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!
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