The
Supreme Master Ching Hai -- Ocean of Love Tour
Experience the Divine
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Lighting
Our God Nature Within
The
light passed from the Buddha has never gone out. All we have to do is
find where the candle was last lit and then our candle will also be
lit. The light is the essence of our being; it's our own God Nature.
Everything that is noble, holy and powerful is the God Nature. That's
why we call it "enlightenment". Different religions identify
the God Nature with different names. Sri Lankans call an enlightened
person "Buddha"; in Hebrew, this person is called "Christ".
Sri Lankans also call a teacher "Guru", while English speakers
call him or her "Teacher". Sometimes because of the limitations
of human language, we misunderstand each other and have religious disputes.
No
matter where a Master is born, he or she is a "lit" candle,
the light keeper for the next to come. Whoever comes to that person
can be lit with this already-lit candle. The Universal Light never dies
but must be upheld in different places: India, Sri Lanka, Germany, Jerusalem,
and so on. It has to circulate so that the whole world will be awakened;
it cannot be kept in one country or temple because the whole world has
to know the light. Like water or rain, the light has to be in different
places at different times to bless all the beings on this planet. So
it doesn't matter where it is kept, if we want our own light to be lit,
we should go to the Light-keeper.
All
of us want to know what the God Nature is; everyone wants to know where
God is. God is within us. Buddha and God reside in this temple (Master
points to Her body). We have nothing inside but Buddha and God, and
we are nothing but the children of God.
The one thing that separates us from our God Nature is
the ego, also known as the mind. The mind is like a machine or computer,
which records and then broadcasts the same thing out again. But the
mind can only record and understand worldly information. It cannot comprehend
the God Nature. In order to find our Selves, we have to bypass the mind
-- go through it but not dwell in it. If we try to use the mind to find
our Selves, we will only end up with worldly knowledge, customs, and
habits. Even if we read the Buddhist Sutras and the Bible, we will not
always understand what is written in these books. What is written by
an Enlightened Master can only be understood by another Enlightened
Master, by truly understanding, not guessing. Therefore, in order to
understand the Master's teachings, we must try to become a Master.
From
God Nature to God Nature in Silence
Master
said that all of Her talk is actually boring theory, and that She prefers
not to speak so much and would like, instead, to show the audience how
to find their own God Nature. She said that it is simple because we
already have God Nature. The problem is that we keep listening to the
mind and forget to look for it. The moment we forget the mind, our worldly
burdens and preconceived ideas, then we can find our God Nature.
Master
further explained, "When I show you how, it is not by talking to
you that you know; it is by showing in silence, from God Nature to God
Nature. At that instant, if you really concentrate well, you will see
the God Nature right away, which is the Light, which is the heavenly
teaching, the Buddha's teaching -- without language. And you will be
enlightened immediately."
"Not
only do we see the Light, which is our own Nature, we also hear the
teachings, our own Nature, which the Buddha mentioned in the Surangama
Sutra. All the Enlightened Masters rely on this Sound stream, this inside
knowledge, this inside teaching, to come down to teach sentient beings.
And all sentient beings have to rely on this holy Sound, holy Vibration,
holy teaching -- the inside teaching -- to go back to the kingdom of
God. We will all become Quan Yin bodhisattvas, because we will all listen
to the Sound that the Quan Yin bodhisattvas have listened to. We hear
it inside without the ears and see it without the eyes. That is true
knowledge."
Master
said that at the time of enlightenment, we can see the kingdom of God;
we can learn with the saints, with Jesus Christ, and with all of the
past Masters who have left our physical planet. We can see Buddha on
a lotus, Jesus with light all around, and we can listen to direct teachings
from Them. You can see light that is equal to thousands of the suns
of this planet, but it will never blind your eyes. This is the light
mentioned in the Buddhist sutras that tell us when we die, we should
follow the bright light which leads us to heaven, to the Buddha's Land,
not the dim light which can take us to the 'Asura' (astral) world.
Each
of us can see different kinds of light, due to our different karma,
different concentration, or different sincerity. So each one sees differently
when going inside, but everyone experiences a glimpse of his or her
God Nature, a glimpse of heaven. That's just the beginning, and then
we experience more as we practice each day. Master said, "I hope
I have explained a little bit of this unexplainable thing. The only
thing left is that you have to experience this thing yourself. You have
to experience your own greatness, your own God Nature, because these
things cannot be talked about, cannot be explained in any language at
all."
"It
is just like when I am drinking water, and I talk about water: It is
cool and refreshing and quenches your thirst. But you also must drink
it in order to understand. You drink more, or you drink less; it depends
on your thirst. But you have to drink. If you are not thirsty, of course
you don't drink. Then you don't know what I am talking about. But I
think you do. You remember, because everything I said today is nothing
new. Our souls understand; our God Nature understands. Even if we don't
drink, we remember the taste of water because all of us have drunk water
at one time or another. It's just that we have forgotten, since we did
not drink for a long time. Similarly, with the God Nature, we have ignored
and neglected It for so long that we do not even dream of becoming God.
We think we are just very lowly human beings, when in fact the one who
lives in this temple [Master points to Her body] is God! Only God lives
in here, no one else."
Master
continued: "That's why the Buddha said that you have to love and
respect everyone, because everyone is truly God whether he knows it
or not. But only an Enlightened Master can see this. In order to truly
love everyone, you must also become a Master, or partially a Master.
Actually, it's not 'becoming' a Master, but 'remembering' that we are
a Master."
Master
then taught the audience a brief form of meditation, the Convenient
Method. "If you want to know more, to study more deeply about how
to remember yourself as God again, how to open your love to all humankind
again, we have to go through a process called initiation so that we
can explain things in more detail. And you have to do more meditation,
every day, to contemplate your own God Nature."
Referring
to the process of attaining enlightenment, Master joked, "It took
the Buddha six years; maybe it will take us ten years! No, the Buddha
took six years because people taught Him the wrong way until the last
method He found, then he became enlightened immediately. Only the direct
recognition of the God Nature can make us enlightened. Every other method
is like cooking sand; it will never become rice."
After
the lecture, Master patiently responded to numerous questions from the
audience. Asked by one woman how she could be free of anger toward her
husband and children, Master responded that the only way is to gain
enlightenment. She said that these things happen because we don't know
we are God. We react as human beings because we think we are ordinary
humans who are bad. Once we remember that we are God, we will become
calmer, more secure, more peaceful, more loving, more tolerant and more
compassionate. Then we can see that our husbands and children are also
God. Even though they may not know their true Nature, we will love them
and respect them like God.
One
Muslim person in the audience praised Master, saying that She is the
only One who can save us. Master thanked him, saying that Mohammed was
a great Master also. She said that She already had caught up with the
past Masters, but how about us? Master said we must hurry and catch
up with them so that we can go to heaven together. Otherwise, She will
be alone and that will be very lonely.
Another
person asked if the Buddha would be born again. Master
said that the Buddha is born all the time. "Look at you, look at
your neighbors; they are all Buddhas!" She said that the Buddha
once told His disciples that since His God Nature and everyone else's
God Nature were the same, He wondered why people didn't see this. Master
said that She wonders the same thing. It is so easy to know that you
are God, yet we forsake the biggest Treasure because we are too worried
and busy making a living. But when we become enlightened, we are more
intelligent, more loving, and our worldly life gets better, too. Then
we can use our money and possessions to give to the poor and to help
everyone.
To
overcome fear, Master said that we should become masters of our minds,
and not let the mind tell us what to do. The mind thinks a lot of nonsensical
things and makes us fear. Being enlightened, we don't lose anything
and therefore have nothing to fear. Instead, we gain more inside and
outside, so it is a good business!
Asked
if She can end the war in Sri Lanka, Master answered "No,"
saying that the war is created by sentient beings and must be solved
and finished by them. You don't force your knowledge on your children,
but teach them to learn by themselves. She said that if She used (miracle)
power to force the war
to end, then later another war would start and it could be worse. It
is better to let the war resolve
itself naturally. But if more Sri Lankan people remember their God Nature
and meditate more, then it will minimize the war. The people who make
war are also God, so they have to realize themselves that war is really
unnecessary; they have to come to peace together.
Responding
to a question
about whether people from all religions
could become enlightened,
Master said that everyone has the light of God inside; it doesn't
matter what religion he or she follows. She further assured the audience
of Her utmost respect for all of the past, present and future Masters.
They taught the same thing; it's just that we have forgotten to look
for the sameness between Their teachings.
When
asked about how one keeps from coming back as an animal, Master said
that we have to live like human beings. The Buddha taught the Five
Precepts so that we could maintain our human
standards. Follow the Five Precepts, and you won't come back as an
animal; follow the God Nature to become God, and you won't come back
at all.
After
the lecture, many people learned the Convenient Method. Hundreds of
Sri Lankans and others, such as the man mentioned earlier who had
waited for an inner signal, received initiation. Finally, hundreds
of "candles" were lit that night in Colombo, Sri Lanka,
to shine in this little Buddha island!
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