, somewhat, to God, at least for some moments. Then we continue to do that every day, until we completely realize that we are one with God; there is no separation.

There are many things that the initiated persons understand and know, but it’s difficult to put them into words.   If no one demands anything from me, I would not even think of God. Do you know what I mean? He is just kind of always standing around or He is just inside me. So I don’t even think of Him. I don’t talk about Him. I don’t miss Him. I don’t seek Him anymore. Just for other people’s sake I talk about God. I talk about these things. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to talk about God. Maybe that’s the reason why I don’t desire to go for lectures or anything like that, because I am just satisfied wherever I am and whatever I do.

The initiated people are mostly like that. Many of them have this satisfaction right away at the time of initiation and continue forever. Some of them have to wait sometime to realize that they have found the treasure. Why is it so? Some people’s “curtains” are thicker than the others, because we are obstructed by intellectual understanding and by much of the knowledge that we have accumulated during our lifetime, and we are proud of it and cling to that. That’s why we have forgotten that we are greater than this knowledge, greater than the PH.D. certificate greater than the name that we are proud to have, like Doctor so-and-so, or such and such position. We are greater than this, greater than any king on this Earth.

Sometimes we don’t even realize that we have this ego and that we are trapped into this ego – the Maya net. We don’t even realize it until we practice more and more. And the more we practice, the more we realize that we are obstructed by our own habits, by our own collections of garbage, of a lot of nonsense thinking.

Similarly, every day we are busy with our daily work and we busy with our worldly knowledge and we think we know that much, this much, and then we forgot that we are the greatest ones. We know more than that. We know above all these things, including these things. Now, the greatest Power, the greatest wisdom, is so big like that, for example; so great, so pervasive, and then we use that great wisdom just to understand a little bit of that worldly knowledge, for example, the medical knowledge or the lawyer knowledge or anything, and then we cling to that. The whole wisdom we use just to pay attention to this corner of the knowledge.

Therefore we forget the whole. Do you understand what I mean? That’s it. And we thought that we are very great already, we are this doctor and that PH.D. I don’t mean to talk about you. I said “we” meaning including myself. Sorry!

So now we think we know that much. We are beautiful. We have this and this certificate, and that. In fact, we’ve lost the whole 99.999 percent of our great wisdom just to pay for that much worldly knowledge. In the end we have nothing because this is ephemeral; this knowledge will change. We know many medical definitions or many medicines have been proved outdated and then replaced by another. Or scientific facts have always been changed, removed and replaced by another idea, and then it would be replaced again and again, as humankind progresses into a higher consciousness.

Therefore, it doesn’t matter how much knowledge we gain from this world or from the brain power of research; we will never have the whole thing, just one little point in the universe. Just like the water in the cup is proud that he is so big and he doesn’t know that he is the whole ocean. When he is connected with the whole ocean, he becomes the ocean. I guess you understand what I say.

Forgive Yourself – part 3

We are here to search for this forgotten treasure and we never give up until we find it. That’s why our lives are never satisfactory because we always know there is something else, something greater than what we have right now. We always somehow know that we are not this container – the flesh, because after we so-called die, the body is still there but we cannot move; we cannot do anything; we cannot love any person; we cannot open our mouths; we cannot do anything at all! That means we are not the body. Something in the body is there to make the body move and work while we are living. Something in the body left when we die, so we cannot move any of our bodily instruments. So somehow we know; very deep in our hearts we know. Well, I know! I don’t know if you know. Do you know? You must know.

That’s why sometimes when you have time, when you are in trouble especially, you sit down and you don’t want to be with anyone; just want to be alone. Then you think, and then you feel better and better, because you know there is something there, something that sometimes comforts us in silence. I used to be like that before I knew the Quan Yin Method. I used to pray a lot. I prayed to Budddha and I prayed to Jesus. I was afraid that one of Them could not hear, so I prayed to anyone I knew. Sometimes I prayed to Krishna – the Hindu God.

There is no Hindu God; there is only God, actually. Just sometimes God assumes an Indian form or a Chinese form, so we call this Hindu God or Chinese God – actually there is no such thing.

So sometimes when I was in deep sorrow, before I knew the Quan Yin Method, I prayed very deeply, just to be alone; not to pray very loud, but to truly lament inside. Then I felt like something lifted me up, and I felt so soothed and so smooth, and I felt that there was nothing to worry about. That is the time when we realize that something is greater than life; something is always there to listen to us.

Most people pray, and they say they don’t have any response. It’s because they don’t pray deeply enough. That is why we have more response when we are in deep sorrow because we are truly sincere at that time. We pierce through all the layers of pretense, of hypocrisy and we pierce through our false self and we get the response. But I suggest that we don’t have to wait until we are in deep sorrow to do this. That would be too traumatic. We have a better way to do it. We practice it even when we are not in sorrow; that would be better. We practice before we die; that would be better. So when we die, it is just like walking from one room to the next. No problem! And we can walk out forever. We can break the whole cup and be united with the whole ocean, or we can keep it; we can seek another cup in order to satisfy someone else’s longing or to help someone else.

It’s like the Master, sometimes the Master reincarnates again and again, into different bodies, in order to help humankind. Some Masters just like to enjoy heaven, enjoy Nirvana and never want to go back again. Some Masters never, never ever incarnated on this Earth, with no intention to do so. Some Masters incarnate again and again in order to help the children who are suffering, who have the great treasure but don’t know how to use it; therefore, being very poor and miserable.

In India, people appreciate the Masters very much. They worship the Master even more than God because of this reason. They say, “Oh, if both the Master and God appear right now, I would only worship the Master. I don’t care about God.” It’s just a kind of adoration and gratefulness to the Master. Actually, they worship the Master because of God; they worship God because of the Master. Without the Master, they don’t know that true God exists or not. Yes. Without God Power, the Master is also nothing.

Forgive Yourself – part 2

So now, to meditate, to pray to God or to study the Holy Scriptures is Just a way to re program our thinking, our way of life. Because we reprogram it in a good way, the result that comes out is always good, or at least not as bad as before, or at least not all bad. Even though we can’t help to record some more bad information daily, the number will be less than before. It’s because we keep recording good things, like we meditate; we meditate on God name, we meditate on God Power and we get the God Power coming through us, filling us with joy, virtues and goodness. Then even the bad information comes in, it has no room, and also may be minimized. And because of the goodness and the powerful energy from God, through meditation each day, we will be able to dilute or maybe digest completely any information that is harmful to our minds and our souls. That’s why we cannot not to meditate! We cannot not to study the holy Scriptures.

Many people don’t like to study holy Scriptures. Why? Because they don’t understand. So I hear that many of the holy men from churches, or from temples, they complain that the young people or the people of today do not like to study Scriptures; do not like to study holy books. It is because most of the holy Scriptures are too profound, too sophisticated, too deep, sometimes too difficult for the modern man, for the layman to understand.

But we have one solution. First, we have to open the understanding power, then we can understand the Bible or the Scriptures. Anything you get into your hands, any book, you will be able to understand. I also could not understand much of what is said in the Bible or in the Bhagavad Gita or in the Buddhist Scriptures or in the Lao Tzu books and all that – Confucius and Lao Tzu books I read. I understood somehow but not as profound, not as deep, as I do now. After our power of understanding is open, the wisdom is made to be useful again, then we can understand many things. So if we do not understand the Scriptures, the best thing is first to get enlightenment. Enlighten means you open the power of understanding, and then the heavenly Light, Godly Light, will shed all understanding upon any object that we wish to study.

So that’s why even now in college, people teach the students many kinds of meditation, at least to calm their turbulent minds. And if they have a better meditation, the good kind of meditation, which can even open the seed, the door of wisdom, the power of understanding, then so much better for them. Therefore many of the students who study in college but at the same time meditate, they find it easier to master any subject that they want to study. And they are always very good at school. This is a fact that everyone knows by now.

Why is there reincarnation? It is because we do not know the real Self and we chase after the container of the Self. Therefore we chase after one to another. For example, the water in the sea is all one. If we happened to put it in a cup, or we put a cup into the sea like this and then we seal it, then the water in the cup is separated from the ocean. But as soon as the cup is broken, it becomes one with the ocean again.

Similarly, our real Self is not contained in this body, never! It’s because it’s all-pervading, and this is just one of the stations, one of the things, that contain a little bit of ourselves. Therefore, when we break this limitation, we will be one with the whole. We don’t have to break the body to go out; there is a way to go out.  Just like we don’t need to break the cup to free the water in the cup.

So there is a place where we can be connected with the whole universe while still keeping this instrument, the body. That is the third eye center, the seed of wisdom, the seed of the soul. If it is opened, by any means at all, by our own perseverance, power of desire for liberation or through a Master, then we will be connected right away with the whole universe, with the Most High, which is all over the place.

The power of the Most High is not only contained in this body but it is in the air right now. It’s everywhere. It’s in every blade of grass and the leaves of the trees, in all creation. It is easier to open it if we have an experienced guide who has already been connected with the whole universal Power. Then he is very powerful because he doesn’t use individual power anymore. He uses the whole universal Power, because he is already connected. Just like the water in the cup, even though it’s still in the cup but it’s always connected with the ocean water through the opener ; and there is always fresh water coming in and out, even though it is still contained in the cup. Therefore a Master, or an enlightened person, is like that. The initiated person is the one who has this connection, has the “button open, “ and the Master is the one who realizes the universal Power.

Even though we all have it, the Master is the one who realizes it. It’s just like if two persons have the same amount of money inherited from the father, but the one who knows it, who knows where it is, can use it. The other one, even though he has it but he puts it somewhere or he never knows where it is, can he use it? He cannot! Similarly, we are all the same, but if we know where to use our universal Power, then we will become masters of ourselves, masters of our destinies, and we can lead many others to become masters of their own destinies as well. Otherwise, even though we are equally great, we don’t know our greatness and that’s waste of time. Therefore, we have to come back again, again and again in search for this treasure, until we find it, then our journey ends. Very simple!

Forgive Yourself – part 1

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
November 25, 1993
Fremont Hindu Temple, CA, USA

 Thank you that we have the opportunity to see each other and also to have a devotional day to God, in whatever form and name we may call this Supreme God. I have to thank you and all of the people who have made the effort to push me here, because otherwise I wouldn’t do anything. So every time I have a chance to give a lecture or to be in a gathering. I will be again thankful and thankful, because then I feel that I am doing something right. If no one demands or requests or pushes me into this kind of work, then I won’t do anything. Yes. And I also don’t feel anything about it. I mean I don’t feel regret or I don’t feel remorseful that I don’t do the job.

I don’t know why such a beautiful job I never desire to do. I don’t know why.  Every time I do it, I feel it’s good  that I should do it, but then I never desire to do it again. Then someone pushes me out to give a lecture, then I am grateful again that I will do it. Do you know what that is? Must be laziness, I think (Laughter) I really don’t understand myself. People just say that, “When you are enlightened; you are Master, you are supposedly to know yourself.” But I must confess that I don’t know! I can just equally be happy stay home and sleep.  So I really don’t know. But when I am here, I am very happy and grateful that I am here. When I am in bed and sleeping, I am happy and grateful that I sleep. But I truly am grateful that you have pushed me to come here and you know, I feel just good, very good, that probably I become a little bit useful.

Also a temple is useful, that we can gather together and have a nice devotional day to the Supreme God. Or did you just come for lunch? (Laughter) No? You came for God, right? (Audience: Yes.)

Surely if we don’t have spiritual food, it doesn’t matter  what we eat; it will never satisfy us, mentally and physically. Therefore, we keep getting hungrier and hungrier, again and again, and even we eat a lot of nice food and vitamins we still get sick and sometimes distressed and indigestion.

In the Bhagavad Gita, it is mentioned that the food which was prepared for offering to God first and then we eat it, should be very nutritious and full of blessings for us. If, however, we prepare the food just for personal satisfaction then we truly make mistake. And that will give us a lot of dissatisfaction, and sometimes trouble – indigestion and all that. Actually, in the Bhagavad Gita it says stronger than this, very strongly, like: You eat in sin if you don’t offer first to God. So it’s not me who spoke like that; it’s Krishna.

Now, everything is the same; it’s not only food. All of you know the Bhagavad Gita or not? That is the book of wisdom of ancient India. It is about five thousand years old. It was spoken by the Supreme Master of that time, Krishna, the beloved black beauty. His complexion was dark, like many Indian people, but He was so beautiful and handsome that people called Him “heart-breaker.” It’s also because He breaks everyone’s heart when He leaves. And wherever He goes, people love Him, adore Him and make offerings to Him, just following Him madly.

I hear that He had about sixteen thousand wives. Well, the Indian people, sometimes they exaggerate things, but He must have a lot of followers. It’s not really wives, you know, disciples. Probably mostly were women, because probably He was very handsome – I hear! I wasn’t there. Maybe I was there but I forgot.

So the Bhagavad Gita is the record of the teachings of the Master, Krishna. You can find much wisdom and guidance in this book. I still look at it from time to time, because it is very beautiful, concentrated and wise. Sometimes you get solace and calmness by reading that book. If you truly understand and digest it, it is a wonderful masterpiece of wisdom.

Many of the Masters of the past have connection with the Indian law, therefore we could not, not to mention India and the Bhagacad Gita. Even Milarepa, do you know? the great yogi of Tibet. Even that great yogi of Tibet, his possessions consisted of a pot and the Bhagacad Gita.

Now, in that book it is mentioned that not only the food that we should first prepare in the spirit of offering to God before we take it, but also everything else we do in life must be an offering, must be a sacrifice, to the Supreme Spirit. In that case we will never reap any bad or any good results out of that, because bad results or good results bind us to this material world.

Even if sometimes we cannot help ourselves, we lose our temper, we get angry, and we know we shouldn’t. And then sometimes we feel very, very sorry for a long time, after our anger has already subsided. But, I tell you, forgive yourself. Forgive yourself anytime. Whatever you do, just make offering to God and let it be – whatever the outcome, because we are not the body anyhow. we are not the action. we are not the doers of anything in this world. Even if we are – suppose we are the doers – we still have to forgive ourselves. Forgive ourselves when we make mistakes or when we cannot help with our habits, like anger or sometimes greed and sometimes lustful thoughts, because these things also arise from circumstances. It’s not truly the Self; it’s not truly the soul that desires all these things.

So we always have to try again and again, and forgive ourselves after all – I mean, above all. Because the inside is God, the Supreme Wisdom, we can’t scold it; we can’t abuse it; we can’t be rude to it. So if we are angry with ourselves, we should be angry only with our habits, our accumulated habits. Or we should blame the situation also, not to blame the Supreme Wisdom, the real Self, because the real Self never errs, never make any mistakes.

Suppose we are even the doers and we are in society like this, sometimes we get angry. It’s not always our fault. Most of the time it is not. Sometimes everything can make us angry. For example, you work in a company and you work with the wrong person. Whatever you tell him, he just doesn’t understand. Or he understands but he does the other way around. He just makes you angrier and angrier. Even you forgive him again and again, he repeatedly does that. A very small thing, even a small thing irritates our minds and makes us feel miserable. So it is good that we know that there is something else above the mind and above the body.

The body is composed of only material substances, like earth, water, iron. Well, our iron inside is much enough to make a few nails. Do you know? And water, earth and maybe fire, the vital fire, so that the body would be warm and all that.

The mind is consisting of what? It’s just a collection of all kinds of information – bad and good. It is just like a computer – whatever you program it, and when you push the button, it comes out the same. One of our fellow practitioners, he has an electric organ, and he programs it into different musical rhythms, and he can play it again from the cassette. So the same thing with our brains. It would be empty; it would be absolutely blank, just like a brand new computer, until we start to record things and information, and sometimes good, sometimes bad. If we happened to record the good information and when we want to make use of it, then the good information comes out. If we happened to record the bad information, then of course the bad information comes out.

Questions and Answers after Lecture

Excerpt from Master Ching Hai’s Lecture

Q: Master, why Krishnamutri said, “Gurus and religion are crutches.” So he refused to be the crutch for his students.

M:  Probably what he meant is that if you are too attached to religious dogma or to any teacher at all, then you will be handicapped. In that sense he is correct. The teacher or the master is not the one on which you lean, but from which you gain experience and wisdom and then you walk yourself.  Good teacher should teach the student this way.

If a student of any master should feel that he is not yet able to develop himself, then he can pray to the Master, in the initial stage of his spiritual practice. Later when he grows up, he just automatically drops the Master.

It’s just like a person; not everyone can walk straight. I need an crane  to walk; my legs are weak sometimes. But when my legs are okay, I don’t need it. Someone, sometimes they are naturally born handicapped or accidentally handicapped, and then they need the crutches. It’s okay with him. Can you just kick him out, and say, “You don’t need the crutches. It will make you dependent!” Understand?

So we cannot just say like this – black and white – to say that the Master, the Guru or the religion is no good absolutely for people. It’s good to someone. If you don’t need it, it’s fine. If you need it, stay a while until you don’t.

So I don’t preach anything extreme. In my opinion, religions are also very good for many people. At least they learn the virtuous way of life. They fear God; they fear the law of cause and retribution, and many people become good. I tell you the truth. But, as long as we know that this is not the ultimate. For example, the Master, in the physical body is not the ultimate. The ultimate is inside the Master, and inside you! Through the Master you will find the ultimate. That’s fine! If you have not found it yet, you can rely on the Master, to help and carry you for a while, and then you can walk. It’s fine. But there is no such thing as extreme as to throw everything altogether.

The One Who Realize God and the Messiah of God – part 3

If we have already found a path that we think is suitable to our spiritual development, then it is fine, it good, and we should continue. We should try all our best to follow that chosen path. How do we know if that is the right path for us?

How do we know if we have chosen a good Master, or a good method? There has to be two conditions. First, we must be good disciples; second, the Master must be good. It cannot be one way. So, if we are very good disciples, if we have been very faithful, if we have done everything that a disciple is requested to do, and if that path or the Master’s teaching gives us satisfaction, gives us more love, wisdom and peace, that is the right path. Understand? But we must do our best. We cannot get something for nothing. Otherwise no need for a Master even.

If after you have tried so hard and have tried your best on many paths and you could not find complete satisfaction, we invite you to come to this path, because we know this path is very fast, quick and simple. In our times we don’t have so much energy and time to follow a very complicated, long and difficult path. Also, there is another reason why, our life is very unpredictable. We do not know if we will live until tomorrow. So whatever we can get today is the best.

Before I left home to find God-realization, I had only one prayer; “God, if You exist, please help me or through me open the eyes of people, because people cannot open them themselves. How can You demand them to keep Your commandments, to love You, and to worship You when they don’t know You? You must open their eyes for them to see You first.”That was my prayer. Probably the sincerity touched God’s compassion, so I was granted what I wished.

After studying many people’s character and human psychology by my daily contact with different people, I have come to realize that sincerity is difficult to have. This is the only reason why we cannot realize God, who is very close and very near to us in our hearts. It is because most of us are so attached to the physical appearance of this world. On one hand we say we want to know God, but on the other hand we cannot forsake what we have, even if God wants us to do it. That is the only reason why we cannot reach God. Otherwise we could do it just like this.

That is what I have come to understand and I would like to share it with you, because God is not so difficult to reach; it is difficult for us to forsake the material world. It is our deep attachment that prevents us from going near God. This sound very simple, but it is the very original reason. That is why in the Bible it is stated that you cannot worship both God and mammon.

Therefore God has thought of some special method to help us, the attached souls, the encaged spirits. This method is not known to a lot of people, just to some groups. Only in this modern time has the message been spread all over the world. But because of that, whoever brings the message has to suffer a great deal, more than at the time of Buddha and Jesus. In order to bring the message to humankind, there must be someone who will do it. I think you understand what I mean.

Even when the message is spread all over the world, not all people will take it. Therefore you can imagine how difficult it was when Jesus or Buddha were alive, when means of communications were more restricted. Then even fewer people followed them. In the ancient times, people complained that the freedom of religion was restricted; and the people who believed in Jesus or different Masters in those times were very frightened of being persecuted, chased, questioned, jailed, and punished. Even then, people’s faith under such circumstances was very strong, and they appreciated what they received perhaps more than in modern times.

In modern times when we get the message so easily, we probably do not believe the value of the message. When it is more open and more easily available, it is more open to criticism and therefore also has disadvantages. So we cannot do anything. No solution! If it is difficult, then it is difficult to get, to practice, to meet the Master. It is difficult to get together and understand, difficult to get the information from the Master, and difficult to progress and to improve the spiritual movement of the Master.  But when it is easy to access, we will think, ”Oh, how can it be so easy? I think it is no good. I have to think about it, or maybe next time.“ So, there’s no solution.

Still, God always loves humankind, so God always tries and the Masters always try their best to bring the holy message, the best solution, the best method to offer to the brothers and sisters of this Earth.

We always have our fantasy. We imagine the Master must be like this, like that and the God-realization method must be like this, like that, must be very difficult to attain, or must be so-and-so. So many of these preconceived ideas and the outside circumstances sometimes prevent us from knowing the Truth. It is not entirely our fault. It is because the material existence is too difficult for us; it has brainwashed each one of us into such a condition, into a way of thinking in which we could hardly escape. That is what makes the job of the Masters difficult and that is what makes our God-realization difficult.

But even then, it is worthwhile to try. If something is so easy to realize, I guess it is also not very interesting. So we should struggle in our own way to understand what God is or at least to know who we are, why we are here, and where we will go after a few years in this world. Where will we go? Why are we here for only a few years or a few decades? We have fed ourselves with so much beef, pork and vegetables of this world to grow that big, so at least we must know why. If we do not have answers to these questions, we will never be happy. This is the only simple reason why we must realize ourselves, we must realize God for our own satisfaction. We can never be happy, no matter in which position we are placed or how many material possessions we are given, until we realize this very basic fundamental question.

Therefore you will never find a truly happy person in this world, even if he is a king. But Jesus’ disciples were happy and the disciples of our path are happy. They truly have the inner happiness. Not that I give them money, praise them, or do anything to make them happy externally. Why is that? It’s because they have found the answer. They are doing what they are supposed to do as a human duty. They are fulfilling the purpose of human life.

Each one of us is given human life only for the purpose of realizing God. If we forsake this duty, we will never be happy in this life or I any other lives. To tell you the truth, this is the only reason for human suffering, and nothing else. If we realized how we struggled in our mothers’ wombs, how we repented our past lives’ mistakes, and how we promised God to utilize this present life in a very meaningful manner to serve Him, before we were born, then we would never waste one second to think of anything else but to try our best in all our leisure time to realize God!

But as soon as we are born into this world we forget everything, because it is the law of the material world to let people forget. Therefore it is necessary that a Master come and remind us again and again and again, until we remember what we had promised to God inside the wombs of our mothers. We might not remember with our physical brains, but our souls, the ability of our wisdom will remember. Then it could happen that we’ll follow the Master’s teaching, that we’ll go back to the path of God. Then that will be our luckiest day. I wish all of you this lucky day.

Thank you for your attentive, loving attention. Amen!

The One Who Realize God and the Messiah of God – part 2

Actually, not many people have the very high hope of attaining the position of Jesus or Buddha. Therefore people always say Jesus was the only one or Buddha was the only one. In a way it is true, but it is not. Otherwise Jesus would not have told us, Whatever I can do, you can do better. We don’t need to wish to become world-famous like Buddha or Jesus, but we could aspire to be God-realized and to be of help to ourselves and to whomever we are in touch with.

So the purpose of practicing any method or walking on any path at all is to realize ourselves, to realize God; not that we want to be like Jesus or Buddha. When God wants us to be one, we could not even refuse, whether we want to or not. I’m not frightening you. It is the truth I have known by my own experience. Also I may tell you that to be in a position of Jesus or Buddha is no fun either. So it is OK not wanting to become one.

Why is it that the only Son of God, like Jesus, had to suffer, had to bear the cross? Or someone like Buddha, who had all the power, must bear all the misunderstandings, insults and attacks from the people at that time? It is partly because of the ignorance of the mass of people. It is also partly because the body of the Master must bear some of the karma of his disciples. But the Master can do that only when he or she is still in the physical body. Therefore it was necessary that Jesus came to the Earth to suffer for the people at that time, to bear the cross.

When people come to a Master who has kept this power, no doubt they come to worship the Master. They bring fruit, flowers and their love, but they also deposit their debts at the feet of the Master. Even though the ocean of mercy from the Almighty will wash away most of the debris people bring, some of the residue still lingers where it was deposited and the Master’s body must bear this burden.

Jesus was not the only one who suffered such a terrible punishment from people. If you study the lives of many of the Saints in the ancient times or in India, you will know they had similar fates. Some Masters were even burned alive or made to sit on a hot iron pan under the hot sun. Some Masters were even flaked alive, you know, cut to pieces, one piece by one piece, like vivisection. This was even in India, in a holy land, in the land where most people were vegetarians, saintly and know about the Scriptures. So, I have told you that to be in the position of Jesus or Buddha is no fun.

But there are only the physical sufferings that we can see with our eyes. There are mental sufferings that the Masters silently bear, which we don’t know. Therefore, thank God that He hasn’t chosen many; otherwise I don’t think anyone would like to become a Master.

You may ask me, “Then, why should we practice? Why should we meditate on God?” We must, because otherwise we will suffer too much, and the whole race of humankind will suffer. Since the ancient times, our world has undergone a great evolution and it has become more civilized today because of the many people who have followed the teachings of the Masters.

When a Master comes to the Earth, not only the disciples are uplifted and shown the wisdom, but the whole of humankind will also be purified and uplifted to a certain higher level of consciousness. Therefore, after many Masters have graced our Earth, the world has become better, as it is today. But even then, it has not reached the level of the heavenly understanding. It has not reached the same consciousness like many other worlds in the universe. We are, to the other worlds, very, very young, and very backward in spiritual understanding.

In the heavenly worlds, where we can visit sometimes with our meditative merit, we can see that the people who live over there do not need to communicate with language. Even though they still have to learn spiritual lessons, they are very advanced, very intelligent, and the Masters over there do not need to speak. When they want to study with the Master, the Master’s presence is enough for them to understand everything; there are no doubts, no questions, no answers and no complicated thinking. Everything will be absolutely clear in the presence of the Master.

When I see in our world, that even with so many lectures and back and forth arguments, with the fulfillment of so many desires and wishes of people, and with answering so many questions, still we do not understand very well. Therefore, God continues to send different Masters to this world, and any Master who comes to this world must suffer the language problem and the mental retarding ability of its people. Not all Masters are willing to come to this world to teach, even very briefly, like Jesus. Therefore, when any Master comes to this world, the whole universe praise, cheer, and applaud.

But then, someone must come.  Because the whole universe is linked together in a kind of fraternity, in a brotherhood, just like the members in a family. If one world or one planet is backward in spiritual advancement, the other planets will also suffer in some ways. Just as if one member in a family did something wrong, the whole family will also be affected. Sometimes even the whole nation has to bear the consequences of one person. Therefore it would be a great help to our world and to the universe if we catch up with the spiritual lessons and try to improve our understanding in any way we can.

Master Duy Tue: The Danger of Mind and Thinking – part 2

4.   Praying is extremely important. This is a highly beneficial method and good meditation. First, it helps people to come back to the tranquil and pure nature of their souls. That is because the ego is absent when one is completely devoted to the praying, therefore the ego is not believing in his own thinking, planning, and struggling anymore. Or if he still believes in it, that belief is much more reduced. That is, when the struggling remains trivial, whereas the inspiration and support from the “divine” is extremely large, the ego naturally becomes small. Thanks to the belief of and reliance on the praying, we feel more at ease, more at peace. The wakefulness and presence are more available to us, thus giving us a more comfortable feeling and bigger strength. Though we may not know and have not yet know about whether Buddha, Jesus, God or deities… will be able to help or save us, the sincere praying will definitely lead to strength and peace. Thus, praying is very important.

Praying must be attended by faith. For example, praying to the Sakyamuni Buddha, a symbol of golden light, representing liberating wisdom, pain-removing wisdom. Praying to the Amitabha Buddha, a symbol of white light, representing the purity in our soul and helping us to return to the wakefulness. Praying to the Avalokitesvara, a symbol of sky blue light, representing the unconditional love that helps solving problems and overcoming difficulties. Faith rested in the praying will lead to more peaceful feelings, more strength and will cause us to have a kinder living, to develop greater personalities and to have proper manners and attitude. Thus, praying is quite necessary. It causes the ego to become smaller, widens the wakeful space, and allows the invisible energy to come and bring along with it the peace and develop great inner power. It doesn’t matter what religion you are following. Once you like and choose to follow one traditional religion, sticking to the faith of that religion will bring the benefits associated with the faith during praying. Within this program, I instruct you to use praying to come back to wakefulness, to reduce the ego, to develop your style and your personality as a man, to increase your endurance and faith in order to improve the invisible power. That is not to mention whether any spiritual figure will be at our side to help us.

5.  It is important to constantly think about the non-thinking, invisible realm, which is right inside your mind, below formal ideas and concepts. As soon as you notice the arising of formations, shift your attention to the formless. When you hear the sound, pay attention and listen to the no-sound realm, the silent realm which is below the sound. You should know that the invisible is the basis and origin of the visible, from which all visible things appear. If in your daily life, you pay constant attention to observing and  listening, be mindful of the silent realm, then at one point, it will always give you the answers so that you won’t be worried of lacking wisdom. The value of that invisible realm can’t be imagined enough. Thus, you are advised to constantly be mindful of that invisible realm even though you may not be able to see, know or have understood it yet. To put it differently, if you always pay attention to the no-word Bible which is somewhere around or beneath our body, it will naturally give you the answers. That is how the constant and everyday mindfulness of the invisible realm becomes valuable. For example, on the way from your house to your car, be mindful of the invisible realm in your body. When you get in your car, before starting the engine, take a few seconds to think about the invisible realm, the invisible sound which is inside your mind or your body, then start the engine and depart. Once on the road, you must be focused on driving according to the laws, be observing the traffic flow, pay full attention on the road so that the driving is safe. To be extremely focused on the driving is to be in a wakeful state . As a result, accidents are less likely to happen. On the contrary, lack of focus means reduced wakefulness and may easily cause accidents. In the highest wakefulness state, accidents definitely won’t happen. In the case of you are hit by someone who is not wakeful, the accident will not be too dangerous. That’s because our body becomes very light in the wakeful state so that when our car is hit, our body may fly out of the car like a piece of cotton wool. The car may be broken into pieces but we will be safe. That is why I am quite at ease when traveling by plane or any other means of transportation, and never be afraid of accidents because I know how to handle it for my utmost safety.

In the highest wakefulness, the body is very light. For example, a person who cannot swim and jump into the sea or a deep river, the heavy body will sink quickly because he has many thoughts and panic. But if he is able to keep himself in a wakeful state, imagine that he could swim or that he’s in a no-water area, his body will be much lighter and it takes much longer for the body to be drown.  Thinking leads to loss of wakefulness, which causes the body to be heavy. That explains why a lot of people or children survived from a plane crash, or why many were hit in a car accident but their bodies flew off the car and they survived. At that moment, perhaps they were lucky enough to remember praying or, for some unclear reasons, were unintentionally able to return to their wakefulness so their bodies become so light that they were out of danger.

If worries and fears are present during praying, the body is still heavy. Only when praying with the total belief that you will be saved, then worries and fears will disappear completely, leading to a light body. That’s how you should practice when driving.

One Can Attain Enlightenment Anywhere – part 5

Now, when we practice this so-called Quan Yin Method, we will understand many things of the universe, many things of this world that we never dream of understanding before. There are things we can express to our neighbors, but there are many things, numerous things, that we can never talk about, because the world of the Buddha is extraordinary and exceptional. There is nothing in this world we can compare it to or make an example of.

Much of our wisdom remains unused. But after we become enlightened and become more and more enlightened, a portion of it will be incorporated into our daily life to make us more loving, more intelligent, more selfless and more able to serve the world. And whatever we do, will be better quality. Of course, we have a long way to go to become a Buddha, but compared to before enlightenment, we have much, much greater intelligence and capability. Therefore enlightenment is not only for monks, not only for the renunciate in the Himalayas or the people in the mountain caves, it is for everyone of this world.

Why do I say much of our wisdom remains unused? It is because some of our knowledge is for preparation for the Buddha Land, and only some of it can be used in this world. The limitations of this world, lack of material, lack of different information  make us unable to use most of the wisdom. For example, when we achieve a little bit higher level of practice, we are able to see the land of the Buddha. That is not the highest level. To be able to see the Buddha Land, to see the Buddha is not the highest level. It is high but not the highest. Now, I just cited an example, you are able to see inside of the Buddha Land, or the Buddha. I think you can say, it is at the middle level of practice.

When you see the Buddha Land you are in the middle level. We can say approximately like that. There is much more to go, but when we can see the Buddha Land we are already much wiser. We would have learned a great deal during our meditation, during our daily practice, during our sleep.

After the initiation, even when we are asleep, we go to the higher land and learn many things. Otherwise two and half hours of practice every day is not enough. We use any rest period to learn also. Any activities become in-built with Buddha’s wisdom. Then when we see the Buddha Land, we learn many things and we know how to build houses in a different manner. We know how to build many things, for example, UFO’s. We know that houses in the Buddha Land are build in crystals, with diamonds, with gold instead of brick and cement, because we have been there and have seen that. We have seen many other extraordinary machines being built. This is just an example. It is a true example.

And then when you come back to this world, out of your meditation, out of the trip to the Buddha Land, and you, for example, want to construct such a house, such machinery in order to help human beings, you cannot find such beautiful crystals in this world. You cannot find such a wonderful method in this world to build this kind of house, to build this kind of machinery. Therefore, your wisdom, your knowledge remains unused. That is why I said much of our wisdom remains unused in this world, except when all human beings are enlightened.

We hope that day will come, then we will all enjoy Nirvana here. The atmosphere will change and all the disasters will disappear. All the sicknesses and sorrow will be no more. Then there is no need even for UFO. But until that day, we have to practice ourselves, and be satisfied with this world.

After leaving this world a practitioner of the Quan Yin Method will not have to be reborn again in this world, unless that person wants to come back as Buddha, a Bodhisattva to help the suffering of humankind, because there are many more beautiful, extraordinary, magnificent worlds for the practitioners of the Quan Yin Method to go. He has no need of this suffering world. His wisdom, his vibration, after practicing the Quan Yin Method has risen to the level of sainthood and enables him to be fit to live in the glory of Kingdom of God or Nirvana. Otherwise to the ordinary person, the Light, the glory of Heaven is terrible, is unbearable for them. They will not be able to bear it. This is just like the beggar not used to the palace of the king. He will feel very uncomfortable and humiliated. In which case, even the servant, the lowest kind of servant will look better and more confident than him.

Therefore we have to be prepared for the Buddha Land or for Heaven. We have to change our internal wisdom, we have to change our vibration, the frequency of our internal being. I just wanted to give you an example to understand. Even in this world, we have people with different frequencies.

That is the reason when we see someone we feel very comfortable or when we see someone else we feel very disturbed and we do not understand why. That is the reason why many people like to come to see the monks, to see the religious leaders, to see the yogis, or to see the practitioners of some kind. That is the reason why people loved to see the Buddha or Jesus Christ when they were alive, which caused a lot of envy and jealousy amongst the contemporary so-called practitioners. It is because when people see such persons, their vibration, their holy frequency, their very enlightened, comfortable, healing energy will make people around feel so comfortable, so blissful and so enlightened. Therefore now you remember and understand that the different vibrations, the different frequencies truly do exist.

So after we practice Quan Yin Method for some time, we will feel ourselves, the different vibrations between different people, we will be able to sense it, and we will be able to know ourselves. We will be able to know what kind of level we are in. When we reach the level of “non-level,” the “non-discriminating level,” then we can say that is Buddha hood.

Of course, you are all welcome and are invited to join this circle, free of charge, no string attached, free of any condition. Of course, you ask me where do I get all this money from. You can be sure that it is not forced from you, from your pocket. God gives me all the money I need, and much more that I ever needed so that I can donate to the poor and the needy of this world. God also gives me the spiritual wealth, more than I ever need, so that I can share it with all the people of the world. The money does not rain from the Heaven. God gives me many talents so I am able to earn money through these. Now if you have any questions and issues that are not clear to you, I am honored to answer.

Thank you for your attention.

One Can Attain Enlightenment Anywhere – part 4

The ultimate way to reach the Buddha hood is mentioned in the Surangama Sutra, and in many other scriptures of the world religions. After practicing the Quan Yin Method you will understand exactly what I said, without anyone having to teach you so. In the Surangama Sutra, it is said that the ultimate way, the last road is the Quan Yin Method. Quan Yin Method is to listen to your own inner Nature.

There is a kind of Energy, a kind of vibration that can be heard without the ears. These silent Words of God, of Buddha are the source of all wisdom. If whatever I said appeals to you and seems a little wise to you, it is due to the Quan Yin Method that I have practiced, that I have learned directly from the source of all creation. Of course, these are the things that I can express by words. There are many more things that only I can understand and cannot be explained in human languages. But there are some things that you could know without explanation.

For example, at the time of initiation, at the time that you want to learn the method which is called Quan Yin in Surangama Sutra, you will immediately attain what we call enlightenment and have many kinds, or some kinds, or one kind of experience, which is stated in the above mentioned scriptures of the world religions. And you will continue to have this enlightenment, you will develop the enlightenment, and the enlightenment will even get greater, because we are in direct contact with our Buddha Nature or the Kingdom of God. My disciples can testify to my words.

You are always welcomed to write and ask any of them. You can write to American disciples. You can write to English disciples. You can write to European disciples. You can write to Chinese disciples, Vietnamese disciples, disciples in Philippines, disciples in Singapore, disciples in Thailand. Just pick any name and ask them whether what I have said is true. That is how we know whether the Quan Yin Method is truly in accordance with the great religions of the world. At least I mean the five great religions.

Now religion is not merely recitation of the words of the past Masters, like Buddha, like Jesus Christ…but it is the incorporation of their wisdom into our daily lives. It is the sincere upkeep of their precepts, their commandments. And it is the polishing of wisdom daily within a very wise method. If all of this is combined together, we can call it a religion.

A true Buddhist must be able to contact the Buddha inside, knowing what the Buddha is. A true Christian should be able to contact Christ or God, otherwise how do we know if God exists. If Buddha is real, a true Buddhist should be able, at least to have a glimpse of something from the Buddha Land, or some glimpse of the great Light of the Buddha, or be able to hear  Buddha’s teaching directly. This is what Quan Yin Method enables you to do.

The Buddha does not teach with the ordinary English or with ordinary Korean language. But the Buddha’s teaching is with a quiet voice, in the universal language, which is very much like a beautiful melody. That is why in the Buddhist scriptures, it is stated that the Buddha speaks only in one kind of language, but all beings are able to understand in their own languages. It is the true scripture, the true teaching of the Buddha. That is why the more we listen to this inner Sound the wiser we become. The more we see the inner Light of God, of Buddha, the wiser we will be. This is how we become the true followers of Buddha or of Christ.

This is not expressed in the Bible or in the Buddhist Scriptures. It only mentions the Quan Yin Method. It only mentions the experiences of the practitioners of the Quan Yin Method. It does not mention how to practice it. Even it does mention, but without the Power of a realized Master, it is not real.  Because the way of the Buddha cannot be taught by language, or by action. It can only be transmitted from inner wisdom to our own wisdom. It is our wisdom that receives the initiation, the awakening, not our brain or our mind. Therefore, there is a necessity of a so-called “initiation,” to bring down the Buddha’s Power from Nirvana to awaken our own Buddha’s Power.

When I say Nirvana you should also understand it means the Kingdom of God in Christianity. I am also like the Korean people,  I do not discriminate amongst any religion. I think we have the same kind of understanding. That is why I feel so good in Korea, even at the first meeting with the Korean people.

So it is not explained in the Scriptures how to do it, because it has to be transmitted internally. But, because there were so many experiences, the results of the practice have been written in the Scriptures. Therefore, if we now have the same kinds of experiences, we know that we practicing the right method.

Actually, the method is not as important as the transmission of the Power of the wisdom. It is just because in our society we have to offer some kind of a concrete project, otherwise people do not accept. Therefore, we have to say I have a method for you. Therefore, you will understand, yes there is something to learn, something to know, something to develop. Otherwise, even if there is such a method, or even if it is written down in black and white, you have no benefit when reading it, because the Master’s power, the transmission lineage is missing.

Therefore, from ancient times you do not find such a method was written down. That is why most people understood the practicing of the Buddha hood to be a kind of mystery, very difficult to understand, very difficult to obtain. Yes, it is, but no, it is not. Yes, if we do not find someone who knows it, but if we find someone who has already known it, it’s very easy. And we can get immediate enlightenment, provided that we are sincere and the master accepts us.

That is how I learned. So that is how you can learn also. Even though there is nothing material to obtain, but there is something that we will know very well, when we are enlightened.

Are you tired already? (Applause) Should I continue? (Loud applause) Thank you. I appreciate your sincerity. That is what makes Korea become a great country, because of the spirituality that Korean people are after. Even though they are very capable of building a nation.

One Can Attain Enlightenment Anywhere – part 3

There were many other Saints, who were sent down from time to time to help to enlighten the people of this world. But then the Buddha had forgotten for almost thirty years, until he saw with his own eyes the suffering of the people of India at that time.

Therefore we do not know whether we are also Buddha, until we get enlightened, by chance or by the grace of any enlightened Master. Of course, you are invited to know yourself, to know whether you are a Buddha or not a Buddha.  Then you will know what the Buddha said is true Everyone is a Buddha. Everyone has the Buddha Nature inside waiting to be discovered.

But of course the ability to discover ourselves varies from one person to another. Therefore the levels of enlightenment are different. But if two persons have the same level of consciousness, their experiences are much the same. That is why the way of practice is called the “Tao,” which means the Path, the Road. Since it is a “road,” each one who travels this “road” will see practically the same things. The things which they see difference only by the length of the road that they have discovered. But if two persons have discovered the same distance, they should have experienced the same scenery.

If the Tao is different, how come all the Buddhas reached the same Buddha hood and did not reach anything else. If there are many roads, then the experiences of the people must be different from each other. But according to the Buddhist Sutras and other Holy books of different religions, the experiences of different people, who practice the Holy way are the same, or more or less the same.

There are of course, many, many wonderful experiences, when you become realized inside. But I’ll just cite some practical examples. Such as, in all kinds of religions, it mentioned the great Light of God, the great Light of the Buddha or scenes from the Buddha Land. I have studied various Scriptures of different religions, and whatever is mentioned is very similar to other scriptures. It is difficult to discern this matter before enlightenment, but after enlightenment, or even with a small degree of enlightenment, we will be able to see this very clearly. That is why I have mentioned earlier that the great people of Korea are very elevated, very high level of consciousness.

It is the same people of India, because they have understood the basic similarities of many religions. Some people think that the people of India worship many Gods. It is not that a multitude of hierarchies of Gods exists in India. It is just that they symbolically respect all the leaders, all the masters of different religions past and present.

In Korea we have many temples, so many churches and so many other practicing centers. It is much similar in spirit. But I think the Korean people are blessed with the more practical aspect of life. Therefore they understand both, the spirit and they take care of their material comfort. I have stated that it is very rare.

Now let us come back to what I just have said before. We do not have to lose all this attainment in the material world in order to gain enlightenment. We can sit in our house, enjoy all the comforts, fulfill our duties, and become great enlightened Saints at the same time. Provided that, we sincerely want enlightenment in order to understand more about life, death and the universe, about any other matters that we could not understand previously in order to serve the world in a better way, in a wiser way and to be of use to ourselves and the whole universe.

We have to think like the Buddha. We have to live the way of the Buddha. We do not just worship the Buddha. The Buddha said that we are the future Buddhas. He said it two thousand six hundred  years ago. We are in that future now, so there is no more time to wait. We could become a Buddha now; at least we learn the way of the Buddha or how to become a Buddha.

The way of the Buddha is laid out in all the Scriptures, but how to become a Buddha is not explained. Therefore, we have worshipped the Buddha for many thousands of years but we have not dreamed of becoming a Buddha. Because how to become a Buddha is not to be done by spoken languages. It is the Power that is inherent inside us, and we have to do it, to discover it ourselves. If you could do it alone, it is fine and good. If we could not reveal our own greatness, then we have to seek someone to show us how to do it.

Similarly, if we could not speak English and we could not learn it ourselves, then we must find a very good English teacher. It is very simple and similar to any kind of science. As I have said the way is the same. There may be many sideways before the highway, but ultimately there is only one way.

One Can Attain Enlightenment Anywhere – part 2

It is very comfortable to stay in the Himalayas or to stay in some remote, quiet place to enjoy the bliss of the meditational fruit. But it is a greater joy to share this bliss and practice, the fruit of our practice, with the multitude of the people, and practice. It took me a long time to realize this. It was also difficult to forsake Nirvana. It is difficult to realize, after you have attained peace and happiness inside, to remember that in the world there are many people still suffering. It is not very difficult, but it just happens to be not so easy to convince yourself to go out into the world again. Because, when we are in a blissful state of mind, we think differently. We feel differently. We feel everyone is a Buddha. We see the world is in perfect order. It is because of the different state of mind. That is why Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching said; There is nothing to do under the Heaven.

But in fact, there is something to do, because when we remember our previous ignorance before enlightenment, we were also in a kind of spiritual suffering. Then somebody came and asked me to come out and teach them, to help them, and it is difficult to say no. But it is good for someone to come and ask for enlightenment or for help spiritually. Otherwise, I think no Master ever thinks of going out into the world to share the knowledge and the bliss, that person or Master has attained.

As I have stated earlier, it is not the selfishness of the Master. It is just that the realized person thinks differently and feels different. That is why someone had to force Lao Tzu to write the great book, Tao Te Ching. He was forced to write it. He was forced to reveal along with the book, the invisible written secret, which was revealed only to a few. It is not the book that is important. It is the mystery, the unwritten words that Lao Tzu has revealed to these chosen few, which was important.

Buddha, when He was enlightened, did not want to go out into the world to teach anyone, because he thought he should enjoy Nirvana. In case some of you do not understand “Nirvana,” it is a word in Sanskrit to indicate a very high state of consciousness, blissful, tranquil, desire less state of mind. But then the God Brahma appeared to him and appealed to him to go out to teach the eager people. Probably at that time, he was hiding somewhere and no one was near him to come to appeal to him for enlightenment. So the God Brahma had to do it.

Now we would wonder why Brahma had to make this request like this. It was because many people prayed to Brahma for blessings, enlightenment and deliverance. Brahma is the God of the Third Heaven. According to Hinduism, Brahma is the creator of our world, of this universe….

…..

So we answered the question why Brahma requested Buddha to spread enlightenment doctrine to the world at that time. It is because Brahma being one of the Gods, not of the highest rank in the hierarchy of the Universal Government, could see and hear the suffering of the world, whereby the Buddha at that time, in his highest realization could not. So someone like Brahma had to remind Him.

We often think that the Buddha, the Almighty God will listen to our prayers. But according to my knowledge, it is not so, because according to the highest power, the world is already in order, and all the sufferings in the world are lessons for us to go through in order to grow and mature.  God, the Almighty God, the highest Buddha, does not worry much. It is some other kind of God or lower Bodhisattva who understands and sympathizes with our suffering.

Just like the highest authority of the educational system gives orders for a team to think up the questions in the examination. He does not worry about whether the students can answer them or not and the sufferings of the students who cannot answer. So some of the teachers have to take care and help the students to overcome all these obstacles.

I think I am getting into trouble now – talking about something so abstract. Are you all right? Can you still follow? (Applause) All right. Then I shall continue.

When Buddha reached the highest realization, he reached back to his original Self again, and this original great Self is always in bliss and eternally peaceful. Therefore, he could not understand much of the suffering of the ignorant people, who have not reached the state of enlightenment like he did.

Brahma was the one who looked after the welfare of this world, seeing who is doing good, who is doing bad, so he knows better. Just like the president or the king of a nation has to rely on his ministers, his subordinates of lower ranks like congressman, the ministers, etc… to report to him the wishes of his people.

So now, when we the people suffer enough from the cloud, the prison of our ignorance, we will pray to the Almighty or the greatest Buddha to help to deliver us. And then when it is reported to the Almighty, someone will be sent here to lead these people out of their mind of suffering. The Buddha was one of those who was sent down; so was Jesus.

One Can Attain Enlightenment Anywhere – part 1

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
Korea, March 22, 1992

To the good and intelligent people of great Korea, I have long admired your country. One of the cars that was recommended to me is the Sien-tai (Hyundai). Correct? It is from Korea? And it is a very good car. (Applause) It is not the car that makes me admire your country. It is the spirit of your people that impresses me and impresses the world.

When I was in America and some other different countries, before I took over this “business,” I have often met many Korean monks and lay people and gone to their temples. And whenever I pass by Korea, I always remember to buy some ginseng and kim chi. Therefore I think I have a lot of affinity with Korean people even before we have official meeting like today.

I am very, very honored to have this occasion, this opportunity to address the great people of this country. (Applause) I have felt much affection, good spirit and good will from this place, the moment I stepped down from the airplane in Seoul airport. The overwhelming love of your people makes me feel somehow a little bit shy. But I guess it is because your people have so much love inside, that they have to express it to the world outside.

Since I arrived in this town, numerous people have been coming to welcome me, and to see me in my small room. The warm feeling is still kind of overwhelming in my heart. I wish I could serve your country in whatever way I can. But since I am originally a Buddhist renunciate, I can only serve you in the teaching of the Buddha; especially now that your country is well developed and there is not much need of material support.

Your country has risen up rapidly and the people have risen in consciousness, as well as in a responsible attitude; this creates much respect and admiration from the whole world. And since I have been in close contact with some of your people yesterday and today, I understand why it has happened so.

I understand that God or who you call “Buddha” has blessed your country abundantly. I have seen so many temples, so many monks around the city and in the capital also. I have seen so many Christian churches also growing together with other religious centers. Then I understand that your country, your people are very highly elevated spiritually.

It is only when people are highly elevated spiritually that their hearts can be so open and their mind so tolerant, so large. This enables us to understand that all good religions, all main basic religions are good and are meant for well-being of humankind. This is what I call civilization. Civilization is not measured in wealth or in mechanical development only, but it is measured in the way people are developed spiritually.

We have often heard people say that spiritual practice does not go with the worldly achievement. We have often heard that in order to reach Buddha hood or the Kingdom of God, we have to forsake the whole world, be in a secluded place, and just practice alone or with a group of people. There is some truth in that. But it would be better if we develop spiritually and also look after the material world, so that we can live our lives in this world productively, feeling well and comfortable, and at the same time develop our wisdom.

The great people of Korea somehow manage to do both. This is a balance rarely seen in this world. I humbly congratulate you. (Applause) And in this strength, your country will continue to develop spiritually and materially to bring peace, happiness and prosperity to your great nation.

I think we humans have frail bodies, and our minds are also sometimes weak. If we have a very uncomfortable life, lacking in material comfort, then this will affect our health and our mental equilibrium. Then it is difficult for us to concentrate, to be calmed internally. It does not matter whether we are in the Himalayas or in the market, we can’t achieve the highest meditation experiences that we wish to obtain. Most of us have family, have national affairs, have international trades and businesses to attend to, so we can’t run away into the mountains or hideaway in the caves and just take care of our spiritual practice. Therefore it is very practical to take care of our family, our national affairs and to find a way to practice wherever we are.

How to Make Peace on Earth – part 4

My purpose is not to preach Buddhism or Christianity. All these things you can read in books, you can inquire from churches, temples or from many other monks or nuns. All of them can tell you what Buddhism is, what Christianity is, etc. I have no intention to preach about these things, but I have the intention to build some peace in this world because we are all brothers and sisters.

Peace can only be obtained through wisdom and enlightenment, not through any illusionary imagination and money wasting talks at any table or in any nation. Everyone thinks if he becomes a politician, a priest or a monk, he can bring some peace to this Earth, or at least to their nation. But without wisdom, what can we do? The more we do, the more we go wrong. Also, if one person has wisdom and most of the people in the country have no wisdom, what shall we do? Only if we can get in contact with the original wisdom can we ever do things in the right way. Otherwise, even if we want peace and sincerely want to build peace in this world, we make war. That is because some people believe in making peace with force “If you don’t listen to me, if you don’t listen to my country, I will force you to listen.” Only when we have God’s wisdom and enlightenment, we can  then do things in the correct way. Therefore, we see many kings and queens come and go and the world is still at war. Maybe we have not had enough enlightened kings and queens!

In Au Lac and in China also, we call a good king an enlightened king. This is very clear that even if we want to govern a nation, we should also be enlightened. What is meant by enlightened? It means that our wisdom is opened. We are more intelligent, super intelligent, so we see things differently than we did in the ordinary state. Just like when we were babies or children, even though we could speak, eat, and understand, we were not wise enough to take care of our parents’ business, and not wise enough to take care of the household.

So, if we use our brains only 5%, how can we talk about governing the nation and the world? In China they say, “First, be enlightened, then you can take care of your household, then you can govern the nation, and then you can bring peace into the world.” “First be enlightened,” Practice, and your virtues and light will develop. Only then you can take care of your household. Can you imagine? To have a good household, we have to be enlightened? Only when you can take care of your household then you can talk about peace in the world.

Therefore, man like Jesus and Buddha were truly messengers of peace, truly kings of the world. Therefore, in India, they call such a person “the great king,” or “the king of kings.” We must not have any ambition to be “the king of kings”; but we should have ambition to contribute to the peace in this world, to construct a beautiful structure for this world, where our children and grand children will live in prosperity and happiness. So, that is what we call “First be enlightened, then we can take care of the household, then we can govern the nation, and then we can bring peace to the Earth.”

If we only talk about peace and want to bring peace to the Earth, and we ourselves are not peaceful, then it is a joke. If we only build churches and temples, but we do not care for the living temples, then it is a wrong attitude, because in the Bible it says, We are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit lives here. (Master points to her heart) God lives here, God lives in you. Make the temple pure. If we begin with ourselves and let peace begin from here, (Master points to her forehead) and from every person, then we don’t need any church, we don’t even need the Bible or the Buddhist Sutras. We don’t even need any master, we don’t need any organization or the United Nations.

So, I hope that whatever I do, I would bring some inspiration to you so that you might also be inspired to find peace, to find wisdom and God within yourselves. That is why I am here; not for Buddhism, not for Catholicism. I just want to offer you enlightenment so that you might take care of your household better, so that you might take care of your nation better, and so that we might together bring peace on this Earth. Amen!

How to Make Peace on Earth – part 1

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
December 16, 1989 Argentina

I would like to offer some good things to your country, and I would like that my stay will be of benefit to your hearts, your souls and your bodies, at least from human to human.  Also that we may understand something about the cultures between the East and the West, which sometimes we have very little chance to do, to understand. Because I will stay here for only four days and if I have not brought some good to your country, I will feel very sad to leave.

Everyone thinks that to propagate peace is the work at the United Nations, or to preach the Kingdom of God is the duty of priests or monks. But it is not so. We all have this duty. If the priests preach about God and we do not listen, then what is the use? If I talk about enlightenment, and you do not come to listen, then shall I talk? So, your presence is very much appreciated. I thank you for giving me a chance to fulfill my duty towards God and towards humankind, because I am also citizen of this world. We cannot think that one person or a group of persons is responsible for peace or anything in this world, because we are all part of the system.

Yesterday, someone asked me if we were living next to a holocaust, and I answered, “Yes, every minute, every day.” Why? Because we are always in danger, we are always in constant war. If not in an atomic war, then in a hydrogen bomb war; or worse, any other kinds of bombs! If not with these bombs and other weapons, then we are at war with anxiety, with jealousy, with hatred and with ignorance.  Anyway our hearts are constantly at war. So, to propagate peace is not only my duty. I am happy that you have come so that we may join together and do something about it.

Everyone’s heart, thinking and actions always affect everyone else. For example, if you go to the office and you see your boss or secretary, and that boss or secretary is very angry, not at you, maybe at someone else, at his wife or her husband at home, and you walk in, how will you feel? Very comfortable? No, not comfortable. Maybe you would like to hide somewhere first.

Sometimes, we go on the street and we meet a friend or an acquaintance, who is smiling, and their heart is happy. We also feel affected by his or her happiness and then we also feel happy. So, from these small examples, we can think a little deeper and know that everyone affects everyone else.

Therefore, my work is your work also. I am concerned about peace in the whole world, so this is also your concern. Therefore, if you have come to support me by your attentiveness, your love and open-mindedness, then you support yourself. Some people do not understand this simple logic. If they see someone doing something good, but that person will be threatening their own personal business or their reputation, then they try to break, try to destroy that person. But this is only an illusion, because a good person, a selfless person, would never affect anyone else business or reputation.

For example, when Jesus was preaching the Truth, the high priest at that time was very worried. The kings and the political leaders at the time were very anxious. They worried that Jesus might affect their fame and business, that everyone would follow Jesus and give him all their money and their properties, that nobody would give them anything, that nobody would join their churches or organizations, and that no one would give them any donations or listen to them. These were the worries of the priests.  The kings and political leaders were worried. They worried that Jesus would become too famous, that people would love Him too much, and that they might select Him to be their king. So they worried! That was the political worry.

But Jesus had never cared for the church nor for the kingdom of this Earth. He said, My Kingdom is in Heaven. Indeed, it is so.  Because for real enlightened Masters or persons, they do not care for anything in this world. They have looked through the illusion play of material existence. They have been through and through it. They understand everything. They have all Heavens and Earth. They have everything they want. Seek you first the Kingdom of God and all other things shall be added onto you. They do not care for material wealth and fame.

People are automatically attracted to these enlightened persons. It is because of their light, their invisible wisdom, their compassion and boundless love. Love is something we cannot see but we can feel very clearly. Therefore, a man is attracted to a woman by her love.  Children cling to their parents because of their love. An enlightened person has much greater love than these. Therefore, people are attracted to their love. People feel welcomed, loved, secure and protected by that enlightened person. But the worldly people do not understand this. They look at Jesus or enlightened persons with their mundane, greedy and worldly eyes.

If Jesus was given the whole world to rule, he wouldn’t care a bit. When he was meditating in the desert for forty days, Satan appeared to him and offered him the Three Worlds. If someone refuses the kingdom of one nation, he is already very great. If someone refuses the whole world, he is very great indeed!

Jesus Was One of the Saviors – part 1

Excerpt from Master Ching Hai’s lecture
June 9, 1989
Costa Rica

Why is it that we need a Master to learn meditation, to be reunited with God? If you read the books of my lectures that my disciples have collected, you will see that the Master is referred to as just a water pipe. A water pipe takes water to your home. Without the protection of the pipe, the water will get dirty or lost on the road before reaching your home.

Our world is a world of illusion, a world of matter. If God Himself would descend into our world and be invisible, it would be unsubstantial, we would never be able to grasp Him. Therefore, if He wants to come to the world or send His spirit, His love into the world, He must wrap it inside a body. It’s like a perfume bottle holding the perfume inside. We don’t care whether the shape of the bottle is round or square, long or short. We care for the perfume inside.

If, however, the bottle gets damaged, we may transfer the perfume into another bottle, Jesus was a bottle. (Laughter) I do not mean to make fun of Him, but just to make the message clear to you, OK? Buddha was a bottle, too. So you see, it’s equal now; I also mention Buddha as a bottle. I am also a bottle, a very small one. (Laughter) But the perfume contained inside is God. No human can make this.

It is by the grace of God that we are enlightened or unenlightened. When we love God above everything else, when we desire enlightenment above any other things in this world, we will get it. We cannot blackmail God, we cannot lament to Him, we cannot complain to Him, we cannot push Him or press Him, but we could charm Him by our devotion and longing, sincere longing.

This longing sometimes is like a pain, like a suffering. It’s worse than all the pains in the world. Once you are enlightened, then the pain settles down. But then it grows and grows into wanting more; it becomes a comfortable pain. I don’t know why I say a “comfortable pain.” It’s just like an addiction. I am sorry, because it is terrible to use our worldly language to describe something in connection with God. The more I say, the worse it sounds.

It’s like this. For example, you have heard that in the neighborhood there is a beautiful girl and you long to see her. You haven’t seen her before, but you feel a longing, you’re so curious. You’ve heard so much about her, so you want to see her. That’s only a curious desire, but sometimes the desire becomes very urgent, “Why is she there and I cannot see her?” Once you see her you say, “Wow!” Then you want to see more. It becomes worse than before, because you have seen how beautiful the girl is, how talented she is, how virtuous she is, and how very suitable to your taste she is.

Similarly, before we see God we have heard so much about God. The Scriptures describe that God is love, glory, eternal bliss and that you’ll get intoxicated if you see God. But you are not yet intoxicated because you have not seen God or been in touch with God. Once you are intoxicated, just once, then you’ll always long for more. Then you are satisfied with everything in the world, because just the love, just the intoxication of God takes away all your worldly desires. It makes you detached from the pleasures and sorrows of this world. Then you’ll lust more and more for the presence of God until you eventually become one with God, just like what Jesus said, I and my Father are one.

Jesus reached that state. But He was not the only one who has reached that state in the whole history of humankind. If it were so, if it were true that Jesus was the only one who has reached the state of God-realization, then I think would be very, very depressing for us. Just think of the millions, billions, even trillions of people before Jesus’ time. Did they all go to hell? Do you understand what I mean? Can you believe that? Tell me yes or no. No? Yes? OK. I accept both of your answers and will explain later.

Why “Yes”? Please explain to me. Who said “Yes”? Please stand up and explain why God would let all the billions and trillions of people before Jesus’ time go to hell? How unmerciful God was! The “Yes” person please explain to me why God was so terrible. (The person cannot explain.) Then, do not speak so quickly next time. (Laughter) We must think first before we speak; or else we will make great mistakes sometimes, leading ourselves and others to the same mistaken direction.

Now, does the one who said “No” have any reason? Yes, please tell me. (The person answers, “I believe that God is within everyone of us. It is just a matter of knowing. God is within everyone of us. We have to develop the capacity that is inside us and use spiritual means to get in touch with God. Not our eyes, which are made to get in touch with matter, not our ears that are made to listen to the sounds; we have to use the inner Man to open the inner eyes and inner ears to see and hear.”) Yes, the inner Man. Right, right, I got it. Yes, that’s good. Open the inner eyes and the inner ears, and see God, hear God. That’s right. I think we mean the same thing.

The Importance of Finding an Enlightened Master – part 3

Therefore in the world there are not many Masters, because of this difficulty, to be in the world but not to be in the world, to be in Samadhi but not to be in Samadhi. This also makes it difficult for us to find the real Masters because they are not those who are in the first type of Samadhi, they are not those who we can tell immediately from the outlook are in Samadhi. These Masters may not even look saintly. They may not be surrounded by people throwing flowers around them and worshipping them so that they’ll open the eyes and say, “Oh, blessed are you!”

Those of the first type Samadhi are Saints, holy beings, who also deserve our worship. It’s very difficult to become such a Saint, because when we ordinary people meditate, we can’t even go into Samadhi, we can’t forget the world. Even if we run into the jungle, our minds are still tumbling with all kinds of thinking, all kinds of struggles and difficulties. So when we see someone always in deep Samadhi, looking so sweet and always smiling, and blessing us, we think he is fantastic. It’s difficult to experience such deep Samadhi even just for one or five minutes.

Therefore those who have achieved this kind of Samadhi, this state of tranquility, are great Saints who have great power, control over their minds. But it’s even more difficult to be in Samadhi and to be in the world at the same time, to have this inner tranquility but also have the outer functioning to deal with all types of people in order to pull them out of their illusion. This is the state of a perfect enlightened Master like Jesus, Buddha, etc.

Therefore it’s difficult to become a Master, and it is also difficult to judge a Master. Because if a Master exists in the world, then he has to deal with all kinds of people, all kinds of temperaments, all kinds of mental obstructions and then accordingly gives different remedies. He looks like an ordinary person then. If some disciple needs scolding, then the Master gives scolding; if another disciple needs love, then the Master gives love. They both receive love, but in different boxes, in different covers. Hugging is love in one kind of “wrapping paper,” and scolding is also love in another kind of “wrapping paper.” And then because we are not so enlightened, we don’t see anything special about that type of Master. We don’t see the Master sitting for hours, deep in Samadhi; we don’t see the Master as we imagine, always sweet and smiling and saying soothing words. We see the Master acting just like an ordinary person and then we think the Master is still ordinary, from his ordinary reactions. But a real Master’s reactions are never, never ordinary.

Do you remember the story about the two potatoes? If we are not somewhat enlightened and it’s the first time we see a Master or we have only followed a Master for a short time, and the Master gives us two potatoes, telling us to eat them all, and even repeats that order three or four times, then what would we think? We would think that it’s strange, “At home, I myself have so many potatoes. I’ve come to Master for great blessing and spiritual wealth, but here he gives me two potatoes!”

Then we would probably turn around and say, “Potatoes! I don’t even like potatoes. How can he be an enlightened Master if he doesn’t know I don’t like potatoes? He can’t even read my mind, and what a fuss about two potatoes! Why does he keep telling me three or four times to eat them together? I know how to eat potatoes.” Yes, we would argue back and forth like that. But we don’t know the meaning of these two potatoes.

When the Master gives us something with love and blessing, we have everything in that gift. It is not a potato anymore; it’s a world of wealth, a world of spiritual power. In Formosa and other places my disciples who know this always grasp whatever I give them; they always receive whatever I give them with great happiness. So sometimes when we go out together, they also expect me to give them something, maybe a peanut, maybe a candy. Whatever is there we share it together and they are so happy about that.

But sometimes when we are outside, there are also other people who will gather around us; because they see so many people gathering, and taking something so they also come and ask for whatever it is. Although these people are not initiates, when they ask, I also give them. For me, there’s no difference between initiates and non-initiates; they are all Gods. But then it’s interesting to watch their reactions, which are always the same. They will take my candies or peanuts, and then look puzzled, maybe thinking. “Why? A peanut? I’ve plenty of them at home!” or something like that. Or they might throw them back. (Laughter)

Therefore sometimes I am reluctant to give things in public, or sometimes when the disciples asked for a blessing in public I also refused, to avoid the situation that other people might have any ungrateful or critical thought in their mind, which is not good for them. This is nothing to me, but it might give them some obstructions for the future, which we call “Yei Tsang” in Chineese or “karmic hindrance” in Sanskrit and it means that any bad or good deed you do will obstruct you.

Since it’s so difficult to become a Master, what shall we do? In my posters and leaflets we always say “Immediate Enlightenment” and “Get Eternal Liberation in This Lifetime.”

We don’t say “Become a Master in One Lifetime.” We can also become a Master, no doubt, but it’s more difficult. So, at least we can be liberated and enlightened; we can reach near mastership, Master’s state, sainthood, Bodhisattva-hood, and that is also OK. Otherwise we have no hope.

In India people often say that if a Master could have a successor in his lifetime, then he is already very, very lucky. In America there was a Master, Yogananda, from India, who was very famous when he alive and is still famous now, but he had no successor.  It means none of his disciples or followers were equal to his status. No one was equal to his state of enlightenment.

So, it is not difficult to be liberated, but it is difficult to become perfectly enlightened. It is difficult to become a Buddha, a Master, a Christ. But we have hope. Yes. I only say it’s difficult; it doesn’t mean impossible. Whether it’s difficult or not is all up to us. If only we could believe in a Master, follow and completely surrender to that perfect Master, we would become that Master. The most difficult part is to surrender, because we all have this ego “I can do this thing and I understand that thing.” This ego is the worst enemy of our wisdom, of our mastership. It’s difficult to kill this ego. It is very easy to control others but not easy to control ourselves. That’s why it’s said that: “The man who can conquer his mind has the best victory.”

But we can do this through meditation with the Quan Yin Method which I will teach you. Then slowly this Quan Yin Method of liberation, the inner Energy of God will cleanse our obstructions, will cleanse our preconceived ideas, and set us free. We will have no thirst for fame, wealth and power. The pains, sorrows and happiness of the world will still be there, but they will not affect us. We have everything, but then we have nothing, we are attached to nothing. We become like an empty vessel, only full of God’s wisdom and God’s love. Only when we are empty can God fill us with wisdom and love. If we are still someone, if we still have something, then we cannot be completely empty, then we cannot completely have all of God’s power, which He wants to fill us with. Understand?

So, that’s how we can become a Master: Be first becoming no one, nobody, nothing . As Jesus said: Except you become a child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of God; and as Lao Tzu said: We have to become children again. They both said the same thing.

The Importance of Finding an Enlightened Master- part 2

It is difficult to gain liberation unless you find a perfect, enlightened Master who knows the way back to the Kingdom of God; someone as great as Jesus, someone as great as Buddha, or other great Masters in the past like Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Krishna, Socrates, etc. Otherwise we are also doing something, but we won’t get there. We just walk around on the different roads. We walk all right, but not on the right road. Sometimes we think we are walking, but then we end up going back to where we started. Therefore it is difficult to know the way on our own, unless by God’s grace we can find a completely enlightened Master.

When Jesus was alive He said, I am the Way, I am the Light of the world, but He added, as long as I am in the world. And Buddha also said, If you do not believe in Buddha, you are “echantika.” Meaning you are at hazard and you could not be liberated. But They said so when They were alive. What They said was true and is true with any real Master who still walks the Earth.

Now I will tell you how to become a Master. Since it’s so difficult to find a Master, we might just as well become the Master ourselves; it’s safer. So whenever we see a Master, we must ask to become a Master, and not for any other things. When Buddha came to this world, He said He had come to make everyone understand the way of a Master, which means how to become a Master. Jesus also said, whoever believes me shall not walk in darkness, and then He said, whatever miracle I do today, you can do also. Buddha also said, I have become Buddha, and you will become Buddha. “Buddha” means an enlightened Master. It comes from the Sanskrit root world “Bodhi,” which means wisdom. Someone who has Bodhi is “Buddha,” meaning someone who is enlightened, is an enlightened Master.

Why is it called “enlightened”? Because when you are enlightened you have Light; you have Light inside you, outside you and in the whole universe all is your Light. Your Light is even so great that it shines outside, that even some people can see the Light around you. Therefore you see Jesus, Buddha and the great Saints all had the Light around Them, a halo around Them. So this is what it means by being “enlightened.”

So if you want to become a Master, you must have Light, you must be “enlightened,” that’s the first condition. Then you must know two kinds of “Samadhi,” meaning deep rooted bliss within yourself. When you are in the real Samadhi it offers you wisdom and bliss, and when you are out of Samadhi you’ll give this bliss and wisdom to the world, to whoever needs you or comes near you. Some Masters are deep in Samadhi, and they don’t go out to teach the world; and some good disciples of good Masters can also be in Samadhi when they are near the Masters or when they meditate.

Now, when you are in this kind of Samadhi, which is very deep and profound, you don’t even know that you have a body, nor do you know how to function in this world. For example, in the middle of cooking you might just drop into Samadhi, leaving your pan burning without being aware of it at all. (Laughter) Or some people might beat you and you don’t feel any pain, or they might scold you but you still embrace them and kiss them. (Laughter) Yes, because you are oblivious to any differentiations in this world; bad or good, ugly or beautiful, you have no discrimination. You don’t even need to eat for many days, many months or many years; you don’t feel any desire and any necessity, and you don’t even feel that you need to help anymore. You feel everyone is happy and contented because you yourself are happy and contented, and you feel the whole world is in bliss.

Some of my disciples have had many experiences of this kind of Samadhi, and it’s bad for me because it’s hard to work with them when they are like this. (Master demonstrates) When I called them they would answer, “Yes Master.” And then when I told them to do something, they would also answer. “Yes.” But then they just sat there without moving one inch. What would you do? So I would scold them out of that Samadhi, or beat them out of it. Otherwise they would get attached to it and forget their families, forget that their wives and their kinds were hungry, and forget every suffering being who needs their help. Because truly, even if we are in a blissful state, there are many others who suffer.

So, this kind of Samadhi seems good, but is not as good as the other one. There’s another kind of Samadhi. Actually there are many kinds of, but I will just mention the two typical ones which you will know when you become a Master or near mastership. I mean the real Master, the powerful one, the one who is one with God, not just the so-called “Master” that we have so many of nowadays. The real Masters are like Jesus and Buddha.

When Buddha sat under the tree before He went out to teach the world, He experienced the first kind of Samadhi. He sat forty-nine days without moving. Before Jesus went out to preach the Truth He also had this kind of Samadhi. He sat in the desert for 40 days without eating, moving, or drinking. Before Mohammed went out to help the public, He sat in the cave and also experienced this kind of Samadhi. But then They had to leave it, because when They began to enjoy it and felt attached to it, God sent someone down and said, “No. You wake up and go and save the world!”

After that, They also had to meditate every day. But They had another kind of Samadhi, the normal state of Samadhi: You are in Samadhi twenty-four hours but you are out of Samadhi twenty-four hours; you are in bliss but you are in the world at the same time. Otherwise you cannot help the world. This is the highest Samadhi, and hard to obtain. It’s already hard to obtain the first Samadhi, how much harder to attain the second!
With the first Samadhi you are in bliss, but you couldn’t function, and you couldn’t teach people because you don’t care about teaching. You just enjoy yourself. Even if you want to, you just feel you cannot function, you can’t cope with worldly ways of working and thinking. But to be a Master and save other beings, to help them liberate themselves, you need both Samadhi and the function of the mind. Samadhi gives you inner Power so that you can bestow blessings on whomever you wish to, or whomever needs you. Without Samadhi you cannot bless anyone, you cannot help or assist them, you cannot be omnipresent, meaning to be in many places at the same time. However, without the normal function of the mind you can’t understand, you communicate with normal, suffering sentient beings. So you need both and at the same time. This is the most difficult part.

The Importance of Finding an Enlightened Master – par 1

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
June 16, 1989
Brazil

Thank you for your blessing. My friends, I am happy to be here again. You were very busy and working hard in the daytime, but in the evening you still rushed to come here. I do appreciate your sincerity.

Today, I would like to share with you a nice story about how difficult it is to surrender to one’s Guru, to one’s Master. It is difficult to be a Master. It’s more difficult to find a Master. Then it’s even more difficult to believe, trust, and surrender to this Master.  The story goes like this.

There was a Master who was very perfect, the greatest one, but was not what we’d imagine a “Master” to be. Sometimes he’d scold his students. (Laughter) Yes, he might even beat one or two – just like Milarepa, the great Tibetan yogi and his Master. This Master did all kinds of things that we’d imagine a Master should never do. For example, if we came and said, “The Master would never get angry,” he would get very angry.

We have to be crazy to be a Master. (Laughter) If you are normal, you cannot be a Master, because in this world everything is opposite, is upside down. What is good, we think is bad. What is bad, we praise and think is good. Only when you are completely enlightened  you can see the funny side of all things in this world. Then you can be crazy, very happily crazy – a very balanced craziness.

One day, this “crazy” Master told one of his disciples to take two potatoes and go and eat them. He emphasized again and again that the disciple must eat two potatoes – both of them together. Then he called him again and said, “You must eat two potatoes.”

The disciple took two potatoes from the Master’s hand, went to the street, sat down, and began to eat. Now, it’s very easy to eat two potatoes, no? You would think it’s not a hard test. Anyone can eat two potatoes. So he was eating and asking himself, “What’s the Master up to?”

He was thinking like that. But since he had been following his Master for a very long time, he knew that whatever the Master said, there was a reason and he must obey. So he sat there and ate. Having finished one already, he began to peel the other. Then came a beggar, very hungry, nearly dying, saying, “Please, please give me that potato, because you have eaten one and I’ve had nothing for many days. I’ll die if you don’t give it to me!”

Now, what would you do? Should you surrender to your Master or to compassion? The Master emphasized that he must eat the two potatoes together and the rule is that you never disobey. And the hungry, not to give food to such a hungry person would be very cruel. He sat there, wavering back and forth in his mind between his Master and the beggar. But then the beggar was crying, fell down on the ground, and was nearly dying, so the disciple immediately gave the remaining potato to him. Then he went home and the beggar disappeared also.

He went home and reported to his Master what had happened. The Master scolded and screamed at the disciple. He was screaming out of sorrow because he was feeling sorry for the disciple, not because the disciple had disobeyed him. The second potato was blessed with the highest spiritual enlightenment, complete enlightenment, while the first potato was blessed with worldly wealth, success and fame. He said, “How stupid you are!” Then he sighed, “Maybe it is your destiny. So, poor you couldn’t get it!”

After that, the disciple was always successful in the world, gaining a lot of money and fame, but he did not become a Master, meaning he never reached the ultimate goal, the highest position in the universe. This is the problem with most of us. We think we can handle everything and know everything. We think we don’t have any ego. We think it is very easy to follow and surrender to a Master. No, it isn’t easy. Even to eat two potatoes you have a problem. (Laughter)

So, it’s hard to dream of doing any other difficult task because we have so many preconceived ideas, we have so many prejudices, social customs and the background education… which have been solidified for many thousands of years. We have been brainwashed with them and it’s difficult to wash it out in a short time.

We always think we know all that is right and wrong. What do these prejudices have to do with our enlightenment? They obstruct our way. Whenever the Master tells us to do one thing, we do the other thing because we think, “No, no, I know it. My mother told me so, my teacher in school told me this, and my priest in the church has told me that.

We do exactly the opposite of what the Master desires us to do, and the Master always has to struggle with our prejudice. Most of us are blind, deaf and dumb. Only the Master can see clearly. The rest of the people see only in a hazy way or half way, or do not see at all. We think we see, but we don’t. We think we understand, but we do not. It is truly great, the illusion of this world. It is truly amazing, the great work of Maya.

It cheats us into believing in anything that we should not believe. We follow it very faithfully, very nicely and obediently until the one who is awakened, enlightened comes along to shake us out of this illusion. But even then, we don’t wake up so quickly. Just as in the morning, the alarm clock rings but you say, “Ah… oh…,” and it keeps ringing. Then you turn it off and go back to sleep.

That is why we have so many religions and we have so many so-called paths to liberation. But what do we see? Our world is more and more populated every day. That means, from our world, no one has been liberated – or very few. Otherwise, why hasn’t the population decreased? If many had been liberated and gone Home – become angels, become God’s assistants, God’s sons and daughters and lived in paradise forever – then the world would be less populated.

The Rescuer Exists Life after Life – part 1

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
June 17, 1989
Brazil

We welcome you to this international meeting, in the name of God. I will tell you some stories to remember God and to know what God is.

God is no one; God is nothing. But when He wants to become someone, He can be; when He wants to become something to let you know His existence, He can be. So, sometimes He manifests Himself as a human being in order to help us discover the mystery of life, in order to free us from our own bondage and suffering.

Two thousand years ago He manifested Himself in the body of a man, whose name was Jesus of Nazareth; two thousand and five hundred years ago He manifested Himself in the body of a man in India, whose name was Gautama Buddha. Gautama was His name and Buddha was His title, just as Jesus was the name and Christ was Jesus’ title, just as Paul was the name and “Santa,” “San,” “Tao,” was his title. We have Tao Paulo, Tao Jose. Tao is the title of some person who has already attained sainthood. Similarly when you attain the degree of a medical doctor, people call you “Dr. so-and-so.”

So, hundreds and thousands of years ago, God manifested Himself in the bodies of many other men and women, under the names of Lao Tzu in China, Socrates, Plato, Krishna, etc. in Greece, in India, and in other countries. Because God manifested Himself in these men, these beings, They were great, They were not average human beings. They were super beings, and because we know They were super human beings, hundreds and thousands of years later we still worship Them.

Throughout the years, God has continued to manifest Himself, again and again, in different bodies in order to teach, guide, and liberate humankind, who are His children. In many Scriptures we are told of the second coming of Christ, or the second coming of Buddha in the name of Maitreya, etc. Because we believe that They have not come yet, we suffer and we think no one cares for us. This is wrong. God always cares for us. God always sends someone to comfort, to teach, and to liberate us. Only when we are sincere and yearn for the Kingdom of God, will this great being appear.

Therefore in India, or in other places people say, “When the disciple is ready, the Master will appear.” I have found mine. I don’t know if you have found yours. Have you? Have you found your second Christ, Maitreya Buddha or Jehovah? No? Still waiting?

The Jews believe that the Messiah has not yet come and they are still waiting for him. The Christians believe that the second coming of Christ has not yet happened, so they are still waiting. The Buddhists believe that Maitreya Buddha has not come, so they are also waiting. The Sikhs also believe that since Guru Nanak and the nine successors, there hasn’t been anyone else, so they worship the book that Guru Nanak left behind, put some money on it, and that is all they believe. But for what?

I know, and many people know that things aren’t as depressing as that. God is not as merciless as that, so stingy as to send only one person in five thousand years and two persons in millions of years.

Worst of all, we are made to believe that Jesus Christ was the only one, before Him there had been no one and after Him there may be no one. But how about the people before Jesus and before Buddha’s time? Did they all go to hell, because God did not give them a chance to see Christ or Buddha? And do we, the so-called in-between human beings, also have no chance to see Maitreya Buddha or the second coming of Christ?

This is too depressing. If we have a little intellect and use a little logic, we couldn’t accept this. Well, I myself can’t accept it. I am a terribly logical person. I believe in the mercy of God, which is endless, boundless and limitless. I believe that however sinful we are, He loves us; and when I cry, He always hears. I believe that God always sends someone to Earth to help us. Yes. It’s only logical that God is so merciful. I also believe that Buddha always come when we need Them.

Now, when we meet these kinds of Saints such as Buddha or Christ, what should we do in order to benefit? We have many choices. If we believe in such a being as a living God, we will derive a lot of benefit from that person, from that great being.

When Jesus was alive, He initiated (or baptized) many people. He cleansed their sins, He took the burden of their sins in order that they would be free. He taught those close disciples such as Peter, Simon, etc., the twelve disciples that followed Him everywhere, the way to become a Master. These disciple were able to keep the strict disciplines and the virtuous life, which were requirements for becoming a Master, for mastership. There were others who could not keep these disciplines, but Jesus also liberated them; He even accepted a prostitute as His follower. Followers and disciples are two different things. Disciples were those who were closer, who received a more intensive training, and who may be chosen to spread the Truth as Jesus did; devotees or followers were those who believed in Jesus and relied on His mercy in order to get liberation after they left this world.

So we see, even when Jesus was nailed on the cross, He could save the last person who was next to him, who was also nailed on another cross. Jesus did not give him invitation, any ceremony or any touch. He only said, “OK, I will bless you, I will save you,” because that person requested Him and had faith in Him.

The Inner Sound Creates Boundless Love – part 2

When baby is born, the mother just holds the baby in her arms and then both understand each other perfectly well. Your dog understands you, your cat understands you; neither of you needs to speak. This is the best language.

So, I’ve come to this country also to remind you of the language of love, the language of the heart. We could speak together in any nation with this kind of language. We already do so, but we can develop more, from the mother’s love to the baby, from the love between the husband and wife, and from the love between friends to the love for the nation, to the love for the people at large and then to the love for all kinds of beings in the universe, including animals, flowers, insects and all the invisible ghosts that we fear so much. We need not fear ghosts if we have love, because ghosts will also love us. We use this great force of love inside to dispel darkness, to unite all people, all beings together.

We all have this force of love. This is the God within us, which the Oriental people call “the Buddha within us.” In fact, Buddha and God are the same. In the Orient, Buddha means love, compassion, and the Occidental God means love. They are the same thing. Yes, if Buddha and God both mean love, then They are the same thing.

Now, the problem for us is how to find this love within us. We all think we know what love is. Yes, we do, but only a small part of it. So Jesus came and taught us that you must love your neighbors, and greater still, love your enemies. Buddha, Mohammed, Socrates, Lao Tzu and Chuang Tau all taught people the same thing. So I’ve come to this country also to remind you of the same ancient message: How to develop this great love within us, so that we can love our neighbors.

This love is invisible, but it is so great that we can feel it and we can use it at will. Why is the great force within called love? Because it forgives all our sins and cleanses all our sins. It doesn’t matter what kind of wrong things we did before, if we make with this love, and know this love, we are clean like a baby. That is why it’s called love; love knows no sin, no boundary, no past, but only the present. Jesus used this love to clean the sins of His disciples, and Buddha used this love to take people back to the Buddha’s Land; and Krishna of India, because of having this love, until now is still loved by the people of India and praised by them.

They were the great Masters of the past, and there are many more. If we want to list all the Masters from the ancient times, we cannot finish in one day, two days or three days. It is good that we know them and worship them; they remind us to become the Master of ourselves. Yes. So I come here also to remind you that you can also become as great as Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Mohammed, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, etc.

The way to become great is very simple; just find your own wisdom, which is already within you and it is not something that I will give you, Jesus will give you, or Buddha will give you. No one can give us wisdom except ourselves. But They can remind us, They can show us the way to find our own wisdom. They can hold our hands, stand-by, and encourage us to go on and find it. But we must know we should find it, we must know how to find it, and we must try to treasure the wisdom after we find it.

So the way back to the Kingdom of God is to find our own wisdom. This is the real meaning of the Kingdom of God: The state of blessings, of happiness and of sainthood. So if we become a Saint, we are saintly, we are happy, and we are blissful, and that means we have found the Kingdom of God. But at the same time as we are blissful and happy, there is also truly a Kingdom of God according to our level of understanding. That’s why we’ve often heard that there is the beautiful Buddha’s Land, the serene land, the Kingdom of God or Heaven, etc., They really exist and we can travel there at will. Whenever we are there, we are very happy and blissful; and the more we go there, the wiser we will become, the happier we will be.

That is why we say that we should find the Kingdom of God, or the Buddha’s Land. After we see the Buddha’s Land many times, we will become as wise as Buddha, and then we will become the Buddha. Similarly in the Occidental way, “After we have been to the Kingdom of God so often, we become one with God.” Therefore, after Jesus Christ had visited the Kingdom of God many times, He declared, I and my Father are one. But at His time not all people believed what He said, because they themselves had not reached His level and therefore they could not understand Him; consequently they could not believe Him.

It’s the same with us now. If someone says to us, “I have become one with God. I and my Father are one,” or “I have become Buddha,” it is also difficult for us to understand and to believe. But we don’t need to believe, we can experience it by ourselves. Then we still have time to believe. My purpose is to offer you the chance to experience it yourselves, and then you can believe. Is there any Heaven? We can see it for ourselves at the time of initiation.

For example, we see all the Saints in the past have Light around their heads. It is because they had already developed the Light within themselves, because they were charged with the “electricity” of God. If we are also charged with this electricity, we will also become Light. We have heard that when Jesus was baptized, He saw white Light coming down from Heaven. So now when we are baptized, if we can also see that or at least something similar, then we know we are really baptized; otherwise it is only a kind of ritual and is nothing to speak about. At initiation, you may have an experience like Jesus did.

It is also stated in the Bible that when someone saw God, God was like a great flame, like the sound of thunder, like the sound of many waters. When we are initiated, we will have these same experiences, or even higher. Then we know and can believe that we are as enlightened as the past Saints, and we know that we are in the presence of God.

In the Buddhist Scriptures, it is also mentioned that a Bodhisattva (enlightened being) heard different Sounds and saw Light. You may also see this Light and hear these Sounds at the time of initiation. Then you know that you are on the right path, you are really enlightened, and you have become a Bodhisattva like the disciples of Buddha when He was alive.

The Inner Sound Creates Boundless Love – part 1

Spoken by Master Ching Hai
June 15, 1989
Brazil

I am very glad to see people from so many countries gathering here, at least four or five countries. A very rare international congregation.

Welcome to this international congregation today. I hope that we will have a very good time together and that we will keep the happiness for many days after going home. Yes, this is for sure. We obtain great blessings by attending a Truth preaching because God’s blessing pervades the assembly.

Now, you may ask why am I here. First, I come to see my disciples. Some of them are very sincere and long to see me, their “Shih Fu,” meaning Master. In Chinese, Shih Fu only means a monk teacher, nothing big. So it’s not that I mean to be a big “Master.” Second, I come to share with you a method, which will enable you to come in contact with your inner greatest, highest and everlasting Power.

Why should we have contact with this greatest Power? Well, we all have this so-called Heaven inside ourselves. The Chinese talk about Heaven as Buddha Nature, the Tao or the Creator’s Power; and the Catholic or Western countries mention Heaven as the Kingdom of God within or God. Everyone of us has this Heaven or inner Power. If we find it and use it, we can do everything. We will not suffer so much every day, and we will not feel that our power is too weak, our work is too much, and the pressure is too heavy. So I want to offer you this method to benefit yourselves. Because this Power is granted to us by our so-called God, we should take it out and use it, free of charge. We don’t have to change our social lives, our jobs or our family relationships.

We’ve often heard that if someone wants to practice meditation to find God, meaning to become a Buddha, then that person should renounce the world, should become a monk, shaving his head, and hide himself in the mountains. Or we have heard that many yogis hide themselves in very quiet places to do spiritual practice, like in the Himalayas, where scarcely anyone comes and goes.

But most of us are bound by business and by family responsibilities, so how can we go to the Himalayas? How can we retreat into the high mountains? Then, does that mean we can’t become a Buddha, a Christ or a Guru? Does that mean we can’t communicate with God, with Heaven? Isn’t there another way by which we can get in touch with our real Nature?

In Catholicism we say, The Kingdom of God is within you. In Buddhism we say, Buddha is in your heart. Therefore, why should we go up high mountains to look for it? Yes, we can find it at home, which is the most economical, convenient and simplest way. As we still have to carry out our social duties, if everyone shaved his head, wore monk’s robes, and went to the Himalayas, there would be no one left behind, and no more children. This would be illogical, and neither acceptable to the Chinese tradition of inheritance, nor allowed by your Brazilian government, because Brazil has plenty of land but a thin population and therefore needs a lot more children.

I have a method which can benefit your nation’s plan, Chinese tradition of inheritance, your work and your social situations as well. This method is called “Quan Yin” in Chinese, which means we listen to our inner Nature. How can we hear this inner Nature? It is a kind of Vibration, which is the “Buddha Nature” in Buddhism, or the “Word” in the Catholic Bible. When we hear the inner Vibration, or God’s Voice, it means that we are communicating with God, with Christ or with Buddha, and it means we have found our own Buddha Nature, or the Kingdom of God within. Then we will have more and more wisdom, yet less and less suffering, as our inner God or inner Master will take care of our lives and will handle all our problems.

Most of us can’t handle our problems easily because we only use our limited minds and forget our inner infinite Power. Once we discover it, we will never use it up. Shakyamuni Buddha found His own, and Jesus also found His own inner highest Power, therefore They became so great and so wise, that after thousands of years the whole world are still worshipping Them. We may worship Jesus and Shakyamuni Buddha, but we must not forget that we ourselves can also become as great as They have been. Shakyamuni Buddha said, I’ve become a Buddha, and you will also become the Buddha. Jesus Christ also said: Any great thing I can do today, you can do it also. It means that we can be Their equals.

If we want to be Their equals, we should learn the same method that They practiced. the method is the Quan Yin Method – listening inward to our own real Nature, which is the Kingdom of God, God’s Power or Buddha Nature. The more we communicate with this inner Power, the greater we will be. Yes, it’s just as at schools, where the more we learn, the more knowledge we obtain. We can learn inwardly, and the more we learn, the greater wisdom we obtain. The Chinese saying, Constantly studying with the Buddha, means learning inwardly.

I’ve told the Chinese audience that if they can understand neither Portuguese nor English, they may just look at my eyes. No need to translate, the eyes will understand. Translation is only for the mind. The eyes transmit directly the message to the soul. Even if you don’t speak my language, if you look at my eyes for a while, you will feel something. You will get enlightenment, peace, happiness and love. This is the language of the universe, love and happiness.

Yes, no need of Chinese, no need of Portuguese, no need of Spanish, no need of English, etc…no need of such a complicated system.

 

WHAT CAUSES WAR? part 6

There is a better life, a more perfect life inside. Once we are perfect inside, our outside life will be perfect too. We can use our inside wisdom and Power to make our work more efficient, faster and more beneficial to the world. So, actually if we want to be in any important position or be successful in any field, we must get the proper Power to work for us, not our minds.

There are two levels of power. The first level, the lower level, is the mind, the automatic reaction and action. Yes, that is the mind. The other higher level Power is all grace, love and miracles. By miracles I don’t mean changing the weather or…, but we can do that too.

For example, my disciple just prayed and the airplane had to run backwards to get him, the only one left behind. Formally they didn’t want to have anything to do with him, because they said that his ticket was something wrong, but we paid for the ticket. Something bureaucratically wrong, but we paid for the ticket.. And the airplane had to come back. This is also called a miracle. But, we don’t do it on purpose. We just pray, and the one who is in touch with God can pray for anything, provided we pray with our own Power. Do you understand? If we pray for someone else and that someone else is not in tune with God, then it’s difficult for the prayer to be answered. It is not that we don’t want to help them. Otherwise Jesus would have prayed for at least the Jews, or the Buddha would have prayed for at least the whole of India. Do you understand what I mean? Even though we are enlightened, we cannot change the world. We can only reason and bring them into changing themselves.

Therefore, we have to begin with ourselves. We cannot sit and wait for miracles. No one can change the world, not even thousands of Buddha or millions of Jesus. They would have done it if they could. Miracles do not happen in this way where karma is concerned. We have to clean ourselves. We have to bathe ourselves. Take our medicine in order to cure ourselves. The best doctor can only give us medicine but cannot take it for us. Therefore, it’s a very sad and difficult thing to pray for other people when they are not in tune with the prayer fulfilling source.

The best way is to get in touch with God and then pray. We don’t even have to pray, things will happen. This I know for sure. This I have experienced. And many, many thousands of my disciples have also experienced this. All of them know it is true. I would like to present it to you today should you feel interested, and should you believe that there is a solution to war. By changing ourselves, by having peace within ourselves, we’ll have peace in the world. Each one must do it. Even if we could not influence the whole world, we “light some torches” at least peace would be more and war would be less. This in itself would be a great achievement.

Our world is better now compared to the old times because many Masters have stepped down to Earth and taught us many great laws of civilization. We have improved. That’s why our world has become more civilized, brighter, more comfortable, compared to thousands of years ago. That’s due to many, many great enlightened Masters who have elevated our understanding. Even though they taught just a group of people, but the teachings that they left behind, the vibration and the seeds continue to grow and benefit the whole world on a large scale and have lifted up the whole consciousness of humankind to a higher level. Therefore, our world is getting better and better every day. Due to some great Masters and some of their disciples our world has become better and better.

You may join them. I am saying that you must come and study with me. It is not so. Study with whomever you like, who you feel is the most enlightened, who will be the most beneficial to you, and who shows the way the most clearly to you; but do something. Get in touch with your won wisdom and Power, and use it to work for you. It is better than just using a brain-computer, fumbling with it every day and feeling headaches, frustration and difficulties. Nothing is so difficult if we use our great wisdom to do the work and not the small intelligence of the habitual computer-brain. Thank you very much.

WHAT CAUSES WAR? part 5

Now to sum it up, I have to tell you what God is. According to Christian Bible, God is the “Word.” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That is what we call the “Yin,” the Vibration, the Tao, the Buddha Nature in Buddhist terminology. Once we get in touch with that so-called “Word,” we are in touch with God because the “Word” is God. God is not a figure with a long beard or with a stick, standing there telling you what to do. God is a Power, a loving current that we can use to mold our life and to make things come into being by this creative substance. Therefore for the ones who are in touch with God, everything they wish for will come true; and for the ones who are not in touch with God, it doesn’t matter how long they pray, things hardly come into their lives because they are not in touch with what they want to talk to.

If we want to talk to our friend and the telephone is disconnected, or we are too far away from the telephone, or if we don’t pick it up, then how can we talk to them, to the police or whoever? Therefore we must first make the connection and then wish. Well, does this seem too farfetched now or not?

I am on tour now all over the United States, and before I left for the United Nations’ Conference, my disciples told me a story about how their wish came true. For example, even when the airplane was already on the runway, and one of our disciples was left behind, he prayed, and the airplane came back to get him. Yes! I said I could not believe it, but they said, “Yes, yes, it’s true. We are here!” We always make jokes like that. I said I didn’t believe it, but I knew it was true. So then I said to them, “OK! Since you can pray so efficiently, then you should pray for others. You should not always pray for yourself. This is selfish.”

They said to me, “Whom should we pray for now?”

I said, “For example, for the peace in the Middle East or for the Au Lac refugee who want to be integrated as citizens into other countries.”

They answered, “Yes, we don’t mind praying, but they’re too far away, their karma is too heavy. We don’t know if we can pray for them or not.”

That’s what they said and it struck me that it’s really true, because the Au Lac refugees are not in touch with God yet. My so-called disciples – I would call them friends, but if I say “friends” you wouldn’t understand, so I say “disciples” – are in touch with God, so whatever they want comes true.

Therefore, it’s not that we don’t want to pray for ourselves or for other people, but we have to know where to talk, to whom to talk, and where to get that Power to realize our prayers. Because all the Power is within us, all things are already inside, we must know where to get them and to use them, but most of us don’t.

I have realized that it is truly: Seek you first the Kingdom of God and all other things shall be added unto you. The Kingdom of God doesn’t come by observation. The Kingdom of God is at hand, within you. That’s what’s said in the Bible.

How is it that it’s within us and we don’t know it? Because we don’t know where it is. We don’t know where “within” is. Is it in the heart, in the lung, in the vein or in the liver? We don’t know where it is. So if someone knows, then we can be shown.

I have been taught where the Kingdom of God is, and I make use of that every day for my own and for other people’s benefit. I keep telling people that it is so easy to get in touch with your own Power, to fulfill all your wishes, to be in Heaven on Earth and to forget everything else. The war will cease itself. It has worked within our group. No one after initiation feels like fighting any more, arguing about nonsense, or desiring more things than what they necessarily need. It really works with thousands and thousands of people. It always works, so I know it is the truth.

But most people are not ready for this message. They cannot believe that they have this kind of Power. I am always amazed why people look down upon themselves so much. Aren’t we all children of god and make after His image? Do we not all have Buddha Nature inside? Or even are we not all children of Allah? And if we are His children, we have the same Power, at least similar, more or less the same, so why should we look down upon ourselves? We are God’s princes and princesses, and does that mean something or not? It may seem like an empty saying, but it‘s true. It is just like that.

If you are the daughter or son of a king, you must know your power, you must know your position; but most people don’t know. Everyone just knows, “Ah! We are the children of God. God made us after His image. We are the likeness of Him.” Yes, but that’s it. Then, we go out and struggle for every penny and pray for everything, and it never comes, because we never pray to the right source. We don’t go to where our wishes can be fulfilled. It is so easy, easier then eating bread. Because it is so easy, people tend to look over it. This is very sad, but I shall be patient. I shall be patient.

So, actually we talked about war and ended with peace. If every one of us wants to have peace within ourselves, we must practice the Kingdom of God. We must get in touch with this God power, which is very easy to do. We can do it instantly because God is within us. He is not very far away. The Kingdom of God is within us. Why should we go to a distant church or temple to get it? And why should we take a long time to get it?

That’s why we call our method “instant enlightening” or “immediate enlightenment.” “Instant” is just what my disciples call it, but I don’t like the word “instant.” Actually, my original words were “immediate enlightenment and eternal liberation.” Once we are enlightened, we are forever enlightened and liberated. Liberated from what? From the cycle of birth and death, being reborn and reborn again, suffering and suffering again.

For example, your work in the United Nations is the best job, the noblest work one can find because here you serve the whole world, not only one company or two companies, on family or two families, but the whole world. Your work is the best. I advise everyone to stay and not to leave the UN for as long as you can. But even then you have your suffering, frustration and headaches. Do you see? Things are not as perfect as we want.

WHAT CAUSES WAR? part 4

Now, after these events, people began chasing each other, and physical attraction began to happen. They started to have couples. Other people who looked at this wondered why it had never happened like this before. They wondered why one being did such things to the other being. These people became ashamed of being attracted to each other physically and doing things physically. They were ashamed, so they had to go out of the city of the inhabitants and build their own huts or caves. Consequently, houses began to spring up and separate dormitories began to appear.

That’s how it happened and that’s how we started our history, according to Buddha.  If you want to blame, blame the Buddha! Don’t blame me! I don’t know if this story is true or not. I wasn’t there. I don’t know if I was there or not. It was a long time ago, and I’ve forgotten now. I might have been there, but it has been too long now, billions or trillions of years ago. Who would remember all these things? Who wants to remember, right? We have enough to do now, with the Middle East war, the Au Lac refugees and what-not.

After that, because people started building houses, hoarding things for themselves, and dividing the land, everything began to get worse. Some people who were diligent planted a lot of things and had good crops, and other people who were lazy just came to steal. That’s how wars began, and they continue until now because there are those who have a lot and there are those who have too little. Those who have a lot don’t want to share with those who have too little. Those who have a lot work diligently and look down upon those who don’t have much because of their laziness or, maybe misfortune. So, the Buddha concluded that the cause of war is the lack of sharing between people; it is the greed within us. Those who take too much leave none for the others.

Nowadays in our modern times, the scientists have done a lot of research and they think that the cause of war may be starvation. Many countries are starving and many countries have too much, and things like that. But not really, we don’t really have too much. We are just using it incorrectly and waste it.

They also did other research. For example, someone in Toronto, who has a vegetarian restaurant and a vegetarian magazine, told me that according to the research, if in North America each person would eat a vegetarian meal once a week, then we would have enough food to feed sixteen million people a year. I was startled and said, “How could it be?” But it worked out that way. It is not because of the food, it’s the many things concerned with food. In order to produce this food the land has to be cultivated, but now it’s wasted for the feeding of the cows. All the water, medicine, transportation, etc. used for the cows, pigs and other animals, everything concerned with meat diet had reportedly wasted a lot of human resources, and that is the cause of starvation in many countries. It takes a lot of food protein, medicine, transportation and water to feed a cow and these things come from underdeveloped countries, too. This protein and food could have been distributed in a different way in order to feed the whole world instead of feeding a cow, and then we eat the cow, second-hand stuff anyhow.

So nowadays many people believe that a vegetarian/vegan diet can save the world and minimize a lot of war, and I think I do not oppose this idea. Maybe in the very near future we should try, at least to see how it works, and then we can comment. But I believe it will work provided each of us supports this idea and tries to cooperate. It is understood that not everyone will cooperate. Since the beginning of time, not all of us cooperate, because we all want to be the boss. Somehow, in our own way, in our own environment, we always like to be the boss. Why is it? It’s not bad either. This also stems from the noble root that we have been in power, we have been angels, we have been Saints. We have been in Heaven, where everything is under our command. And now, we have lost our way and stepped down to this physical world and have lost most of our power, so we crave for power. But the thing is, we crave and find power in the wrong way. As a result it harms us more than offers us any power. That’s all.

The way to get back our Power is to purify ourselves, to get in touch with God. I have done it myself and I can say that I have succeeded, to some extent. These are not empty words that I am telling you. They come from my experience. Should you like to try it, it is highly recommended. You may try to find your own way, do it yourself, or you may try to find someone who you think is intelligent enough and experienced enough, to guide you to get in touch with your own real Power. Once we have that real Power, we have everything else. Even if we don’t have everything else, we are satisfied. That’s what it is. It is not that we have the whole world in our hands, but we are satisfied with whatever we have, and we will not crave for our neighbors’ things. We will not be too attached to the things of this world, but we will have plenty. Truly it is like that.

The Bible says: Seek you first the Kingdom of God and all other things shall be added unto you. That I have found to be the truth.   It is the whole truth. And in the Buddhist Sutras, for example in the Surangama Sutra, it also says that, Once you get in touch with this inner Buddha Nature through practicing the Quan Yin Method, the worldly things will go on smoothly too. We can also have other things. And this I have also found to be the truth. Therefore, every Bible says similar things. You can find many other examples in the  Indian Scriptures, Jewish Scriptures and other Scriptures.

That’s why we hear that the rich people are blessed by God. It might be true in some sense, but the richness of this world has not always been the symbol of the blessing of God. It just denotes our virtuous way of life in the last period of our existence, before this existence, and that’s all. The blessings of God come directly, without virtues even, once we are connected with this God Power.

WHAT CAUSES WAR? part 3

First they looked. It was so beautiful and it smelt so irresistible, so they tasted it. It was so nice. They never ate anything before and they didn’t think they would need it. They never thought there was such a thing, so nice and tasty, so they ate more and more. Eventually, everyone know about this beautiful foam on the sea, which tasted good, smelt nice and looked beautiful, so they all came and ate. The more they ate, the more they became heavy. Their appearance changed. Their power changed and slowly they could not fly very long distances anymore. Slowly their Light, their aura became shorter, and more dull in color. But they didn’t notice that much. Anyway, it was too late to change. The foam was too good. The more they ate, the more they wanted it, so they could not stop eating. After everyone ate, the foam was gone because they ate too much.

Then something else appeared on Earth, a kind of weed that grew all over the place. Anyone could take it and eat it. It was a kind of crawling weed. People liked it also. Because there was no more foam, they tried the weed, and the weed was also tasty, nice, beautiful and fragrant. So they ate, and everyone ate. The more they ate this weed, the coarser their bodies and spirits became. They could hardly fly anymore. Their physical bodies began to change for the worse, not for the better. They were beautiful and glorious before. Now they looked more coarse, and some sounds began to emanate from their mouths. There was no need to speak before, but now they had to make some sound in order for the neighbors to understand them. It was just some babbling, but it was sound. They could not stop eating now. They had become like addicts. Oh! It was so beautiful, so good, so they kept on eating.

After that something else came. The beautiful weed was not there anymore, and they went searching around for something else to eat. The Earth offered something like rice or wheat. The Earth began to offer these kinds of things, and people ate them. But these things grew outside, in the fields. From where they lived, they had to walk some distance and take them home. These things did not grow all over the place like before. So they took them home and ate them, and everyone had enough every day. But slowly people began to be lazy and said, “Why should I go every day to the field and get what I need? I can take enough for two or three days, then I don’t need to go every day.” So they took for three days. Their neighbors saw this and did the same thing. Some people who were more greedy and took for ten days, others took for twenty days.

Slowly the wheat supply disappeared because everyone took much more then they needed. After a while the trouble started, because the ones who had a lot feared that the ones who didn’t have would come to steal, and things like that. So now, a Council was formed by the people to settle all these disputes and to make the laws. That was why the first government of the world was formed, because of eating, nothing more noble. Then they divided the earth into different pieces. This part was for Mr. so-and-so, and that part was for Mrs. so-and-so, and no one was to violate this division.

The more they ate these things, the coarser they became and their bodies began to change. Some changed into a woman’s shape, some changed into a man’s shape, what we call men and women nowadays. Before that, there wasn’t any shape; everyone was exactly the same, living in glory and love together. There was no physical attraction between each other. But after they ate too much of all these things, there was fighting, stealing, and disputing and things began to change so tragically. People began to look at each other with wonder and attraction.

Those who ate less would still be more beautiful, and those who ate more became more ugly. The ugly chased after the beauty. The beauty would be the woman. Yes, probably because we ate less! Therefore, until now women are still being called the beauty. So then, the so-called man began to chase after the woman because they were more beautiful. Everyone loves beauty because of that, because we were born beautiful, we were from the beauty. That’s why up until now, everyone loves beauty, and all the women put on all that beautiful make-up just because they remember deep down in their memory that they had been beautiful, or their real Self is beautiful.

So, whatever their appearances on Earth are, they are not satisfied. The men too, no matter however beautiful his wife is, he still likes to look at another beauty, because he remembers in the old days everyone was beautiful, more beautiful than his wife even. So, he cannot be satisfied with looking at one beauty. That’s the cause of unfaithfulness. It’s not that he is really bad, it’s just that instinctive nature inside us.

Even greed, the hoarding of money and possessions, and the love of beauty came from the noble root that we have been in a more glorious world, where all things were in plenty. We had everything that we needed without even asking, and we were all beautiful and glorious. That’s why we still love all those shining jewels, make-up, beautiful men, beautiful women and like to have a luxurious life. It is because we had them before, and we miss them now. Therefore, we try to get them back as much as we can, as much as our ability here will allow us. Therefore, all those so-called bad habits and instincts in men stem from a very noble root. If we know it, we would feel more sorry rather than blaming ourselves or accusing others for chasing after beauty or money.

So, once we understand this through spiritual practice, we will leave all these things. We will have them, but we will not crave them. Whatever we have, we are satisfied and use them. We will not be slaves to these things, and we will not crave or try all means to get them, or even maybe start a war because of these things.

WHAT CAUSES WAR? part 2

Before Alexander the Great died, he instructed his subordinates that they should put him in the coffin with both hands stretched out empty, to teach the later generations not to go into war, not to accumulate any possessions because when we die, we have nothing. But it is said that some members, some citizens of our world or some nations didn’t fully understand this lesson. Let us hope they will.

Most of the people who make wars are the ones who are too well protected, who speak from their own chambers, from their own sofas, and who don’t go out into the battlefields to fight in danger. Therefore they bring forth this kind of disaster to other people, including their own citizens, because they do not truly sense what danger in battle is and what suffering means when one is wounded or tormented by the casualties of war.

When Napoleon Bonaparte of France was standing in the battlefield between France and Austria, he was so shocked and so hurt because of the casualties. There were about fifteen thousand of soldiers who died from both sides. He wrote a very desperate letter to the King of Austria at that time, saying: Please let us make peace. Let us stop the war. He wrote to the King that: You have not been in the battle like I have, so you don’t know what it is to stand here along with fifteen thousand corpses around you and to see the daily suffering of the soldiers. And that’s not all. How about those who stay behind? Yes, I think most of you have watched the film “Born on the Fourth of July,” and you know what it is like. There are the after affects also, not only the immediate effects.

I don’t know which radio station it was that interviewed me a few days ago in Texas. He asked me, “Is the war good or not? Should we, as spiritual people, resort to war, like they do now in the Middle East?” I said that we should stop the cause, not the consequence; it’s too late. If we don’t want oranges, we should never plant an orange seed in the ground, or at least we should never water it, we should take it or pluck it out of the ground when it is little. But some people like to nourish war for whatever reason you might know. You know probably better than I do.

Some of the people that I know said to me, “Well, we have to take care of the people of this country. Therefore we have to make wars in order to have the benefit thereof for our country.” That’s very good, very patriotic from this view point, but in the long run and from a spiritual standpoint, it is a loss, because later on the karma will come. Karma is the consequence of what we sown. Like it says in the Bible: As you sow, so shall you reap. When the cause is not good, the consequence cannot be good. If we try to make money, have fame, or nourish a group of people or a nation from the benefits of war, then later that cause will also go back on us and we will become the victims. We cannot sow an orange seed and get an apple; that is the physical law of this world. As long as we are in the physical world, we must obey the physical law. No one can avoid that, even if he is a Buddha or a Jesus Christ, let alone we who are the ordinary beings! Therefore, the people who make wars have not studied the Bhagavad Gita, the Buddhist doctrine of the Law of Karma. And they might not have even glanced at the Bible which says: As you sow, so shall you reap.

A long time ago when the Buddha was alive, He told a very interesting story of how war started. Since ancient times, since people began to appear on this Earth, the cause of war, the seed of war had already been sown. So now what we are having every day is just a consequence of that, a continued consequence or an unavoidable chain reaction.

The story goes like this. In the beginning of time, after this world of ours had been destroyed, there was nothing here. Everyone had gone to different worlds according to the desires and the tendencies they had when they were still in this world. Some were sent to probably a more miserable condition, some would sleep for a long time, and some went to so-called Heaven. Most of the people who were virtuous went to a place called “Quang Yin” planet. Quang Yin has nothing to do with our method, OK? It is just a place called Quang Yin. Now, people stayed there in glory for long, long unimaginable periods of time. After that, this planet came into being. At first it was just nebulous and uninhabitable. After a long, long period of time, you must imagine it was billions and billions of ages, and then this world come into being.

Slowly, the first group of people, those who stayed in this so-called Quang Yin planet appeared in this world. At that time this world had no leader, no beings, nothing. One of the beings from that higher planet saw that this world was empty, the throne was ready, so he came down. That was the first being, whom we called Brahma. Well, according to the story. Don’t say I said so; it’s what Buddha said. OK?

Then suddenly he saw that he was so alone; that wasn’t good, so he said, “I wish some more beings would come to me.” Then they came, all those beautiful people from the Quang Yin planet. They called it Quang (light) Yin (sound) because on that planet people were nourished by Light and Sound only. They were not in need of solid food like we are now.

So, slowly many of them came to this world and settled down. But when they came here, they lived in Light and glory. They could fly anywhere they wanted and be anywhere instantly. There was no need for vehicles or any physical transportation, no need for any language. They could still understand each other perfectly. They could still be very free in their own way, in their glory, and they lived in glory for long, long ages, trillions of years. Then slowly, this world became more solidified, more beautiful, more visible and more glorious. Some of these beings walked around the sea or flew around the seashore, and saw some kind of foam from the sea. This foam looked so beautiful, so shiny and smelt so nice. Many very strange fragrances emanated from this kind of foam, which floated on the sea. Some of them were curious, so they just landed and tasted some of it.

WHAT CAUSES WAR? part 1

March 6, 1991
United Nations, New York, USA

My friends, let us have a few minutes to pray for your noble work, that you will fulfill your mission, and to pray for the peace that we all work for; and then, we will start. Please pray in your own way with your eyes closed; contact your God inside.

Thank you. I am very honored to be here, the best place in the world, and to see the most selected and intelligent people of all nations.

Welcome to the United Nations. I have told our President here that the UN is probably the best thing since “sliced bread,” and she said that she had never heard anyone use that phrase before. I said I also don’t use it except in the right place because I am afraid people would not understand, and also because there are not many things that are better than “sliced bread.” But the UN truly is. I have read some of the work that you have done for the world, and I pray that God will bless you with full health, power and intelligence in order that you may carry out your work.

I do not feel like this is my first time here or the first time I have spoken to you. I feel very close and friendly, so please feel that way too, in case you don’t. Before I came here, while I was in the car, I just closed my eyes for a few minutes, and then I see the entrance. Yes! Because I asked the lady who drove, “Do you know where the entrance is? “ She said, “Yes, yes. We should be there soon. It is in such and such a place.” I thought it was her first time. I was thinking she might go to a wrong entrance. I just slept for a little while, and then I saw “Visitor’s Entrance.” Probably I have been here before or we have been in UN conferences in many other lives. Who knows? I saw the entrance while in the car before I actually came here, so it might not be the first time that we are together.

Someone in the UN had invited me to come here to address the assembly and it was a long time ago. It must have been eight months ago, and at that time I wasn’t thinking of coming here at all. When I was asked, I said, “Well, maybe. Let’s see.” Because then I was thinking, “Well, the people who work in the UN probably have different interests from mine. I am just a spiritual person, and the people in the UN are probably working in so-called politics.” That’s what I was thinking, in my “un-enlightened” manner, you know? Please forgive me. Then I thought, “The ones who work  politics would not be interested in what I have to say.” But then later I thought I could not think that way. Politics is not the sole issue of the UN. They have worked on humanitarian issues, as well as on peace and on many other kinds of relief for the world. They also practice meditation; this I heard afterwards. Then came the war of the Middle East, many issues about the Au Lac refugees and the policies of Au Lac. Some of the Au Lac refugees who didn’t want to be repatriated committed suicide and things like that. So, I thought it would be a good time for me to come here, to understand more about your work and also to have a nice talk together.

It should not be that we let the UN shoulder every burden and responsibility, and put blame on them. Everyone should work together with the UN, because we are also citizens of the world. No one should just stand outside and watch the UN work, and then blame them or criticize them. We should come in and work together. That’s what I think, therefore I’ve come here today. Whether I can help or not, that is another question, that is God’s will; but my goodwill is with you.

Therefore, I’ve studied your books, your pamphlets and whatever I could get, so that I could be in the UN, be one of its members, and invisible member, a volunteer. You cannot fire me because I am a volunteer. I will be here forever. I am the permanent member. You cannot sack a volunteer, you know? You cannot fire a member who volunteers to work forever. So here I am, you have a new member anyway. Welcome or not? (Someone in the audience answered, “Yes.”) Thank you.

Someone has suggested that we talk about war and peace, since it is the current theme of the world. I would like to be brief about war and be long on peace. You see, everyone of us knows about war, but we do not truly know what is the cause of it, and how we should eliminate it. It sounds like a novel, a fairy tale, but we can do it. We can eliminate it, because after a while people will be tired of war, whether they are the winners or the losers. Even those historic warriors, like Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Arjuna of India, they all finally got tired too. So why wouldn’t we, the modern warriors, not be tired and want to learn how to avoid these things? But if you want to avoid it, it’s not only our will be done, it is God’s will. We must act according to what God wants, and in order to know what God wants, we have to be prepared, prepared in our speech, in our body and mind, to listen to what God says and not to what we say. We always pray for peace, and we don’t know what God is trying to say to us about it, how to get peace. Therefore, we do not understand how to go about even though inside everyone knows, everyone likes to stop wars and to preserve peace in the world.

The UN is the first agency to worry a lot about war, and to put most of its efforts into regaining peace. It has always been doing this since its founding day. I doubt if the world would be as it is today without the UN. We still have war, some famines or refugee problems, but without the UN, I think it would be worse. You couldn’t do perfect work without the cooperation of many nations. So it is not entirely the fault of the UN if we still have wars, other political issues and unsolved issues at the moment, because some members of the world just refuse to cooperate. I know it’s very difficult for an organization like the UN to move the whole world when some of them just stay there stamping their feet like children and just don’t listen, just do their own thing and want their own way. For that, I am very sorry. The work of the UN is very, very tough, very difficult and delicate, and needs a lot of patience, diplomacy and strength. May God bless you with all these any time you need them.

The Perfect Example of a Great Saint – part 2

Many people asked me, “Why vegan?” Because the first commandment says, Thou shall not kill. Everything is made by God. We have no right to destroy it. God has not given us permission, which God never did. If we remember, in the Old Testament, God did not give us permission to kill animals. He only said, Rule over them. They will keep you company. And He said He made all kinds of food for each kind of animal. He also said, I made all the herbs in the field and the fruit on the trees, which are pleasant to look at and taste good. These are your food.

Never in the Bible have I found a sentence which says, animals are your food. Neither the New Testament nor the Old Testament say anything like that. God never says things like that. Moses probably allowed someone to kill animals because at that time they killed each other. So at last He said, stop, stop! Kill animals instead! Maybe it was like that. He could not tell them not to kill anything, so He minimized the killing. But all these are not God’s will but the people’s will. Therefore God destroyed the Earth, or at least some part of the Earth, many times, over and over again.

Now, if we look at the history of humankind, when God destroyed some part of the world or the whole world, we see that all the people in this part died. But not all people were killing other people. Some were even children. Some were sick or disabled persons. What had they done to incur God’s wrath? They didn’t kill anyone. If we assume that Thou shall not kill means killing people only, then how did all those old, sick or disabled persons and the children kill anyone? So, what is the reason? It must be because of the killing of animals, it must be because of the eating of meat!

I remember in the Bible God said, ‘Don’t kill the she-goat and he-buffalo to make an offering to me, because your hands are full of innocent blood. I will not forgive you. I will not listen to your prayers.’ So, it must be that we do not know God’s commandments completely. Therefore, God used these disasters to remind us and to try to shake us out of our ignorance. If we are very fond of these tastes, it will lead to other desires, we will commit more blunders and we will be more attached to this world. Therefore thou shall not kill is the first commandment.

Jesus left our world very young, because He wanted to set a good example, to remind us not to cling to this world as there are more permanent worlds in God’s Kingdom. Jesus did not refuse to die. He did not reject or protest, because He was sure of Heaven. He always said, My kingdom is in Heaven. Therefore, He set a perfect example for us so that we should not fear death, if we have faith in God. He said, In my Father’s house there are many mansions. Why should we cling to this world, which is full of misery and ephemeral, when our Father in Heaven has so many mansions and we could live with Him for eternity? Jesus’ death on the cross has so many wonderful meanings and lessons for us. If we think about it, probably we could come to more conclusions and have more ideas.

Jesus was young, very young. He could have had a beautiful lover. He could have enjoyed the world, at least after He became famous. So many people loved Him. But when He had to go, He just went. He neither was attached to fame nor to the love of the people of the world. So why should we, when we don’t have that much, when we are older then He, not as good-looking as He, not as wise as He, not as much beloved as He, and not as respected and sought after as He!

He had traveled all over the world for over ten years. He learned so many things. He had so much magical power that He could achieve anything He wanted, even turning water into wine. So, why should we labor all day long just for a little bit of fruit juice and not want to let go of this world?

So Jesus had to sit an example for us, through His silent sacrifice. That is why we remember Him. That is why until now people still shed tears for Him, including myself. Even recently, when I read how they treated Him. I was so hurt and suffered so much. Once I was alone in my room and I cried very loud. I kept calling His name and crying very loud. Of course I understand it is all God’s will, too. I understand His purpose. But because we have a human body and a human heart, sometimes we cannot help having these human emotions.

So the best thing we can do to show our gratitude to Jesus is to try to live according to Jesus’ teachings and to try to keep God’s commandments, because He said, If you love me, keep my commandments, and that is all He wanted. To keep the commandments is not good for God or for Jesus, but is good for us alone. God needs nothing from us. Jesus needs nothing from us. But God and Jesus know that if we keep the commandments, our world will become better and we will have more benefit, more peace and more happiness. Even during our short stay on Earth, He wanted us to enjoy bliss and comfort and to glorify ourselves, instead of suffering and being miserable most of our lives. But sometimes we cannot keep them because we feel God is so far away. We neglect God’s commandments, therefore we encounter disasters, we suffer, we cry, and then we pray to God.

So now God has to send a messenger down again, maybe with a different name, to remind us and to teach us the way to eternal happiness. Jesus also said, God will send comforters to us. That means the same spirit will descend in different bodies whenever humanity needs comfort and correction in the way of life.

If there is anyone who teaches the same ideas or gives us the same comfort as Jesus did, as stated in the Bible, then we should know that he is the comforter that God has sent to us. We may search for or choose anyone of them. There should not be many. One is enough. If you do not think there is such a messenger or comforter, then we must at least keep God’s commandments, think of God, and pray to God all the time. Otherwise the grace of Jesus will not descend on us, His sacrifice would have been a waste to us, and we have not gratitude to Him.

Now we say, “Jesus has come here and washed our sins, so what is the need to repent, to think of God, or to pray anymore?” But we must still do it. Knock, and it shall be opened. Ask, and it shall be given. We must knock. We must ask. Otherwise God would say, “Don’t bother to knock. Don’t bother to ask. I will give it to you anyway.”

But He did give us everything freely. He did in the Garden of Eden. But we humans did not appreciate it, so He sent us down here to learn through hardship. Now we have to learn fast and go back to the Garden of Eden. Now we must ask. We must knock. It is not given freely any more.

If we believe that Jesus had already washed everyone’s sins, then why are there so many Christians still suffering? There must be something lacking. Maybe we are not sincere enough, maybe we do not understand properly, or maybe we are not connected inside because we have not found the Kingdom of God within.

Jesus said, The Kingdom of God is within you. If we don’t find the way to find out where it is, then we cannot receive the grace of Jesus. It is just as if our father left a great treasure for us, but we don’t know where the key is. Then no matter how many times we say, “I have the treasure, I have the treasure, I have the treasure,” it is no use.

So if we can find it by ourselves, it is good; but if we cannot, we should ask. We should ask anyone who knows. Ask, until we find out the one who knows. We should knock on every door. Knock, until we find the right door, the door which opens the way to Heaven. Otherwise our life is so short, so ephemeral and always in danger. We have nothing to lean on.

The Perfect Example of a Great Saint – part 1

Costa Rica
December 24, 1990

This is a story that happened two thousand years ago, in the Bible. I just read a portion of it. “When Jesus was born, suddenly there was a blaze of light, so bright that people had to shield their eyes and out of the brightness came the voice of God’s messenger, and angel: “Don’t be afraid! I come with good news for you and for all the world. The savior has come! God’s promised king was born today in Bethlehem. You will find the baby asleep in the manger!”

“Then the shepherds saw a great crowd of angles all praising God: “Glory to God in Heaven! And peace for those who love Him on Earth!”

“When the angels had gone, the sky was dark again. The shepherds began to talk among themselves: “We have to go to Bethlehem and see what has happened. The savior was born to save the people of the world. Glory to God! Glory to Jesus! Glory to all His children! Amen.”

Now we remember two thousand years ago a great being was born among ourselves. He is so great that we have no words to praise Him. Only God knows His greatness. We mortals cannot understand. We can understand only when we become as great as He.

Now we often ask ourselves, “Why is it that Jesus had to die so quickly when He had just reached the peak of glory in His mission; that is, to spread the message of God?” If He had not left Earth in such a short time and in such a tragic way, probably, His name would have been forgotten by now. God sacrificed Him in this way so that the whole world would remember, so that we would treasure a messenger of God, by whichever name he came.

Since the ancient times, our world has always been in trouble. People always err and forget God. So God always has to send some messengers to remind us. But Jesus was one of the most remembered because of His greatness, also because of His very short stay with us, and the way He left us and was resurrected. Now we say, “The great Son of God, He had such a great Power and did so many miracles. Why didn’t He change His own destiny? Why did He have to die in such a tragic way?” But He had to do it, otherwise we would not be shocked out of our sleep. We would think the world is forever or the Master is forever.

There were also some other Masters before Jesus, but now people do not remember Them as much as we remember Jesus. When we remember Jesus, we will remember God and we will derive some blessing because Jesus was the Son of God. In other words, Jesus was God personified on Earth. He had to leave us very early. He had His purpose. He wanted to shock us out of our slumber.

Many thousands of years later, we are still shocked, if we remember this story, because of the ephemeral nature of our existence on Earth. Even the Son of God had to die! Everyone must go eventually. If even a man as great as Jesus cannot preserve this ephemeral body and also cannot be protected from the violence and ignorance of the people of this world, how could we feel safe? That is why He submitted Himself to the punishment which He did not deserve. He suffered for the sake of everyone!

If we say Jesus used his blood to wash away our sins, it is not exaggerating. It is the truth. Because every time we think of Jesus, we learn something. At least we remember the ephemeral nature of our world and our body, or at least we learn humility because such a great one had to suffer in such a way. He was so humble that He surrendered Himself to God and said, Whatever God wills must be done. Otherwise He could have escaped. We know He had a lot of magical power, including the power to be invisible, but He chose to obey God’s arrangement. So when we think of Him, we would say, “Who are we to be proud, to forget God’s will and not to surrender?” But these lessons are hard to learn. If all people would learn these lessons well, then Jesus’ sacrifice was worthwhile and we are worthy to be His followers and worshippers.

Everything is arranged by God for some purpose. Our effort is necessary so that we will know we don’t need any effort. All the guidelines, all the meditation hours I have prescribed to you, and all the effort that you put into it are necessary, so that finally you will learn to use no effort, no human effort, as Jesus did. He died on the cross just to give us a perfect example of surrendering. If we know this and learn this well, we are good Christians. Because during His great but short mission He always preached this lesson. The Bible also always emphasizes this, Seek you first the Kingdom of God, and all other things shall be added unto you. Worry you not for tomorrow. Take care of today only. Do not worry about what you will eat or what will clothe you. Look at the lily of the valley. If the Father takes care of the lily of the valley, how would He not take care of us? Are we not better than them?

But many people in His time did not hear His messages. Many people nowadays still do not hear His messages, even if they call themselves Christians. So every year we should celebrate Jesus’ birthday and try our best to remember to remind others how to surrender to God, and try ourselves to surrender to God, or at least try to remember God.

God is within us, but if we are too busy thinking of all other things and wanting all other things, then God has no chance to contact us or to put His message through, whether through silence in our heart or through a living messenger. I think Jesus sacrificed Himself just to let us know this lesson. Lay you not your treasure on Earth, where moths do corrupt and destroy; but lay your treasure in Heaven, because it is eternal.

How do we lay our treasure in Heaven? Should we build a safe and put money inside? No, in Heaven we do not need money. Everything is provided in plenty before we ask. So why did Jesus say that we should lay our treasure in Heaven? He meant we should build up our merits and love God.

How to love God? Keep His commandments, there are only ten. They are only a few and easy to keep especially when we compare them with so many temptations and difficulties in this world, or when we compare them with the amount of endurance we have to have in order to preserve a marriage, keep a job, or study.

We accept everything in this world for what purpose? Each one of us eats only about three meals and wears just a few clothes, but we work so hard to maintain everything. We keep all the rules of the factory if we want to keep the job or to please the boss. But what does the boss give us? Not much. God gives everything if we keep the commandments, but we just neglect them only because God is invisible to us.

God is so liberal. He will not come to us every day and say, “Hey, you didn’t keep the commandments, you…,” so we don’t fear Him as we fear our boss, our relatives, friends, wife, husband, etc. Sometimes, when we are married, we have a very difficult husband or wife and he or she gives us a lot of trouble, but we bear it because we love our spouse or we fear that person. But we do not fear God and do not keep His commandments.

Moving Toward God-Realization – part 5

We thought that the Buddha Nature is what we can understand with the intellect or touch with the hands or reasoning it out, what we can imagine. It’s not so. It’s not anything that we can imagine or touch or feel or reason. We just have to know it by the experience. The Buddha Nature is something effulgent with Light, and within this Light we know everything. Just like we use language to teach humans, and the animals, they use the animals’ language to communicate to each other. Buddha used Light and different vibrating frequencies to teach the Buddha in us. The Buddha in us cannot understand, does not want to understand, and does not need this physical language of ours. It’s not for Him. Just like the animals must not teach human beings what to do by their own babbling, or however beautiful singing. We don’t need it. We have different language of our own. We do our thing. Even though we might love the animals, we might like their singing songs, or their sound, welcoming sound to us. But they don’t need to teach us through that. We don’t need to learn animal understanding any more. OK?

So the same, the Buddha (Supreme Power) inside needs Buddha’s direct teaching, which manifests through Light and Vibration. That’s why the method, the “non-method,” is the Quan Yin. Quan Yin means observation of the vibration. The inner Vibration, it’s not the outer. It’s not that we can hear with the ears or we can see with the eyes. No. We can perceive it only; and once we perceive that, we know that it’s our real Nature and everything else comes automatically. That’s why in the Bible it says: Seek you first the Kingdom of God and all other things shall be added unto you. The Kingdom of God manifests in all Light, all Music, all beautiful melodies. That is as far as we can reach inside in order to understand something, and slowly to reach the Absolute.

The Light which manifests from the Most High in order to communicate with the lost souls in this world or different worlds, has different levels. Not that the Light alters, it’s just the cloud of different levels made it become a different kind of quality.  Just like sunlight when filtered through different eye glasses, looks different or descends into different places. We have to listen to the melodious teaching of God and then slowly we follow it and reach the top. And that is when we know the Buddha Nature, when we know what the Kingdom of God is. Otherwise we just speculate and think that we know.

We must know it. You must eat the cake before we say it is sweet or sour. And this kind of experience we can have immediately, because the Kingdom of God is within. Even it is within, but we do not know. Because the king would not come out of there is no other king to greet him or to talk to him. Understand? So the so-called Master is that one who has reached that level, and then can communicate with our highest level. Our highest Self would not come our otherwise. He knows he will waste his time.

Therefore we follow many paths and we do not feel satisfied. We know that there’s something missing. We know that the real Self has not revealed itself because of that. Because of the lack of the equal partner.  So whenever we see that our Self is revealed, then we know that we have met another Self. And that is the way to recognize a true Master of not. Otherwise we can’t know. Everyone can teach us so many hundred and one things, and busy ourselves all the time, but this is only to pass time. It’s not to reach self-enlightenment, not to know the highest way of our life. So in case that you believe what I say, you may try, and in case you do not, you may follow your path and be friends with me, until next time. Maybe hundred years to come, thousand years to come, because you still like to “sleep.”

There are two ways to realize ourselves. First is immediately, right now and finish with all learning and finish with all the suffering; if we think the world is suffering and too ignorant for us. If we think the way we lead our life is not satisfactory enough for our ideal, then we have to do it now in this life. The second way is just to go on the way

We are now and sleep. I mean sleep inside. The soul sleeps and maybe we’ll wake up another rime. That could be many hundreds of years or many thousands of years, depends on how long we like to sleep. Ok I think I’ll leave time for you to have questions, and then I will know what you want to ask and know how you understand. Thank you very much for you loving attention. I do feel your supporting energies. Thank you very much. (Applause)

 

Moving Toward God-Realization – part 4

We follow many paths, we have different benefits. There is no path that offers no benefit. There must be benefit of some kind. Otherwise how would people follow it? Even prayers without any guidance have benefit. Even going to the church or going to the temples, doing worship, going on pilgrimages have their emotional uplifting, and we feel some kind of happiness through it. Sometimes, most often, the sense of pride that we have done pious things, and that we are vegan, that we go to the church every day, that we go to Mecca, etc. And that strengthens our ego only, our pride only. That’s the sad thing.

But the soul is always there luckily, and the soul knows that it’s OK. Let the children play until they are tired and then they will go to the mother. That’s why the true Masters are never in a hurry or never try to hoard, collect, disciples. They’re just very natural, very spontaneous in their way, and whoever is ready comes. They have no anxiety that whole world does not follow their message, that many people attack them, that people do not live the way they should do! Because children live the way children do. But it’s OK. Just that they have to grow up one day. And once they grow up they have to behave the way adult people should behave.

So the so-called Masters or Buddha, since ancient times, they would come and present to the people many different levels of life or the enlightened ideas. And then people would choose. Those who are ready for it would choose. But not that the Master is in a hurry and very anxious or worried about the world. But not that he doesn’t do anything. He does but without doing. Like Lao Tzu said: Do without doing. And that’s different level from the intellectual level, who stick themselves in the jungle and mind no one’s business. The Master is in the world to help those who need help, but he is not in the world, he is not attracted to the world and not attached to the world, nor is he attached to his failure or success in this world.

You see what Jesus did. At the peak of His glory He was ready to die if it should be so. You understand. And by dying He teaches many people the way of surrendering. By not clinging to glory and life he teaches God’s will, that we should always follow God’s will. But in order to follow God’s will we must know where God is, and what God wants. And in order to know that, we must reach God-realization like Jesus did or Buddha did. Then we can surrender, but not otherwise.

Before that, we’ll always struggle with our own will, with our own so-called intelligence in order to change the world or to make the world a better place, etc. We do that with a sense of ego. After great enlightening we do but not do. And we do thousands and one, billions, trillions of things without lifting a finger. Can you imagine that kind of business? Doing a trillion things without lifting a finger? It happens. It’s not a joke. Even though I made it like a joke but it isn’t. It is a true state of real being, and every one of us has this capacity, has this right to exercise this Power. But we don’t know it. That’s all. We’re too busy, developing ourselves in scientific aspects, in literature fields, in mechanical, how you say, success, and we do not try to develop the all, complete Power. That’s why we don’t know how to exercise this. And that is the only reason.

And now many people would tell me, “But we do, we do, we do. We try hard to develop this all-encompassing Power.” Is that right? Yes. People would tell me, “Yes, we do that. Yeah, we go to the church, we go to the temple, we repeat hundred and one beads every day. We are vegan. We do this mantra thousand and one times. We repeat hundreds of mantras many years now. We even count it. We have a book for it. (Laughter) Yes. And worship such and such deities how many times a day, how many hundred prostrations a day. And we go to such and such pilgrimage centers. We do such and such worshiping acts and rituals and rites, and we meditate even. I feel I’m very virtuous. Yes. “

I did feel that way. But after a while I was tired. I thought it was not deep enough to satisfy my inner longing. So only after I practiced this so-called Quan Yin Method which is the method without method, is directly pointing into your own Nature then everything ceased to bother me. Everything else fell apart, and the Self stood revealed. And everyone knows that too.

Some of the people who follow other paths would tell me, “Yes, we know that, directly points to the mind, knowing you are the Buddha. That’s it, and you are enlightened”. But that’s only talking, repeating what the patriarchs have said many hundreds or thousands of years ago. We don’t know what directly pointing to the Buddha Nature (your real Nature) means. We don’t even know what it is.

 

 

Moving Toward God-Realization – part 2

Therefore when these so-called people, so called unenlightened people, or “have not realized their own greatness people” come and request the so-called Buddha to explain to them and to show them the way how to become Buddha, then that Buddha would do it. But without any sense of false pride or superiority at all. It might have a little sense of surprise in it, but no pride – Probably, “Why doesn’t she know it?” You know, “Why doesn’t she know that she is the Buddha.” On and off, will be always a sense of surprise during the preaching time of any Buddha or any Master.

When I say Buddha please understand also, and I think you understand, that I mean also Christ or any Messiahs or any Master living – true living high Master. I was very… much of the time in contact with Buddhist doctrines, before and even now. Also I read many other doctrines. But because when I was young I was always familiar with the Buddhist terminologies, therefore, sometimes I say Buddha or Buddhist doctrines. But please do not misunderstand that I stand for Buddhism alone and do not respect Christianity or any other great philosophy. I am for all. I respect all and I know all point to the same Truth. But we must know the Truth. That’s important. Not only to know the way, but we must know the Truth. Like once the Buddha said: I am the finger that points toward the moon, but the finger is not the moon. He meant that His doctrines, His philosophy is just to awaken in us a sense of longing for the moon, for the Truth. But we must not cling to that philosophy alone and forget to find the Truth. So the Truth which we have inside us, that is God Nature or the Kingdom of God or Buddha Nature, we have it already. We must uncover it. There is a technique to do it immediately, and continue to do it daily until we recover the whole Kingdom of God for ourselves.

The way most of the people live their life now is not yet complete and is not very ideal for our happiness and for our wisdom. There are many levels to live our life. The first level is the physical level where most or many of the people spend their life. In the physical level we mostly love sensual pleasures, love to sleep, love to eat, eat well, love to have all kinds of physical happiness, and we tend toward laziness too. We just work because we need to earn a living. But we do not put our ideal, our heart into our work. I’m just talking about different levels. Please don’t be offended. So that is the physical level. And we find that it’s difficult to work. We don’t like working that much. As far as it doesn’t concern our welfare, it’s difficult for us to lift our finger to work for others or to do anything that is more beneficial to the mass of humankind. I’m just talking a general view, but if we go into details it’ll take a longer time.

So now the second level is what we call the emotional level. In the emotional level we are very strong in our opinion. We can say we are domineering or authoritative. What we think is right. What we do is correct. And we expect even others to do the same. There is this level are born many dictators and great so-called leaders in the extremist movement. Because they are too emotional, they live their life in the emotional level.  It is good if they follow the right way. But when it is the wrong way they also do not try to correct it and they will not admit their errors. And that is the danger, because there is no flexibility.

Another level where we can live our life is that we live our life in the intellect, in the mind, the physical mind. Well the mind, I am sorry, it’s normally physical. It’s kind of computer, very excellent computer. Records everything and puts our all the data, very faithfully without any intelligence and judgment. If we do not put the soul’s intelligence into it then the mind is an automatic machine. I’m talking about this automatic machine, the unenlightened mind. So when people live in this kind of automatic level of the mind they become even more engrossed in themselves. Is that right? And they would not care much about what’s going on in the world. They would not even dictate others what to do.

So many people reach this level and they probably hide themselves in a cave or bury themselves into any kind of ideal, and they stick in there. They get stuck. And they would not care what happens to the world. And they would not even want to change the world or to change themselves. They thing they are perfect the way they are. And many mistake this for the highest enlightenment itself. They thing there is nothing to do in the world. But the way of doing without doing is in a different level. It’s not that. It’s not that we don’t care for the world and we do nothing for the world. It is not so the great enlightenment. It’s just one of the levels of the progress to enlightenment, to the great enlightenment. Enlightenment we have anyhow, different degrees each day. As we struggle towards the Truth we experience different enlightenments each day, and we broaden our wisdom until one day we reach the highest level. So that is one of the levels.

Now if we reach a little bit higher level we live in so-called the soul, the Self level, the Self-realization level. We know than that we are soul, that we live because of the soul, that we are intelligent because of the soul’s Light, that we have compassion and feeling, etc… because of the soul’s motivation behind it. And in this level we know many things and we try many ways to benefit the world, to help the world and to help ourselves to live in bliss, happiness and anything that we want to define as a noble goal of humankind. And we try hard. We still try with effort and all our might to achieve this, and to help others to achieve the same. This is the soul’s level, the Self-realized man.

Because at that time we identify ourselves with the soul, we know that we and the soul, the source of inspiration, are the same, we are not the body. But still that is not the highest level, because at that time we still have the ego that identifies, that know it is great, that knows that, I and my Father are one. There are two, still too crowded, too crowded. (Master & everyone laugh) Even though you say, I and my Father are one, but because there are still “I” and “my Father,” therefore not yet one. Yeah, you see, that’s the paradox of things. So now, don’t say I criticize Jesus; it’s not true. He only said that in order to make people understand. But He was not that, you understand? He knew that He was different. Therefore in another place, he said, Not I but the Father does. You understand what I mean? He knows. He know better than, I and my Father are one, but He must say something. Otherwise people would not get what He wanted to say.

Moving Toward God-Realization – part 1

March 9, 1991
Boulder, Colorado, USA

Well, I’m glad to have seen such beautiful Americans today. Yeah! I’m also amazed. I was informed outside that “Oh! The room is packed and the people here are beautiful,” and I think he was right. I think I’ve heard a lot about Colorado, Boulder, as a very spiritual place, and has a very nice energy here. I heard it many years ago when I read some spiritual magazines from Boulder, Colorado; and I was actually invited, off and on for two years now to Colorado, first to Denver and then to Boulder. Boulder you called it here, yeah? And I put it off many times, but this time because I’m going through the United States so I thought I might just drop in to say hello.

How is everyone? (Audience: Great) Great. I’m glad that you took time to come here, that we have a chance to see each other once in many, probably centuries, or many lifetimes. Never know when we’ll have this chance again. Or we might be in another different physical body. It might not look so beautiful like we are now. So, you should appreciate your beauty here.

I know that many of you have been on the spiritual path, probably so-called different paths or different approaches to God-consciousness or to Buddha Nature or to Zen or Tao. Is it OK now? Everyone OK? Thank you. My voice is very low except when I… when I roar, you know, like every woman does. (Master & everyone laugh) Well I have to fulfill my duty sometimes, in a woman’s shape. Yeah! I have to be feminine. (Master & everyone laugh) You know. Otherwise people think only men can become Buddha (fully enlightened being). (Master & everyone laugh and applause) Well, the good news is women also can become Buddha, because we are neither man nor woman. Everyone is a Buddha, undeveloped Buddha. Just like every country is a country. There are undeveloped countries, there are civilized nations. Yeah!

So we can be also developed by following certain techniques, certain ways of life, certain ways of orienting our daily life. The way that most of the people lead their life is not very well oriented. I don’t mean you. Maybe you are well oriented. Please just listen to the general guideline. See, there are many levels we can live our life, and everyone knows the highest level is to live our life in God-consciousness, or when we are truly in touch or are aware of our Buddha Nature (our true Nature).

Many people try to approach this God-consciousness or Buddha Nature through different contemplating techniques. Mm. Contemplating on meditation is the best way that we can realize our true great Nature. But even in meditation there are many techniques. And even if you find the right technique or the fastest or the quickest technique there are, of course, many levels too. Now we are supposed to talk about the highest technique.

If we meditate in the right way we will immediately…, or if we have found the right way to approach our inner Nature we will immediately find some kind of enlightening aspect, immediately some proof of our real great Self, so that we know immediately that we are not only the physical body, we are something else. We just feel so elevated and so… not really excited but … the language is very limited in its own power to express the divine ecstasy that we might feel when we happen to fall into a right path or the right environment of God-consciousness. So that’s why we could call that immediate enlightenment.

And now if we follow that path or that kind of approach to God daily then we improve each day. And we are more sure and sure of our liberation, more sure and sure of our own greatness. Then until one day we can say to ourselves, “Ah! I and my Father are one,” or “I am that” or “I am the Buddha.” But even then there is no sense of being proud, no pride involved. It’s just a simple fact that we just discovered a truly enlightened state of being, that we just know what we are that we haven’t known before. That is all. When we’ve found something that is our self we can’t be proud. We can just be happy that we’ve found it. It’s very simple.

So many people sometimes mistake that it’s only in someone who might proclaim or be proclaimed Buddha. Normally the Buddha himself  wouldn’t say that I am a Buddha (a fully enlightened being) except in a very special case when the disciples ask or need affirmation. Mostly they are proclaimed by followers that they are the Christ or the Buddha or the Master. And then many people would misunderstand and would think, “That so-called master or Buddha is very proud or wants to claim victory, claim honor for himself or herself.” But it is not true. It’s just like after you’ve graduated and you got a Ph.D. and you say, “I’ve just become a medical doctor or I’ve just passed the examinations… and got a Ph.D.” That’s all. Well we are happy that we have accomplished the goal that we’ve been working for after long, long years.

So after we’ve become Buddha (a fully enlightened being), we would not feel that there is anything great about being a Buddha. We just feel very happy, very happy, very contented; and we just feel that it’s natural, it’s the way it should be. Yes. And the one who has become Buddha doesn’t feel like immediately going out and proclaiming this news to people. Not that he has lost his sense of compassion or that he is selfish, but they look upon the Buddha, look upon all beings as Buddha. And so the Buddha would have probably felt very surprised that someone didn’t know about this. But gradually the Buddha regains the sense of reality… means of this world, and knows for sure that there are many who have not realized that they are the Buddha. And that is the truth.

Questions & Answers After Lectures (32-35)

Q32 :What kind of light and sound can I hear when I reach the fifth level? I mean what symbol will let me know if I come to the fifth level of meditation?

M: That I tell you at the time of initiation. Because I cannot just tell you like that at random. I don’t know what kind of meditation you do. If you want to elaborate further, maybe it’s better. The fifth level is meant for the initiated people only, not for other disciples. They couldn’t even reach the first.

Q33: Dear  Master, I’m married, but I sometimes have dreams of being with other beautiful girls. How do I prevent these dreams? Am I creating heavy karma? Please tell me.

M:It’s alright! Just enjoy your dreams okay?! (Laughter.) Just don’t do it in the reality. Otherwise, your wife will not let you enjoy it. And keep it a secret. What can we do with dreams? Right? Forgive yourself. It’s okay!

Q34 :When does the soul enter the body? Is it before our birth or after our birth? How can it happen if we are born as a twin?

M: No, because you like to stick together, I guess, huh! You have affinity with each other. And you want to go out at the same time to have companion. No problem about twins, yeah. We are twins ourselves. We have both feminine and masculine aspects inside. And we, if we reunite that, we’re happy. Forget about the physical aspect.

Q 35:Dear Master, please let us know more about energy, the relationship between energy, peace and love. The only thing we know from science is that energy cannot be destroyed or created. Energy can be transformed from one kind to another kind. Some say God is energy, God is love. What do you think?

M:I think these are only sayings. Before you experience that, all sayings are empty. I do not like to be a living dictionary but an example of the true knowledge. When you are enlightened, you understand this energy and all the metaphysical questions.

Energy is many kinds, negative and positive. When we are enlightened, we balance both and make use of them for the purposes in life and in the right time, the right situation.

I told you already. If we are enlightened, the world will be at peace. No need to change anything. Of course, that is peaceful energy that we radiate after enlightenment.

To Love God Is To Keep His Commandments – part 5

In this modern world of ours, we are very fortunate. Whatever faith we choose, whatever name of God we worship, and whatever doctrines we follow are respected and supported by the laws of many nations. It’s not like at the time of Jesus. He was alone and helpless against the multitude of ignorant people, the very cunning, very cruel priesthood, and no law was there to protect Him.

So if we choose to become Godly or Christ-like now, it is very appropriate. I think we should not lose our opportunity. Who knows what the world will be like next year, or next century, and what kind of fate awaits our children then? So we should build up a good foundation for our later generations, for our children, grand children, and grand grand children. I think all good parents desire a good future for their children. Therefore they work very hard and sacrifice all their strength, youth and wisdom in order to provide a comfortable life for their children. But apart from leaving them education and money, I think we should also leave them a peaceful and harmonious world to live in.

Therefore, do not think that I preach the Buddhist doctrine or Christianity, or I try to convert you into my order of religion. No, I just try to contribute a peaceful atmosphere for the future generations and the present generation alike. I never preach the exclusiveness of Buddhism, of Christianity, of Hinduism or any “ism,” as I see the goodness in all of them. Since I also see that most people do not follow their religious faith in detail, and as one of the citizens of this world I have the duty to remind people of the adherence to their doctrines and of being good to their neighbors and loving their enemies. I must remind people of the Law of God and the eternal principle to lessen the suffering of the present generation and bring a harmonious atmosphere to the future.

The eternal principle is that we are from God, the only One Loving and Almighty God, and that we are all brothers and sisters. It doesn’t matter what faith we believe in, we should love each other, respect each other, and help each other in whatever capacity we can, and do not forget to remember God every day because the more we remember Him, the more our lives will become peaceful and smooth. To remember Him also means to keep the commandments: If you love me, keep my commandments.

That’s why I also emphasize that people should follow a vegan diet; it’s the most peaceful, the most loving way of sustaining our lives without sacrificing the lives of others. I know it sounds very new to you, but it isn’t new, because it is said in the Bible. The Old Testament states that God made all the herbs and the fruit trees in the fields and those shall be our food. It says, God makes the animals to be human’s helpers and friends. That means we should rule over them, but should not kill them because the first commandment is: Thou shalt not kill. Everything has life, and when we take it away, it means killing. If we subsist on the meat diet, then other people will continue to kill for our appetite. It means that indirectly we support killing.

I know it may be difficult for you to accept this, and you might oppose my opinion, but it is not my opinion, it is not my law. It is the Law of God and He has stated it very clearly in the Bible as well as in the Buddhist doctrine, in the Hindu doctrine and even in the Muslim doctrine. But most Buddhist people do not care about this Law, and neither do most Christian people or Muslim people. We read the Bible every day, but we do not notice where we should read. The people in authority, like the priests or the monks, do not make a lot of effort to enlighten us in this manner.

Sometimes it’s difficult for me to say such things. I am aware of arousing some displeasure from people. But someone has to say the truth, someone has to be courageous and not always bowing to authority and ignorance. Didn’t God command us to be perfect, as He in Heaven is perfect? God in Heaven is perfect in the sense that He is wise, compassionate, ever-loving and ever-creative. So, if we want to be nearly as perfect as He is, we should seek wisdom and forsake ignorance; we should seek it from the wise, from the holy, and we should be loving, compassionate and creative, not destructive.

That’s why God gives us the right to create things and the right to create children. We create children and so many beautiful things on this planet. God gives us the right to the creative plan in His design. We are the co-workers of God. But we have not yet achieved the wisdom of God, so we should respect His plan and His design because He is the Supreme Boss. He knows what to retain, what to take away, what to repair, and what to destroy. Even if He destroys something, He makes it again; but when we destroy anything, we cannot make it again. That is the problem, because we are not wise enough and not powerful enough. Should we one day reach God-realization, then maybe we can talk about destroying and creating at our own hands.

Therefore, we respect all lives in the creative plan of God. We can see by ourselves that all lives resist suffering and resist death. Therefore, when we kill or see animals being killed, they are suffering and they try to run away. That means God empowered them with the instinct of wanting to live. If we interfere and force their lives away, we interfere with God’s will. We should treat every being in the same way, as we ourselves like to be treated, then our lives will be blessed with grace, with longevity and with wisdom. As you sow, so shall you reap. Then we will never blame God for any misfortune, because we have less misfortune. The more we cultivate, the better we become, in speech, in body and in mind.

This I know from my self-experiences and from the experiences of my so-called students or fellow practitioners, because we are in contact with God daily. After the process of initiation, we have connection with God again and we remember God every day. Every day we are aware that God remembers us. God and we have the same instinct, the same goal and the same direction. That’s how we solve our problems, that’s how we contribute to peace on Earth, and that’s how we abide by the Law of God.

Thank you for your attention.

To Love God Is To Keep His Commandments – part 3

So God, the Father, the Supreme, the most compassionate, the most loving, the Almighty, could not possibly have such a defying nature and would never make war against His children or sometimes kill His children in thousands just for some small mistakes. That cannot be the true God. These are only the imagination, the characteristics of human. We should go back to the true God. The true God is all loving, all wise and all forgiving. This is the God that Jesus wanted to present to His people, and this is the God that I also want to remind you of. The true God resides within us and there is no other God besides Him.

How to find this God? By reverting to the principles – that is, all loving, all forgiving, all compassion, and all wisdom – by repenting our previous misdeeds committed through ignorance, and by resolving not to commit them again. With such a true repentance the Light of God will sprout forth again, and all our past sins will be forgiven. That is the true baptism; not by water but by the Holy Spirit, by the Light of wisdom and logic. That’s why nowadays when we are baptized by water, we don’t see any Light from God and we do not feel free of our sins and suffering; because the principle is not imposed upon us, wisdom is not opened for us, and deep repentance is not evoked within our souls.

At the time of the true baptism, or what we call initiation, you will see the Light of God, you will hear the Word which was God, which is mentioned in the Bible: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So the true baptism should bring us in contact with this Word or with God. That’s the difference between the true baptism and ordinary baptism. We may use water or we may not use water; it makes no difference. What is important is the impression that the baptism evokes within ourselves.

Therefore when John the Baptist baptized people and when Jesus preached, people derived more benefit than when all other priests did the same. It is because John the Baptist had inspiration, sincerity and devotion to God. And when Jesus preached His doctrine, it was inspired by His own deep conviction, His own enlightenment and His own love for God – a very pure love and pure wisdom, which was different from the ordinary priests of His time.

Jesus’ love and wisdom will not be contaminated by any worldly gain or any desire for worldly fame and power. His life was simple and true, true to every word that He preached. He did not preach because He wanted to be famous or He wanted people to respect Him, but He preached because of His love for God, His true love for humankind and the true desire that He wanted to bring the true Light to people in order to eliminate their suffering.

Once we understand why we suffer, we can change it. It is only when we do not understand, then we continue. Similarly when the doctor diagnoses the condition and knows where the sickness is, he can cure it; but the most important thing is that the patient himself should know how to live his life in order to stay healthy for a long time. In order to stay healthy in body, we should know some hygienic rules, we should know what food to eat and what exercises to do so that we can prevent most diseases. In order to stay healthy in spirit, we should know what the Law of God, the Low of Nature is, so that we can stay healthy in wisdom and become “God-like,” because God made human in His own image. The Bible tells us: Be you perfect as your Father in Heaven is perfect.

If most people had followed this advice from the Bible, the world would have become Heaven long ago. But most people do not follow and do not respect the Law of God. Therefore we incur much suffering for ourselves within any nations. The most important and the first law of God is: Thou shalt not kill, and that we even misunderstand. We couldn’t even keep the first commandant. In the Bible it is written that the priests at Thanksgiving killed many lambs, sheep, goats and good ducks to make an offering to God, and that this was even done at the site of the holy temple, making God’s abode become a slaughterhouse! So God protested. He said: Who told you to dill all the sheep and goats to make an offering to me? You should wash yourself of this innocent blood, and don’t commit this sin again. You should repent of your sin!

Can you imagine a beautiful temple with great and magnificent pillars, with shining roof, with large rooms, spaces, coral yards and splendid structure? It should be a place for gathering for wisdom, and for worshiping the most High; but at that time, the temple became a slaughterhouse and all the priests smelt blood and smoke from roasted meat. I don’t think intelligent people would say that it’s very holy. Moses laid down the law, Thou shalt not kill that which is from God. But even then they broke it.

So we cannot blame God for the miseries that the world has to suffer from time to time. If God, who is worthy of our reverence and love, has to depend on roast beef, roast lamb and roast sheep for survival, if He has to live from our sweat labor and earnings, from some people who are too poor to even afford meat themselves, then we can imagine what kind of grace, what kind of blessing that He, as such a dependent God, could give us? Even ordinary people wouldn’t do that, so how would a God do that?

Many good-hearted people often help others from very pure, unconditional love and don’t expect anything in return. How can we imagine a God who always demands gold, silver and roast beef, and doesn’t even give anything in return? If He demanded beef before He  gave any favor, this must be the trickery which came from the priesthood, not from God.  Even if God truly wanted it so, after we gave Him all the beef, chickens and whatever,  He should have, but still didn’t return the favor. He could have said, “OK, it’s fair enough.” But He didn’t. He didn’t even return anything at all. Oh, that God! The proof that He didn’t return anything is that, those people who made offerings are still suffering from sickness, from misery, from sorrow and from everything else, like any other mortals. Even the priests in the temple also have to suffer like anyone else.

Therefore, some people made a fool of God. That’s unfair to Him. The question lays in our own misunderstanding; not that God has an unmerciful and greedy nature. God has laid down the Law that we have to obey, not for God’s sake, but for our own sake. In English we always say, “For God’s sake you have to do this, for God’s sake you have to do that.” But now I say, “For our sake we should do that, for your sake you should do this.” We should correct that saying. I don’t know if in your country you also say “For God’s sake,” You do this, too?! Oh, I am sorry, but I have to speak the truth.