| Master Says
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Be strong and be a giver, not a taker. That’s the way of a saint. Because if you call yourself a saint or think you practice saintly conduct but always go on depending on someone else, that’s nonsense. If you can’t take care of yourself, how can you say that you’ll take care of other people? If a Master can’t even afford to take care of himself or herself, how can he or she boast of taking care of the whole world or other disciples? A Master takes care of disciples spiritually; there’s no doubt about that. That’s the duty of a Master, but you can’t trade that for material support.
You’re learning to become a saint. You’re learning to be a Master, or to train yourself for a “master’s degree” in the way of being a Master, in the noble way. So you have to first take care of yourself. Then you can say, “I know how to take care of others.” That’s why I’ve told you many times: Don’t bow to the small gods and all those things that depend on you to live because sometimes people bow to beings such as local gods or other strange gods. And they say, “If we don’t bow to them and give them offerings, the gods will be hungry and in turn won’t protect us.” But that’s ridiculous! If that god depends on you for food and finances in order to protect you, he’s nothing better than a gang leader because a gang leader goes around collecting money from pimps in exchange for protecting them. If God is such an exchange agent or is in an exchange business, then we can go and bow to the bank or the exchange bureau office.
So what’s the use of bowing to any god to protect us? We are God; we protect ourselves. Otherwise, at some time or other we’ll be disappointed because we can’t always ask other people for help all the time in life. Sooner or later our conscience will begin to get stirred up and we’ll feel very bad about it. Or, asking for help will become like a habit and then we’ll lose our power of independence and that would be very expensive!
The power of independence, the spirit to struggle for survival is more valuable than money. We can’t buy it. So, keep it. If you want to be strong, if you want to be a protector, if you want to be a guardian of the weak and needy, of the younger spirits, you have to be strong yourself.
This life is actually very simple. If your house is too big or if the mortgage is too high, buy a smaller house or rent it to someone who’s wealthier. Don’t get yourself into financial trouble and become a dependent person because then we lose our pride; we lose our self-respect. These things can’t be sold for money. That’s why I always tell you to support yourself. You should never be dependent.
Of course we sometimes experience disasters and unexpected circumstances. Then we have to think fast or we might receive some help. For example, if there’s really an emergency such as a fire and all the houses burn, if the people have insurance it’s fine, but right after the disaster they have nothing; they’re on the street. So of course they have to get help from someone else. No one will say anything against that. If it were me, I’d also do that. I’d also receive help. If I were on the street and cold and had nothing to eat and someone offered to help me, I’d accept that. I’d have no pride.
Don’t be too proud to accept help when you need it. Because later you’ll be strong, you’ll work and you’ll help again in society, maybe with the next disaster. That’s no problem. So when you’re in trouble, don’t say that Master says you have to be independent and that you can’t receive help from anyone. Don’t say, “So now I have to die.” In that case, I’d tell you, “OK, die! You’re too stupid to live.” (Laughter and applause) I’d tell that person to die, the quicker the better, for our society as well as for all of you.
So be flexible. Learn my teachings and assimilate them; digest them and use them for different circumstances. You have to know what’s right and what’s wrong. Don’t always say, “Master says it’s like this,” and then it has to be like that. That’s brilliant idiocy; it’s no good. Whatever you learn from the Saints of different teachings, make it your own. Learn and be flexible. Buddha said the same thing. So don’t blame me; don’t say I’m teaching differently than Buddha. Don’t say that I don’t wear the same clothes as the Buddha. The Buddha said, “My teaching is like a raft. After you cross the river, you don’t carry the raft in your hands, on top of your shoulders. If you do that, it becomes your obstacle.”
When you cross the river from this side, you need the raft to carry you across the river, but once you arrive at the other shore you won’t take the raft with you everywhere. Before, the raft was helping you; it was your helping instrument, but now it’s an obstacle! If you carry the raft on your head all the time, you’ll bump into the trees and the people around you. So you’ll get tired if you say, “The raft is the one that helped me so I have to be faithful to it. I have to sleep with it and carry it with me to my grave.” Isn’t that ridiculous?
Give
of Yourself to Compensate
for the World’s Kindness
If a practitioner isn’t flexible and doesn’t learn to adapt to situations for the benefit of humankind, that person is dead. He or she is a dead Buddha. Only an “alive” Buddha, a living Buddha, is good for the world. That’s why I’ve taught you to take care of yourself.
So do your job correctly, work and use your wisdom to at least take care of your family. Whatever’s to spare, you can use to help the desperate. You can then contribute to the world not only to help cleanse the atmosphere spiritually, but also financially, physically and in many other aspects. We have to develop ourselves in all directions to become a perfect being. If you say you’re a perfect being but develop only one aspect such as wisdom, what’s the use of that wisdom?
Since we’ve been living in this world from the time we were born, we owe a great deal to the Earth, at least physically. But now that we’re grown up, we can stand on our own feet and repay some of that kindness. Thus, each person has to be responsible for his or her own finances and family. This I’ve told you again and again. And whatever I teach you will benefit you for a long, long time. It will benefit the whole world in the long term. So try your best to follow it.
Real
Freedom
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai, New York, USA, August 4, 1999
(Originally in English) Videotape #664Doing God’s work is never really tiring; it’s just the karma that makes you tired. Doing God’s work is very uplifting. It’s very nice, actually. During that time, I feel very blissful; it’s just my body that’s exhausted. But that’s the contrary nature of God’s world versus the physical world.
The physical world wants to drag you down, wants to stop you from doing good things, wants to tell you that it’s impossible. But the spiritual world is always encouraging. It’s very nice that we have the same ideal; I love to be among people who are so noble and always thinking in the higher dimensions. This is a very big blessing. So I’m happy that you have group meditation together to get in touch with really noble people and think only of noble ideas. That’s very good; that’s really tremendous.
Perhaps you don’t know what it’s like to live with someone who’s purely materialistic and who really tries to tie you down or oppress you or drag you in their direction, but it’s very difficult. Now you’re always among noble people, and this is already a big blessing. Wouldn’t it be nice if the whole world were like this! (Audience applauds.) The country we’re born into or the background we live in does influence us very much. But the individual soul that we are is always our Self. So if you’re strong enough, you can overcome any situation, any background, any influence and just be yourself. That’s the way it should be, and that’s why we should meditate and learn to know God, which means knowing ourselves. So we’ll become ourselves and be free from any stain of the world, any influence due to our background or war or country or ethnicity or customs from what we know. That’s what real freedom is.
