Master Says

 

Many people ask me, "Why do we have to find a living Enlightened Master to transmit God power to our world? We have heard that God power is omnipresent. Can't we just pray and ask Hirm to bless us? Why do we need a living Master?" I wish that it could be so, that God's power could bless us directly, and help us become enlightened, attain sainthood, enter the heavenly kingdom, attain the Truth, and reach the blissful dimension that we seek. But the Creator did not arrange it this way. Let us take a look at this world. If we want to have children, we must first get married. God does not "hoola-hoop" to create a baby and drop him or her down from Heaven right before us! If we want rice and vegetables, we must sow the seeds and have a farmer nurture them in order to reap a good and plentiful harvest. We do not know who established this law of Creation, but without it, our world would be in chaos. Everyone would be praying for anything and everything they wanted. Our ordinary human minds are ignorant. We often pray for the wrong things and turn the world upside down. On second thought, this law may not be so bad, after all.

Earthworms, for example, turn acidic, coarse, and sterile soil into fertile, arable land. Why doesn't the Creator do the job? We don't know. The fact is, thanks to the earthworms, we have good soil for farming. Earthworms serve some function, as do humans. For example, a husband and wife together can produce children, which cannot be accomplished by reciting mantras or through miraculous work by the Creator. It is said that "all sentient beings have a Divine Nature," but we don't know how this comes about. We also know that Jesus Christ once said, "We are all God's children!" But we don't understand how this is so. Being God's children means that we have the innate ability to create. Without us, there can be no humans or children. Even the Savior had to be born through human beings in order to come to this world. Don't you think that humans are great? All sentient beings have an innate yearning for life, and this nature is the power of Creation, the merciful love of God. Hes desires that all sentient beings should live and spread all over our planet.

We are the children of God, yet we cannot communicate with Hirm directly. This is very difficult for us to accept, but such is the law of Creation. For example, although we know that our children are the children of God, they still have to be born through us. We can grow many species of flowers, fruits, and trees on the same soil, but each plant absorbs the nutrients it needs and yields different flowers or fruits. Likewise, although we are all born from God, we all look different. Each person is like an individual flower, fruit, or tree absorbing different nutrients. These nutrients are karma in Buddhist terminology. What exactly is karma? Everything we do in this life or all that we did in our previous lives will transform into a magnetic field and attract similar qualities to our body, making us what we are.

It is said that one can become an Enlightened Master through many lifetimes of spiritual practice. The Buddhist scriptures say that sainthood can be attained after trillions of years of practice. Perhaps this is because we need to acquire many qualities and functions before we become perfect and fully equipped. This is very true. However, this truth seems to contradict my theme "Immediate Enlightenment and Liberation in One Lifetime"! [Laughter] It is true that it takes trillions of years to attain ultimate enlightenment, but then, why do I say "Immediate Enlightenment and Liberation in One Lifetime?" It is because we attain immediate enlightenment when our time comes. Those who have already practiced spiritually for eons become enlightened immediately! Otherwise, how would they know that countless eons have passed?

For many lifetimes, we have had many Enlightened Masters, including Jesus Christ, Shakyamuni Buddha, Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu, Confucius, and Mencius, yet the world is still full of people. This means that not many people have been liberated. Very few people have! All the while, we have been transmigrating within the "six paths," as the Buddhists call them. What are the six paths? After we've been angels, we fall from Heaven when our time comes to become beasts or hungry ghosts, or to go to hell, etc. We can never transcend the six paths of transmigration until we have attained the highest level of consciousness. The six paths of transmigration lie within the three realms. What are the so-called three realms? In addition to our world, there are three other worlds to which we can ascend or descend. But it is very difficult to even go and take a look at these three worlds. To do so, we must pursue spiritual practice.

Different Methods are Like Different Vehicles

We can reach the second realm by practicing Zen, by asking questions like "Who am I?" "Who are you?" and "Who is chanting holy names?" and by deliberating over Zen enigmas. By practicing yoga, we can also attain the first or second realm, or at the most, the third realm. But that's as far as we can go. We need a more powerful method to go beyond that, and that is the Quan Yin Method, which brings immediate enlightenment. If we want to go to Kaohsiung in southern Formosa, we can go by motorbike or car. To go to the offshore islands of Penghu, we have to go by boat. For distant places like the United States, flying by plane is faster. Therefore, if we want to transcend the three realms, we need some means that can help us to go beyond these realms. We cannot make it by asking questions in worldly language. No matter how efficient our worldly language is, it remains, nonetheless, a language of this world. No matter how fast a car can run, it is a vehicle for the road only; it cannot cross the sea or traverse space.

Similarly, there are many methods of spiritual practice. I introduced some methods to you for practicing at home because I needed to comfort some people who were with us yesterday. There are many other methods, but I could never teach them all to you, even if I wanted to.

I can offer you any method you want, but some are more dangerous while others are safer. The methods that I taught you yesterday are the safest ones. They are safe for those who are not in contact with me. It's better not to practice other methods if you cannot be by my side every day! Otherwise, you may develop mental, physical, or other problems after some time. That is why I don't teach you.

Many Indians are still practicing very complicated methods today because they happen to meet such masters. Perhaps they have a more complicated fate, but that is what they practice. For instance, they may take a clean, soft, narrow strip of cloth about five meters long and roll it up. With the help of a little water, they swallow the cloth, leaving one end outside. Then, they do some abdominal exercises to clean their stomach and intestines before slowly pulling out the cloth. There are many more weird methods that I dare not speak about here because they don't sound very good. For example, they practice on the male and female organs, about which I dare not elaborate for fear that it might send many old ladies rushing home! [Master and everyone laugh] Sometimes they insert a cloth inside the nose and then slowly pull it out. This cleans the nose thoroughly, and they regard it as cleansing their karma. However, I don't think that karma can be cleansed away with cloth. It can only be cleansed thoroughly through merit, virtue, benevolence, and the power derived from spiritual practice. Since karma is intangible and created by the mind, it is only right that we cleanse it also from the mind.

In India today, many people are still practicing in seclusion high in the Himalayas. There are some places in very high altitudes that are extremely cold where humans have never set foot. These people come down only once a month or rely on food brought by other people. They practice seriously and never leave the mountains. To reach these places, they must travel on foot or by levitation. They walk as though they are flying. No one can catch up with them. They cannot bring any luggage. Therefore, they must first practice the trantric warming method to transfer the heat from the solar plexus to other parts of the body. It will keep them warm and they won't have to wear any clothes. Or they may cover themselves with a flimsy piece of cloth and walk all the way up. Since it is a very long journey, they cannot bring many things. There are no motorcycles in the snow-covered mountains. One misstep and they will end up at the bottom of the deep Ganges valley. It won't be necessary to recite the Death Mantra because they will be reduced to dust before they have uttered a single word. They have to practice many different methods in order to survive in those places.

Milarepa, a well-known master of an esoteric sect in Tibet, used to practice many methods so that he could survive in the Himalayas. He practiced levitation so that he could fly. He also practiced the trantric warming method so that he could warm his whole body with abdominal heat. He wore no clothes. When an occasional avalanche cut off the roads, he would starve for three to four months since there were no passersby to offer him food. In ancient times, traffic was inconvenient and life was very simple; therefore, people practiced many of these kinds of methods. We can also practice these methods today, but most modern people are physically weak and mentally exhausted. They do not have the patience to walk that toilsome journey and practice so many complicated methods. Very few people can withstand the Himalayan climate. When I was in the Himalayas, it was very difficult to cook any food. It took a long time for food to get cooked when the air pressure was so low. The food remained cold, however long I cooked it. I stared at it and it stared back at me; it simply would not boil. So, I just ate it raw after washing it in the Ganges. That tasted nice, too. Despite the bitter cold, wild vegetables manage to grow in the Himalayas. I was very surprised. Wild vegetables are edible, but don't eat too much, or you will look like them - greenish and hairy. [Master laughs] That was why Milarepa's body was covered with greenish hair when he lived in the Himalayas. When people saw him, they asked, "Are you a bardoba?" Bardoba is the Tibetan word for "ghost". [Master and everyone laugh] He answered, "No! I am a human!" Then people asked, "If you are a human, why do you look like this? Why do you have green hair all over your body?" Yes! We will become whatever we eat.

This is what happens to our physical body. Mentally, our thoughts make us what we are. We have all heard of this before. But then, why can't we attain the Truth just by thinking that we have achieved it? Wouldn't that be simpler? You can go home and try thinking every day, "I have attained the Truth. I have attained the Truth. I have attained the Truth...." Will you succeed? You don't have to recite this! It is futile. If we do not have an Enlightened Master, recitation is futile. Lots of people recite the name of Amitabha Buddha constantly, but they never become Amitabha Buddha. However, if we meet a Master who has attained the Truth and He/She tells us how to do so, then it is useful.

Why Can't We Contact God Power Directly?

Why is that so strange? Just now, I said that many people ask me, "Why must we have an Enlightened Master in order to get the lineage of the Method? Why can't the God Power transmit it directly to us? Since the Goddess of Mercy is omnipresent and responds to all prayers, why doesn't She just appear to us instead of doing so through an ordinary human form?" Here is the answer. It is true that the Goddess of Mercy is omnipresent, but we can never behold Her. We cannot see Her even if She is right before our eyes because our thoughts and vibrations are too coarse and totally different from Hers. For beings who have reached ultimate enlightenment, the vibrations of Their bodies are so subtle that they seem invisible to us.

In the book, "Autobiography of a Yogi", Paramahansa Yogananda, a famous Indian yogi that practiced very well, mentioned his grand master Babaji, an immortal who has lived for over a thousand years! He has been living in the Himalayas for a very long time! One day, his millennium-old grand master came to visit his master. Very excited, his master quickly went inside to prepare tea. When he came out again, Babaji was nowhere to be found! Why? Because he had hidden in the sunlight! I have told you this story before. How can we hide in the sunlight? Can you imagine a person hiding in the sunlight and making himself invisible to others? This is a fact that only spiritual practitioners can understand. One of our fellow practitioners just now reported that I sometimes disappear. "Where could I have gone? The physical body has its weight; how could She run away so fast? How could She disappear into nowhere? She has hidden Herself in the light, so people cannot find Her!"

Some bodies are very subtle, and we cannot see them unless our heavenly eye has been opened. We lose sight of them when our ordinary human mind stirs. When we meditate with the Quan Yin Method, sometimes we see the dimension of God. Suddenly, we become overjoyed and God disappears. Is God afraid of us? No! God vanishes because our mind is no longer its usual self. Later, when we have practiced and reached a superior level, instead of seeing fully enlightened beings, we ourselves will become fully enlightened beings. This is a very high level that very few people can attain. Apart from Quan Yin Method practitioners, I dare to say that no one will ever reach this level! [Applause] And not every practitioner of the Quan Yin Method can attain it. Yesterday, we talked about master Chinshan, who had an exceptional and incredible healing ability. Do you know how he healed people? He used body dirt, bathing water, sputum, nasal secretions, ear wax, etc. Do you want to take that medication? [Laughter]

Even when Enlightened Masters do come to us, it is difficult for us to get any blessings because we have a discriminating heart. Even when they have manifested into a physical body, we still have difficulty believing in them, not to mention when they are intangible and invisible. Most of us cannot recite the Holy Names with undivided concentration because we do not believe in the past or future masters whom we cannot see. This is the problem! We do want to believe in them, but we cannot do that easily because we cannot see them.

One day, master Chinshan was asked to heal a lay person, the wife of a high officer. As soon as he entered the house, he embraced and kissed the woman, and spat sputum into her mouth. The woman fled. She had never met such a master before. And, of course, her angry husband took her away immediately. When another woman heard about the incident, she lamented, "What a great pity! You don't know how he heals people. Anything from his body is miraculous medicine." Even if that is true, we cannot blame most people, because it is impossible for ordinary folks to swallow that. If it were me, I definitely would not have accepted it! [Laughter] My apologies to master Chinshan. [Master and everyone laugh] I am just being honest!

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