News 76, Master Tells A Story
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Hsihu Center, Formosa • June 3, 1990
(originally in Chinese)

There was a person call Abraham. He and his wife called Sarah lived in the city of Ur. One day, God said to Abraham: “I want you to leave the city of Ur quickly and go to a very far away place. The place is called Canaan. If you follow my instruction, I shall make you the leader of a great country.”

Sarah had no children. However, they very much believed in God and therefore did what Hes had instructed. They had a nephew called Lot. They brought along some servants, animals and some possessions and left the city of Ur.To leave their relatives, friends and all the familiar places to go to a very foreign country was very unpleasant to them; they had a hard time and hesitated about leaving. During the migration, they used camels and walked very slowly. The country was very far away. Nevertheless, they finally arrived. There they set up their tents.

From that day onwards, they lived very happily together. However, their herds and flocks — cows and sheep — continued to grow in number. Therefore, their location did not have enough water, and could not provide enough grass for them to eat. Gradually, they started to quarrel — “this land is mine,” “that tree is yours,” “this lake was mine and that was yours,” “my sheep can drink but yours cannot”. They started to quarrel for these things.

These people who quarreled were the servants who looked after Abraham’s and Lot’s animals. Since they quarreled, Abraham and Lot decided to separate. Abraham let his nephew Lot choose first where he wanted to go. He did not want to use his position as an uncle to overpower him and therefore he let him choose first. Lot decided to go down the mountain to the plain because there was a basin in the plain. There was water there as it was close to the Jordan River and it was close to a city called Sodom. Besides, it was very green looking and seemed to have plenty of grass. Since he thought that there was plenty of grass and water for his animals, he then walked away with his flock.

This decision meant that Abraham should stay on the very dry, bare mountain. The grass there did not seemed to be plentiful and the water there also seemed scarce. The basin that Lot was going to looked very abundant and all green. However, Lot’s decision was wrong. Although the basin area seemingly looked good, there was something unpleasant which he discovered after he went there. This was that the people living in Sodom were proud, cruel, greedy and lazy. They had a very ferocious character. Very often many horrible things happened in Sodom. However, no one felt ashamed, no one would take care of such matters, and there was no one to protect the weak ones and to punish those wicked ones. However, God was very fair. Hes would not close Hiers eyes to such unfair happenings; Hes would not close Hiers eyes to allow those ferocious people, those who intentionally did wicked things to continue to act freely. Therefore, Hes decided to let the city of Sodom be punished since the people there did not feel ashamed of themselves and had done many evil things.

One day, the weather was very hot and Abraham was resting in his tent. He saw three strangers walking towards his tent. Abraham stood up to greet them; he invited them into his tent to rest and gave them something to eat. Since the visit was not expected, Sarah and the servant hurried to prepare some food. They baked some fresh bread and cooked some fresh food for their guests and also gave them milk and cheese. After eating, the three strange men started to explain why they had come.

At that time, both Abraham and his wife Sarah were old already. However, God gave them very good news. Hes said: “You have longed for a son. He will be born not too long from now.” After hearing this, they were very surprised and happy. Although they were already old, but since they believed in God and God would not cheat them, therefore they knew that it was going to happen and so they were very happy. However, those three men also told them something which made them worried: God decided to punish Sodom and destroy it. Since their nephew Lot was living in Sodom they were worried. In Sodom, the only virtuous people were his nephew’s family and some servants; all others were not good and God did not forget them.

God sent Hiers messenger to Lot’s home and warned him of the coming disaster and told them to flee. However, Lot’s family did not want to leave Sodom as they were living very comfortably there. There they had everything — rich in material and there was no lack of grass and water. They had become very rich there and life was very comfortable.

Therefore, they did not want to give up everything to leave. At the last minute, God’s messenger had to push them outside the city to a safe place. When they were just outside, there was great fire in the city. They almost did not make it. Before they were far away from the city, the earthquake and fire had already started in the city. Falling from the sky, blowing up from the ground; the wind and fire seemed to come from nowhere and destroyed the city! The air was full of dust.

When it was already so serious, Lot’s wife was still not willing to leave quickly. She was still hesitating and slow to move. She stopped to look back and therefore, she was killed. Her husband and two little children were not hurt. But the wife and all the others were killed because they did not listen to God and did not run quickly. They did not think it could be so serious and thought that it might be all right. They were still attached to their possessions, their homes; and consequently, they were all killed. Only Lot and his two daughters ran away safely. God rescued them.

God is the inner Master — called God or Buddha. When God wants to appear to us as a human being, Hes transforms Hirmself to be the inner Master. Otherwise, as God is omnipresent and great, how could we catch Hirm and talk to Hirm. It was the inner Master’s instruction and they said it was God’s instructions.

There were not too many tests in this story, but there were some. It was actually not a kind of test, God just spoke the truth. But because their mundane minds did not want to listen — thinking that these kinds of things would not happen: “It won’t! Nothing will happen!” So their minds were slow to accept and then a lot of disasters occurred. It’s all because we do not listen to the instructions from the inner Master.

Sometimes, we depend on our limited brain and ideas and then there are a lot of disasters. It’s all created by ourselves. Therefore, Lao Tze said that troubles are made by ourselves. A practitioner, if being looked after by God, being looked after by an inner Master, usually would not have any serious problems. Even sometimes when they do happen, the inner Master would take care of them. It’s when we don’t listen to Hirm that we cause trouble for ourselves.

Just like in the story — Lot’s wife, even when God had already sent people to warn them to leave quickly, she was still attached to their possessions. As a result, the possessions were gone but her life was also gone. When we have life, the human body, we can get back some possessions after a while. But when the body is gone, it’s not useful anymore. So, sometimes most of us do not know what is of secondary importance and what is the most important. Just like those sent by God to deliver the warning, they seemed to be illogical. To tell them to leave their family, their relatives and friends, to leave their possessions — all seemed to be illogical to them. It was like asking them to do something bad, something wrong and detrimental to them.

Being attached to our possessions and homes is very common and seems to be very logical. However, it is those who use an urgent tone of voice to push you out who are really helping your life. What use are those who spend time to comfort you, to shake hands with you only to die together? Because Lot’s wife was still attached when she left, was still squandering her time and looking back. She still wanted to go back. Those servants who sympathized with her died with her. Those who hastily pushed them out and raised their voices were the real saviors.

Sometimes we find it difficult to distinguish who is good and who is not good. It is because our mundane minds are used to sweet talk and do not use wisdom to judge. Many kings of old were the same. Since they listened to the sweet talk of those bad ministers, their kingdoms collapsed. Those good ministers were usually straight in their talk and very often were not placed in important positions by the king. Being a Master is just the same. Since the talk from others is so different, many do not wish to listen to the Master and relatively few people like the Master.

In USA there was a monk called Yogananda and he was very famous. He said his Master was very direct. He said if his Master was not that direct, his Master would have become the most famous teacher in India and had the most number of disciples. Since his Master did not always talk sweetly, the number of disciples was less.

He wrote in a book that there was a person who practiced the Quan Yin Method and had contact with the inner Master. One day, there was war in India and he ran quickly from the street into another person’s home so that he could escape the bombing for a while. However, though the house was very big and not crowded, the family wanted to kick him out and pushed him away. They were very unkind to him and pushed and kicked him out, so he had to leave. He was rather surprised, “Why was it like that? Why was Master not protecting me? I have run for such a long way to find a family and go in to hiding, but I was kicked out.” He was complaining all the way on his way out. However, soon after he left, the family received a “bang!” and everyone inside was all killed by the explosion.

Sometimes we think that some situations are not good for us or are harsh to us. But after a while, we know. It’s similar in this story. Those strange people went in to persuade them to leave their possessions, to leave their home and friends, and to leave their many flocks of animals. This seemed not to be good to them. However, it was the only way to save them. What was important was their lives and not their possessions.

Sometimes, we cannot understand how the inner Master works. We think that Hes should be very gentle to us everyday or that everything should be very smooth and good. It’s not always like this. Sometimes the situation is not smooth, but after a while it becomes better for us. Therefore, we’d better not ask to have smooth sailing all the time, we should only ask the inner Master to do whatever is good to us. Whether it is smooth or not, it doesn’t matter. After a while, it will become smooth. In our daily living, unavoidably we will encounter many difficulties and many situations that are not smooth. We cannot be happy everyday. If we are happy everyday, we won’t treasure it. It’s really like this.

Just like the story of the “stupid” and the “daring” who were living in the Garden of Eden that I told you last week. I called Eve and Adam stupid and daring. Being too ignorant therefore they were stupid. God had given her everything except an apple, yet she was still calculating and wanted to possess it. She stole the only possession left behind for God. That was no good and therefore she can be called stupid. Being too happy and too comfortable everyday, one would not treasure it and subsequently one would do silly things. If there were no lessons from society, no turbulent situations to educate us, we would never learn. In very good circumstances, one just lays there. Then, the spirit could not be strong, the body would not be good, and our disposition would be corrupted. Besides, there would be a very high sense of dependence and no humility. Therefore, no matter whatever difficulties we encounter, don’t just think that it is not good.

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