Selected Questions and Answers

 

Inner Visions Cannot be Experienced on Demand

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, Videoconference with initiates from San Francisco, California, USA, August 25, 2002 (Originally in English) Videotape #748

 

Q: Although I meditate diligently, I’ve only seen the Light once. If I wish to see the Light, then I'm attached to an outcome. But if I don't wish to see the Light, does that mean I won’t progress spiritually?

M: No, you can wish to see the Light, but don’t demand it, saying, “I have to see it every day, I have to see it every time,” and so on. You’re doing very fine for a beginner. You're doing wonderfully. So just continue in a relaxed and loving manner.

All of us would like to see the Light every day. But we’ve been conditioned not to be able to see God. A lot of people out there believe in God, but if God appeared to them in any form, they’d be startled or wouldn’t believe it or think it was a devil's trick or an illusion. So since our youth, we’ve been conditioned and brainwashed into believing that we can’t see God or that God is something we can never touch. We know God is there, but we believe that no one is able to see Hirm. So, when we meditate now—even though at the time of initiation we got immediate enlightenment, a glimpse of God in the form of Light or Sound or even some physical manifestation in the inner vision so that we can connect with God in the way we expect to—our mind still battles all the time, thinking, “It's not real.”

And that’s the reason for our retarded progress. It's not that we aren’t diligent. It’s just that our brain has been too bombarded with fake, false, negative information. So now we have to do more meditation all the time in order to recondition our minds to accept it. And then the believing and non-believing energies won’t contradict each other so we’ll be more relaxed and enjoy visions of God more often.

　

Expectations Hinder Spiritual Progress

 

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, Videoconference with initiates from San Francisco, California, USA, August 25, 2002 (Originally in English) Videotape #748

Q: Is there no correlation between our spiritual level and the time we put into spiritual practice? Why don’t I experience the Light and Sound from a high spiritual level after having practiced for eleven years? Dear Master, would You please tell me what my problem is? Please advise me. Thank You, Master.

M: I think you’re expecting all the time; that's why. You interfere with your spiritual practice through your intellectual attitude of expectation. For example, “OK, if I meditate for one year, I should go to the first level; if I meditate for two years, I’ll go to the second level; if I meditate for three years, I’ll go to the third level,” etc.

It doesn’t work like that. God is not to be dictated to the way the mind wants. Because whatever you're thinking and comparing with right now is the mind working; it’s the working of the illusion of Maya, not the real God. So sometimes because you think too much with your mind, you hinder your own progress.

Just be like a child. Don’t calculate too much; don’t do it like a business, like, “OK, I’ve meditated for ten years so I should get this and that.” We’re not in something like an enterprise. We should just do it like a child without expecting anything. The parent will know how to reward us.

Relax, and then you’ll enjoy it more. (Applause) We’re so much in the habit of expecting things to go our way that in the family we ask the kids to do this and that according to our liking. And we ask our husband or wife to do this and that according to our opinion. And then we go outside and ask our friends and associates to do this and that according to our ideas. And if we’re supposed to be in a superior position, like a supervisor on the job, or a manager or a boss, then of course we’re used to telling everyone what to do.

And that's why we think spiritual practice should go the same way, but it doesn’t. As long as we still work with our brain, calculating and doing things like that, it will never work. So relax, be like a kid; don't look forward to what will happen next; just don't know. And then it will come. (Applause) Kids never know what’s happening next. Their parents arrange everything for them.

　

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