Over-Population is Not the Main Cause of Starvation!

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Group Meditation in Bangkok, Thailand • September 18, 1994
(Originally in English)

Lately we have been talking about the UN Conference about the hunger of the world, remember? Now I have good news for you that now the scientists have found some way to make the harvest grow many times more than before. They already found some before, but now they found something even better. So, accordingly we can feed about 10 billion of people, not only 6 billion like they calculated last time; double in a 100 years even, over 100 years. So then during 100 years we might find something even better, or we can go to Mars to plant potatoes or go to Mercury to plant rice. (Master laughs.) If our planet people are being vegetarian, the way environmentalists suggest and it’s justly so, and that the scientists find the way to grow more abundantly the crops for us, then I think we can “sing”, no problem, we can sit pretty.

Actually if we just are kind to each other, live a very clean and pure life, there shouldn’t be any problem. They shouldn’t worry about killing the children inside the mother’s womb just to prevent hunger. This is not a very appropriate thing to do. Even though, according to some of the spiritual masters and according to what I know, sometimes the spirit does not come inside the body of the fetus until the baby is born. But still the body belongs to a spirit and he is going to come down, and it is very sad to have no body to come into. Sometimes the spirit comes in already within the pregnancy, sometimes the spirit comes after the pregnancy, like in my case.

According to my mother, I came after, one day later. I am always late in everything, decided from childhood. (Laughed) You know, that is why I am always late now. You have to forgive me, I was born like that, born lazy, born late. Somebody asked me before, when I was born whether the light was all over the body, the room. I said, “No, I was born very normal, no light.” It is true, but one day later the room was blazed with light; because it came late. According to my parents, I was born no crying and eyes just open all day long; never blinked and never shut the eyes. So the parents felt very strange! What kind of child is this? But my father said that the next evening, about 6 o’clock when it began to darken outside, and then suddenly the whole room, especially the bed I lay in was very, very bright. And they were thinking, “How come the light comes somewhere from the street?” Because we live next to a small path, walking path, and they were looking whether somebody put a shining light through the window. “Nobody there! But the light was there about 15 minutes,” they said. And after the light was out, they then remembered, “Oh, it is dark!” And they began to light the lamps in the house. Because it had been shining for 15 minutes, so they did not light the lamps. And until the lights went off and they realized it was dark. And nobody was shining any light outside, no lamps on the walkway outside. So, therefore, the body was not functioning properly, the eyes just kept open and could not cry, and after that I think I cried very loud. (Master laughs.) I think, I was very frightened to come down here. I tried to delay as much as possible until God kicked me down. He said, “Here just go,” and no more choice. Yes, probably, I saw from heaven — hunger, AIDS, gems stolen (Master laughs) wars, so much chaos. What for come here? No fun. But probably, a promise is a promise. Once you promise you have to do it, and so here I am trying to do my job with you until time is up.

So it is said, not every case of abortion is involved in killing a fully conscious person. That’s definite. But we never know, the doctor never knows who is a fully conscious person inside, who is not yet fully conscious. You see, they cannot see that kind of light and besides the child inside doesn’t always radiate light. Yes, so therefore, abortion is not recommended. It’s not very good for human development and it is against our conscience, and it will punish us the whole life when we think about that.

In India there was a woman saint. Her name I think Ananda Maye, something like that. She said that at the time of her birth there was no physical connection with her mother. That is probably the same case that the spirit comes late, comes after the baby is born. Lately, I read a book from a woman. She was supposed to be dead and then a few days later she came back to life. She reported seeing this kind of process of the birth, like: sometimes the spirit comes in before, sometimes the spirit comes in during pregnancy, sometimes the spirit comes at the time of conception, or sometimes later. That is also a coincidence, different people in different corners of the world affirm the same thing. She was shown the process of creation, some part of it, and everything she says I know it is true. It’s not a kind of made up story to sell the book, it is a true story. And at first she didn’t even want to tell it. She told it only nineteen years later, reluctantly, because she found it very difficult to express what she saw in heaven into the human language and was afraid that people might not believe her also. But nowadays there are many people, who die and come back to life telling the same, very similar stories to this woman — sometimes shorter, sometimes longer and sometimes a different aspect, but very similar.

Some of these experiences, our disciples during meditation, they also know, because they die temporarily. And that is why some of the saints say, “I die daily, I die many times a day.” That is the meaning. Once we meditate and we leave the body that is the same as when we die, except that the connection between the spirit and the body is permanent or temporary severed.

So actually the world over-population is not the real cause for starvation. I have read a very good article about this and I cut it from the newspaper, I have told them to print it on the magazine for your perusal, for your information this time. Okay, you can read it and you can have your own comment on it and you will know.

It’s a very good article, very nice. It’s from Bangkok Post, I think. It’s about the Cairo Conference, about the population growth of the world whether it is related to hunger or not. No doubt that it is related to hunger also, but it is not the absolute cause, it’s not the main cause, and it’s not the only cause. And that can be avoided by fair distribution of food to different corners of the world instead of amassing possessions on some useless... and cannot serve anybody and even costs other peoples’ lives, sometimes, due to possessions.

Reading newspapers is also my job. It is not really fun, I don’t like it, but sometimes it’s good for you to find some information to give you hope, and also give you evidence, examples of what I’ve been talking about. It’s good for you to have a concrete example and evidence. Some good papers are also very informative, but sometimes the papers, they use their influence to do bad things and this we should avoid to read.

In the article, it is stated that most of the poor people have very little possessions of the world; and the rich people... they have put how many percent of the rich people, and how many percent of the poor people. And like the richest, 1/5 of the world, control 83 or 85% of the world’s property; and the poorest 1/5, control only 1.4%; and then they blame the poor people for making hunger because too many children and things like that.

Now I think you can, you are able to discern what’s the great difference between the rich and the poor, and what really causes the starvation of our fellow beings. The gap is so wide, 83% vs. 1.4%. So it’s alright to have possessions but we must know what to do with them. Possessions are harmless, but if we are possessed by them, it becomes harmful for ourselves and for the people who are tempted and who are involved in our property. That’s why many families are divided or kill each other, because of property inheritance and the arguments between who inherited what. Many times it causes the loss of lives. Is that not so? And causes war between nations, and causes war between tribes, causes hatred between people, because of the mishandling of the property. Not that property itself is bad. You know what I mean?