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A Brief Biography of
the Supreme Master
Ching Hai


Walk the Way of Love

The Master from the Himalayan Clouds

Master Says

*Master — The Epitome of Unconditional Love
*One of Master’s Stories When She Was in India
*No Need to Have Illusion about Master’s Physical Body
*The Creative Source of our Real Being
*Questions & Answers
*Aphorisms



   


News 74, Master Says

Master — The Epitome of Unconditional Love

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Group Meditation in Texas, USA • November 12, 1993
(Originally in English)

Master Suffers The Ignorance Of The People

We are united. We have to show it somehow, we don’t just talk. We don’t just say, “I love my neighbor,” or “I and you are one.” But then when they are suffering, “Oh! It’s okay. Nothing to do with me.” So when you are sick, I am sick also. While I am here, I have everything that you have. Otherwise, I only have pleasure. It’s good to be a Buddha, and everyone can be. Also someone said to me, “Well, if you are in operation, you can just leave your body and enjoy heaven when you come back.” Well, you can do that as a disciple, but I cannot; because if I do that, I only enjoy the things and don’t suffer with you. If I don’t suffer, you suffer more. So I don’t run away.

Now, you always have the illusion about being a master, that you will enjoy a lot more than while you are ignorant, being a disciple. It’s not true. The more you long for God, the nearer you are to God. The nearer you are to masterhood, the nearer you have to understand the master position. It means you sacrifice. Masterhood means sacrifice. It doesn’t mean joy. Yes, you have joy. That is a very stable joy. It is not affected by the chaotic situation of the world. But, you suffer, suffer for everyone. If you don’t want to be in that situation, then you have to want God less. You have to enjoy the world more and forget God, forget Master. Then you will be a little bit further away from the furnace, from the powerhouse. You are further from the position of the sacrificed lamb, then you don’t suffer so much and then you enjoy more.

Just like the cook in the kitchen now, he has to cook for us. If he wants to enjoy the way we do, he has to leave the kitchen, let someone else cook. So, someone has to cook for all these people to enjoy. For the master it is the same, or if anyone loves the master so much. I don’t mean you love me personally, or any other master. I mean when you love the Truth so much, when you want nothing else but God, then you are very near to the master, master power, master qualities. That’s when you don’t enjoy. I am sorry to say, that’s a very paradoxical thing; but that’s the way it is.

So if you don’t want all this sacrifice unintentionally, you want more a kind of heavenly mansion or heavenly wisdom light and all that kind of fancy stuff, then you don’t yearn too much. That’s why in Zen they say, “The more you desire enlightenment, the less you get.” Because you obstruct yourself with your desire. But a logical way of speaking is that you are too near. You want it too much, that you are so near. You desire that thing so much that it is you, it becomes you. You are obsessed with it so you have to take on that quality. The way you want God that much is a saintly person who wants it.

The Master Never Enjoys This World

Now, if you are a saint, you are a master, a kind of master soul. Then you cannot enjoy, because the whole world is suffering; and your soul inside will have to take on the suffering of other people — of the ignorant, of the desperate, of the dark experience of the people around the world. So the way now, I don’t enjoy the way I did. Now, you enjoy. I am the cook. I cook in the kitchen all the time. I cannot sit at the table with you, with all the fancy clothes and with people serving you like this. While I cook, I don’t even get to see you. Similar with the master. Therefore, the more you yearn for God, the less you see. I am sorry to say it, if everyone else tells you differently. If you yearn halfway, you get a half. If you yearn too much, you see not much; you suffer because you will be too near to God. God knows everything, God knows the suffering of mankind. And in this world there is more suffering than joy. So many masters never enjoy this world. But it’s good, because they don’t come to enjoy. If you want to enjoy, then you have to come back again, be an ignorant person and start to enjoy again.

If you are already a professor of mathematics or English, and you want to sit in the class and get taught, get served, and get loved by a teacher again, that’s ridiculous. That’s the only way you get the same attention again as when you were a student. Most of us have been students in our life, and we regret afterwards that we didn’t enjoy the student time. Well, I did. Everyone told us when we were students that is the best time that we could have, but we never know. We don’t appreciate it. We want to be a professor, right now, or better yesterday. (Laughter) When we became professor or teacher, then we thought, “Wow, it was good to be a student!” Carefree, and everything was easier, youthful. No responsibility and we just party here, party there, and girlfriend here and boyfriend there. Everything was just so easy. But then, you cannot go back to being a student again, because you have already become a professor. Even if you now take off your clothes, throw away your degree, and go and sit again with the students, you don’t have the same experience and then you complain. Why? You say, “Why don’t I enjoy the way she does. The other students enjoy, why don’t I?” Because you’ve passed that enjoyment, you can’t go back, you can’t turn back the clock.

The Three Stages Of Enlightenment

So you have to recognize yourself, whether you are a beginner on this path in which you enjoy more than everyone else, or you have not yet reached the beginning stage of spiritual practice, or you’ve passed beyond the enjoyment stage. There are three stages of enlightenment, language speaking. The first is the ignorant stage. You haven’t even begun to want to practice. You have not even gone further than materialism. The second path is that you are enlightened. You see the light, you see God, you see heavenly mansions, you see all kinds of things while you are in samadhi, you enjoy all of this bliss. The third path is that you’ve passed that.

Just like in school, first you did not enroll in university. You are a nobody. You’re just a high school drop out or nothing. Now, you enroll. Enrolling is the second path and you begin to learn something in the university. The third path, you’ve graduated. We practitioners have different levels. Just be at ease with yourself — that’s where you are, and don’t ask for more than you can digest at a time. Don’t ask ridiculous things, like you are already a professor, for example, and want to enjoy the student’s life; because the age is different, the mentality is different.

If you ask me, as a master, can I do everything for you? Yes, I can. But what for? What for do you want heaven anyhow? We should make this world into heaven, not escape into it. It’s okay when you sit and you have heaven naturally; but if you always desire it, it’s also queer. We are not beggars. If Hes doesn’t give you, don’t bother. Hes is not generous enough, maybe. It is Hiers fault. And if a creator can afford to make such a mistake as to overlook you, then the more so we don’t need to see Hirm.

Selfless Service

I see nothing now. I am only here twenty-four hours. I don’t have time to even see you all here, even sometimes, if I flash around. I don’t even have time to pay attention to all these heavenly signs, because I use my time to serve you. But still, despite all my blackness or no visionness, you still revere me as a Master, why? It’s not because of my visions now? They’re all gone. Because of my love, because of my non-asking anything. I only give. I don’t want anything from God and I want nothing from you. That’s very important.

So we have to serve selflessly and everything else will come. It’s difficult to tell you all this because you always hear, Seek you first the Kingdom of God, then all the things shall be added onto you. But what is the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is not for yourself alone. If I have a Kingdom of God, everyone must fit in. Otherwise, I don’t go there, I’ll wait for everyone. What’s the good of me sitting there alone, or with you, or with a few disciples enjoying the Kingdom of God and the whole mankind are crawling, groveling on the earth suffering and all that? So the Kingdom of God comes after everyone else is enlightened, if it comes to that.

I believe to work for everyone else’s happiness than to work for my own. So if you continue on that path, you have more satisfaction than any vision can give you. So don’t get strayed from that, you are doing okay. Just do that. Just serve people, and you’ll have more satisfaction than any vision, than any light or any Buddha’s appearance can give you. I tell you the truth.

So let’s be the cooks, not the guests all the time. We can be the guest sometimes also. But you have been and you were not satisfied. You thought the guest must be more than that. Because you cook all the time, and sometimes you go to the restaurant, you imagine that a guest would be such and such. But the guest is only there just to eat. That’s it, and you pay your money and then you go home — no big deal.

True Spiritual Practice Is Gentle And Graceful

Similarly, if we have spiritual visions. Sometimes because we expect too much, we think a vision must be this, that and the other. It’s not. It’s a very ordinary thing. It’s not like an electric shock that you know when it comes, or when it goes. It’s very gentle. The transition between materialism into the spiritual spheres is very, very gentle. Therefore, it’s not a kind of astral projection that you know when you are out of the body, because it’s not the way of true spiritual practice. True spiritual practice eases the self into different dimensions in such a very gentle and graceful way that you don’t even know you were there, because you had no more ego while you were there.

Otherwise, you know, “Now, I am on the first, now I am on the second, now I am on the third. I am the saint — third degree or third year.” It’s no good. I’ll tell you why. Because we are already always there where we want to be. So what’s the point of knowing where you are going and what degree you’ve reached? It’s okay for some, to lure them onto the spiritual path. But it’s not for everyone, and it must not always be like that.

For example, maybe when you first graduate from law school, you are proud. Yes, you probably tell everyone about it, make many parties because you want to celebrate your graduation as a doctor of law. But after some years you don’t even remember that you are a lawyer. Occasionally people ask. You will remember; but without any pride, without any elation or without any happiness, nothing; because you are just that. Nothing new to you.

When You Are Empty, Then You Are Full

Similarly, some of us are so acquainted with spiritual elation that it becomes like breathing. That’s the way it should be actually. It’s not always I sit here watching the Buddha’s lands, because then we are still separated. We are not in the Buddha land, we are watching the Buddha land. We and the Buddha land are two. The nearer masterhood, the more ignorant you will become again. That’s a paradoxical thing of life. That’s why in the Tao Teh Ching Lao Tze said, “The wise are like the fool, ignorant.” Yes, you become like recycled again.

But it doesn’t mean you are ignorant the way you were ignorant before. It’s not the same. Before you were ignorant and now you are truly ignorant, ignorant in the real sense. Before you were ignorant, but you thought you were wise. You cheated yourself into wisdom and thought that you knew everything. But now, you know that you are truly ignorant; and that’s when you are wise. Because when you are empty, then you are full. The universe is yours. When you are full of all garbage, then you are outside. I am talking to all the people, the invisible beings as well and also to myself.

I’ve had that feeling also, sometimes before. It’s hard to be a master, because you deny yourself everything, including visions, including the knowledge of the so-called computerized data. I only know what I must know and at that right time. That’s it. That’s all we need for the moment. Otherwise, it’s burdensome to carry all this wisdom with you and show everyone that you are a master. It’s not the way.

   

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