People keep asking me all the time, “Why do you put make-up on? Why do you wear beautiful dresses?” and things like that. Before I became the Supreme Master, the Master Ching Hai, I was just like this. (Master points to Her ‘ordinary’ clothing.) And then for a long time I wasn’t like this. And now I’ve become like this again. So it’s kind of puzzling for me also, but it’s nothing puzzling. Just like when an old person becomes old, he becomes like a child again. So maybe that’s happening with me.

It’s very simple. It’s just like the story I told you about with the king who would go out and play the fool in the dirt, in the commons and sometimes in a dirty restaurant or dirty street. He would walk alone with only a few attendants, just because he wanted to be free: free from glory, free from security, free from the fear of walking on the street as a king. You know what I mean: just to be free. So I wanted to be free from sainthood. And now I’m liberated! (Applause) I was sick; I had meditational sickness or Master sickness. Well, it let people know that I was a Master. But I’m free now; the sickness is probably gone.

So sometimes we practice for some time and become sick. That’s what we call “saintly sickness.” But you have to cure yourself. Whatever trace of Sainthood you wear around your face or your nose or your ankles, or that you hide in your heart - you should cure it, one by one, slowly or quickly, it’s up to you. Just now I remembered a story to explain this to you once and for all. Because everyone loves to know why I wear clothes like this instead of asking me how I became an Enlightened Master. They keep asking me many questions and finally they have to say, “Wow, I have just one question, but I dare not ask you; can I ...” And finally, the cat is out of the bag: “Why do you wear this?” So it’s like that.

In Tibet, there are many people who practice flying. How do they do it? It’s just like in China where they practice Chin Kung (a kind of Chinese martial art, that trains practitioners to become very light). You can fly, you can jump onto the roof, very high or very far. People still do this form of practice in China. Sometimes you see Kung-Fu that’s not real. But it represents the truth from the olden times when people could still fly.

Nowadays, some people in Tibet can still fly; due to the difficult situation in Tibet they have no cars. They have only mountains with freezing snow all year round sometimes. So they have to go a very long way without much food or many restaurants or anything in between. They have to take very small packets of things. Sometimes they don’t even have horses, or they just have what they call a yak (a large, long-haired, dark brown Himalayan ox). And then they have to go with what there is. They can’t be too long; sometimes they have to go quickly for some urgent matter. So they have to practice this kind of flying. And some people practice so hard that they can never land on the ground again. They always remain flying in the air. You can read the books of Madame Alexandra David-Neel about this. It’s all the truth, but I have to refer to her so that you know I’m not speaking nonsense. You’ll know that people write about it and you’ll have proof.

So what happens to these people when they fly all the time in the air is that they have to come down sometimes, I mean at least for the toilet or to take a bath. (Laughter) After flying too long, they smell, too! So they have to come down sometimes. They have to put a lot of heavy metal iron chains around their bodies so that they can control and balance their take-offs and landings. That’s what they do.

So some time if you go to Tibet and look up into the sky, you’ll see something like that. And you’ll think they’re torturing themselves by chaining their bodies and so on. But that’s what they have to do. If they fly too high and they’re too light, they have to make themselves heavier so they can land on the ground and stay on the ground as long as they want. Otherwise, they’ll just fly in the air all the time.

Similarly, when we first practice spirituality, after some time we become a Saint or a Buddha and say, “Oh, I don’t believe that; I don’t look at that. I don’t talk to that person; I don’t wear those kinds of clothes.” That’s when your sickness is the most serious. (Laughter) Then, after some time, you’re too saintly, and you have to cure yourself. You have to pull yourself down to the ground again, in order to integrate into the society and do something about your knowledge, your Sainthood or your Wisdom. Because many people need you; you can’t just lie around in Nirvana all the time. It’s also no good for you while you’re here. If I were always in Nirvana, I wouldn’t care about anything; I’d just stay in Nirvana all the time. I mean as a state of being, not that I’d have to fly to the sky. But then I’d have nothing to do with you, and I’d never understand how you suffer. I wouldn’t know anything about your mentality. I wouldn’t know anything. I wouldn’t understand your suffering or your love, your hate, your failures or your virtues. I wouldn’t understand anything because I’d be too saintly, too pure: P-U-R-E. (Laughter and applause)

So these are the chains. It doesn’t matter what color. They’re only dirt: yellow dirt, blue dirt, white dirt - so why bother? Those people who criticize me are saints; that’s why. They’re in the hospital of sainthood. So as soon as they come out, they’ll recognize. They’ll be normal again and we can talk to them. So don’t worry; being too saintly is also no good. We’re out of touch with reality, and then we can become imbalanced. Just like the people in Tibet who always fly in the sky and can never come down for the rest room. Just make sure that if they don’t have chains on, don’t pass under them. (Laughter) You might be in trouble. Changing your clothes is not always convenient in that kind of cold climate and altitude. Don’t say I didn’t warn you! ...Previous Page