"People pray for God's grace, but if they do not practice spiritually, God's blessings will be of little use to them. When we have indigestion, even gourmet dishes become toxic when eaten, and we cannot digest tonics even if we take them. You all know this theory. Suppose we have a stomach problem; drinking milk will only produce more toxins in us. However, milk is good for children and makes healthy people even healthier. If we have a gastrointestinal problem, we cannot digest even the best food, which only turns into toxins.

Therefore, we should try to purify our actions, speech, and thoughts to be able to digest the superior blessings from God. Otherwise, the more God blesses us, the more trouble we will have. Take the mission group we just mentioned, for instance. If they had accomplished this work for me, they would have earned considerable merits. They would have flourished, benefited, and attained sainthood. Unfortunately, because they are not enlightened, they failed to accomplish this task and incurred bad karma with their actions. Sometimes, they perform their jobs with negative thoughts, not realizing that the work is an honor from God. The same assignment, the same mission, and the same result may bring them only bad karma instead of blessed reward.

This is why we have to practice spiritually. Only when we do will we realize that karma does not exist originally, and there was no karma in the first place. It is our toxic mind which turns God's arrangements into bad karma. Therefore, we must practice the Quan Yin Method to cleanse our mind of any preconceptions and garbage, then everything that goes in will reside in a pure abode and become nectar water. Otherwise, no matter how much we do and how diligently we work, it is all for our ego, for fame and profit, and will not yield any blessed reward. We do not know that it is the arrangement of God, our highest almighty power, to perform work through our physical body and mind. This is beyond the understanding of our mind.

Once we have purified our actions, speech, and thoughts, everything we do is correct and any action is appropriate. Therefore, we must practice spiritually. Now you have a clear picture of how the blessing power descends from above. It is our negative thinking that finally turns it into a toxin within us. That is why the Sixth Patriarch Sutra says, "When your thinking is neither good nor bad, then you are in the Tao." The Tao does not incline in any direction, but this does not suggest that the Tao means doing bad things. Only when it is done through the mind does it become bad.

Therefore, it is most important for us to pursue spiritual practice. This is mentioned in all scriptures, but strangely, few people understand it. We must first cultivate ourselves and foster family harmony before we can govern the country and contribute to world peace. However, people rush to maintain world peace, thinking that this is the most important phase and the other three are trivial matters not worthy of concern. How on earth can they ensure world peace? Suppose we want to build a house; we must first lay the foundation. Without a foundation, the higher a building is, the more troublesome it will be and the sooner it will collapse. Therefore, pay no heed to advice that you can practice without observing the precepts. I have made myself very clear on this point."

From "Spiritual Practice Creates a Perfect Tool for God"
News 121, Pearls of Wisdom
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Tainan, Formosa • May 13, 1988
(originally in Chinese)

"There are many worlds and many levels in the universe. Our world is called the physical world, where everything can be seen, grabbed, touched, or obtained. There are other worlds which are created by the mind; the nearest one being the astral world. Most of the time, our thoughts are low-level and ferocious or good, by so-called worldly standards. These thoughts will fly to a place nearby, the astral world, which we call the atmosphere.

Sometimes we contract a disease or an infection, or disasters, war, or catastrophes befall upon us. These are all created by the ferocious thoughts of the Earthly people. We should not complain, "I'm such a good person and have performed good deeds since childhood. How could I get such an incurable disease?" Or, "My country is so good. People believe in God and worship everywhere. Why does disaster strike us?" No matter what happens, there is a reason for it. We Earthly people or our countrymen once had or have bad thoughts. Even though bad thoughts arise for only a short while and are not put into action, the thought-energy exists. The thought-energy seems to have its own knowledge and intelligence, which we call elements. But thoughts have no soul and therefore, no God power. Knowledge is comparable to a computer, which has no soul but can calculate with logic.

However, the ferocious and wrong thoughts are more powerful than the computer. We can destroy a computer but it is difficult to erase a ferocious thought. No matter how much time has passed, these thoughts continue to exist, coalesced with thoughts of similar magnetic fields, which sooner or later, find an opportunity to explode and release their energy.

If we stop using a computer or if we have used it for too long, it breaks down by itself or crashes at the push of a button. All recorded materials naturally disappear. But there is no way to erase vicious thoughts. They do not disappear by themselves. Once they exist, they will continue to exist and develop into an atmosphere surrounding us, our Earth, our country, villages and cities. Then they turn into diseases, disasters or war.

What is disease? It is the atmosphere looking for similar thoughts and then enters into their magnetic fields. This is what we call "like attracting like." The atmosphere waits until you have certain thoughts, or looks for those who often have similar thoughts and enters their magnetic fields as there is a gate. It is very easy for two of the same kind to mix together, penetrate our magnetic field, our brain, our nerves, and destroy our resistance. Then we get cancer, suffer neurological problems, or contract some disease that no one has ever heard of before. It is highly possible that those with vicious thoughts generated bad auras in their past lives, and have therefore, come back to absorb the bad atmosphere they had generated previously.

Therefore, we should blame no one. We created everything; however, we can avoid those things. For example, if we keep our body, speech and thoughts clean and pure twenty-four hours a day, bad auras cannot enter us. Things of different natures cannot absorb each other. When something different enters, it gets alienated, just like oil and water do not mix.

We spiritual practitioners can eliminate a lot of karma. We may have had vicious thoughts in the past, but we have less of them now. An atmosphere that would have penetrated us completely now only seeps in a little. Perhaps we will itch here or hurt there, or run a temperature for two or three days, but these will not turn into cancer. Or we may have a small accident. Maybe our car will crash but we will not die; we will only be slightly bruised or wounded.

Therefore, when we are in this mundane world, we should purify our body, speech and mind in order to protect ourselves. Once we go beyond the three worlds, there will be no problem. There will be no ferocious atmosphere. No one will have vicious thoughts. Only pure people can go there."

From "Disasters Are Created By The Mind"
News 96, Master's Words
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Tainan, Formosa • October 13, 1988
(originally in Chinese)

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