"Now, after I give you the Quan Yin Method, for example, then you meditate. You try to search within yourselves to find what kind of power that you have, what kind of capability that you have forgotten, how much intelligence that you have not used, who you are and what kind of position you have in this universe. You search and search, and you'll find it. And then, you find up to the first level, then you'll find that you are very loving now. You are less stressful than before, and so you think, 'Oh God is that. God helps me. God can help me to heal stress and to heal my sickness.' You get cured from some disease, at the first level. Sometimes, when you touch somebody, that person gets cure too, and you have healing power! You'll say, 'Oh! God has healing power. God is that. God has love. God gives me love. I feel loved now, and I feel I love someone else.'

But, that love is still on a weak level. Never mind, you feel better than before. And by eating vegetarian you feel your body is better. You can think better than before, and you love your neighbor better now. So, you begin to declare that your Buddha is love; your Buddha is healing power; your God is healing power and magical power. Understand? He can make a lot of magic and things like that. You know God is there. You know there is a God, and that He has such and such qualities. And for a little while longer, you practice and you get up to the second level. Now, suddenly, whenever somebody asks you a question, you can talk with eloquence. You can reply to them in a way that they never have heard before, in a way you never dreamed you could reply before. You understand all the sutras and all the Bibles in the world. You understand that all the five religions say the same thing. Yes, in one word, you have eloquence.

You can also sometimes see into the past, into other people's past and future. You know why you are connected with each other like this. You can regulate, invisibly or visibly, some of your karmic ties with other people, so suddenly your relationships smooth out. Suddenly, two enemies may come back loving each other, because, invisibly, in your practice your Master power has smoothed the past enmity out of your life and your relationship. So you begin to declare, 'God has intellectual power! God is Buddha! God is enlightenment! God is eloquence! God is that!' So your God has grown a little bit taller. (Laughter) That's how you make God and how you make Buddha. You say, 'Oh! God has a kind record so that we can see everything inside.'

Then you begin to listen, and you can hear the sound of thunder or the sound of many waters. So it declares in the Bible that God speaks in the voice of thunder, and like the sound of many waters. That's how they declared their God. When they saw the big flame of light, they said, 'God comes in a big flame. God is like a big flame.' So their God differs. Your God now differs from the God before, or differs from another initiate who has only reached the first level, or differs from another initiate who has reached the third level. His God is different from yours, but it is the same God, whom, pitifully, is being seen by different eyes and different angles. Just like when the Buddha was alive, he told the story of the four blind people who touched an elephant; who described the elephant. The one who touched his ears said, 'Wow! The elephant is like a fan, a big fan.' And the other one who touched his trunk said, 'Oh! The elephant is like a big pilar.' And the other one who touched his nose said, 'Oh! The elephant looks like a water hose.' And the one who touched his tail said, 'Wow! The elephant is like a broom stick.' This is how ordinary people see God. And this is how practitioners and people at different levels see God and make their own God.

Therefore, it is said that God is within you; that Buddha is in your mind. That is the meaning of it. (Applause) Now, you know that you can make Buddhas and you can make God. So I would advise you to make the best God out of it. Our God must be the supreme, the Most High, to be worthy of our time, energy and attention. Time is money! We might just as well buy the best God. (Laughter) Now you understand why God is not there for you to worship, but demands us to make use of His power it. If we don't make use of this God by our own power, then when we pray and nothing is done, we cannot blame anyone else. From the top of the hierarchy to the lowest level of hell, you have only yourselves to blame. You've gone the wrong way. You walk the wrong path. You approach things in the wrong direction, with the wrong method.

The Quan Yin Method is for you to realize that God is you, the way you make Him. God can be as low as a worm, if you are that. If you don't raise yourselves higher than the worm's level then God will forever stay as a worm. If you raise yourselves higher, the higher your God is, the higher God is glorified. So glorify God by your own power of meditation and realization. That's the best prayer. That's the best glorification for God, the most significant prayer and the most significant job that you could ever do for God. (Applause) If we say we worship God, Buddha, Allah or whoever you say, and we remain in ignorance, then we truly despite God; we truly disgrace God and Buddha.

Therefore, Buddha said, 'If you believe in Buddha, but do not understand Buddha, you disgraced Buddha.' That is the truth. How do you disgrace Buddha? By remaining in ignorance and letting others see that you are an ignorant God, that you have no belief in God anymore, because God is ignorant due to your own ignorant thinking and view point. You think God is like that. 'I pray to Him, but He doesn't hear. I am crawling here, but He doesn't see.' It is not God who does not see. It is you who does not know that God sees, and who does not directly receive God's blessing, because you build a lot of obstacles around yourself. You, yourself, deny the benefit and the blessing from God, because you think, from a conditioned mind, from many generations, that you're not worthy; that you're wrong; that you are ignorant; that you do all the wrong things against your God's nature.

Therefore, even now, when you pray, this kind of thinking subconsciously prevents you from knowing you are God, knowing the benefit of God. Then you think God is only that. God is only for you to pray to, to complain to and to demand from, but it is not so. Every God is truly different. Depending on how you think and on your level, God is different. Not that there are so many Gods, but our view points differ, so God differs. Do you understand now why we must understand and realize God in order to say that we truly worship God?"

From "Start With Nirvana And End Up On Earth"
News 33, Master Says
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Group Meditation in Malaysia • February 23, 1992
(originally in English)

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