News 83, Master Says
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Hsihu Center, Formosa • May 30, 1990
(originally in Chinese)

After Fool (Sounds similar in Chinese.) (Eve) and Bold (Sounds similar in Chinese.) (Adam) had gone down the hill, they gave birth to many children who later scattered and lived in different places and countries. Gradually the world became chaotic and people became worse and worse. They didn’t follow God’s instructions and didn’t respect Hirm, nor did they care about how Hes wanted them to live. That is, they didn’t care about virtue and the commandments of God. No one listened to God.

God Regrets Creating Human Beings

Then God began to regret having created human beings. There was only one thing that Hes could do, that was to re-create human beings. Since Hes felt very annoyed, Hes decided to destroy the entire world. However, this decision brought Hirm a lot of anguish. Hes wanted not only to destroy human beings, but also to destroy the entire world. Therefore, Hes decided to flood the world, to submerge everything.

However, there was a person who was very good, who had lived according to God’s instructions, rules and precepts and who also loved God very much. This friend of God was called Noah. God told Noah about the flood and explained Hiers plan.

God said to Noah, “I want to save you and your family. You should build an ark big enough for all your family members. With the remaining space, you may bring some animals — two of each type, a male and female, so that they can multiply.” You see, God was very thoughtful! If Hes had let Noah plan it, Noah might have brought three females and two males of each type, and then they would have quarreled and not even been able to lay an egg. (Laughter) God also said, “There should be enough space to store food for you to survive a long time.”

Noah followed God’s instructions and began to build the ark as Hes had asked. This work required a very long period of time. Many people came to see him and always asked, “What are you doing? Why are you building such an ark?” Noah told them God’s plan, but no one believed him. They all thought that Noah was crazy. They thought that he must have had a mental problem to do such a thing. Can you imagine that? Noah lived on a high mountain, which was far, far away from oceans or rivers, several thousands of kilometers away, yet he was building an ark! They all said, “How stupid he is!” and laughed at him. But Noah still believed in God and his faith didn’t waver.

The Flood Submerges Everything

The ark was finally built, and then it started to rain. So Noah, his family, the birds and other animals in pairs all ran into the ark. God then told them to lock the door, so they did. They saw that the rain was pouring down and it kept pouring down each day. Soon all the rivers and seas overflowed and the water level kept rising. Gradually the ark was lifted up and Noah and his family floated on the water. However, the rain didn’t stop and one day, everything was submerged, even the highest mountain disappeared. Nothing could be seen, nothing was alive, and nothing could be saved. Noah, his family and the animals were in the ark with only water around them, nothing else.

Can you imagine that the world could become like that one day? Suppose we are drinking tea here, but suddenly water is everywhere. It’s hopeless even if we go to the top of the roof, and even the highest mountain disappears. At that time, the world became a very lonely, quiet and pitiful place.

Eventually, the rain stopped and the water level gradually fell. One day, the water receded sufficiently so that the ark came to rest on a mountain top. After some time, Noah wanted to know whether the land had become dry or not. He had to make sure before he went out. So he opened a window and sent an animal out. But the animal didn’t come back. It might have drowned, because it had rained for a long time and the forests had become rotten and muddy. Then he released a pigeon. But for the pigeon, the land wasn’t dry enough, so it flew back. Pigeons are trained to fly back. Noah opened the door and let it come in.

After another period of time, he sent the pigeon out again. This time when the pigeon returned, it was carrying a green leaf in its mouth. Noah knew that the trees were beginning to grow and the land really had become dry enough for them to go out. He opened the door allowing everyone to go out. All his family and the animals were very happy so they went out cheering and dancing. They had stayed in the ark for a long time, so they must have felt bored.

God told Noah, “Now you can leave the ark and go out to start new lives.” They thanked God for protecting them. They then collected many stones and built a very big and tall altar. They cooked food and made offerings to God. At that time, a rainbow appeared in the sky, with which God showed Hiers compassion, and kindly promised Noah, “From now on, I won’t destroy the world again.” God made this promise so that people could start new lives.

Do you know why God did that? It’s true that when God created human beings, Hes gave us Hiers spirit, to let us have Hiers wisdom and love. However, when they wanted to use them, these qualities were filtered by their minds. If our minds don’t work well, we’ll reduce the love or use it to do evil deeds. So the mind is a very important instrument. If our minds don’t work well, we become different. So God didn’t destroy human beings but only their damaged instruments. When Hes did it, Hes knew that Hes had done it correctly and it was nothing fantastic. However, to create such a beautiful world, it takes a long time. It takes millions and billions of eons to create such an Earth.

Even Diamonds Are Created From Coal

You all know that in the beginning, our Earth was chaotic. There was no life, no human beings, no animals or anything. It was like a fireball. No one could live on it and nothing alive could survive. After a long, long time — millions and billions of eons — the surface of the Earth cooled down; but its center is still hot even now. Occasionally the center explodes and then we say that a volcano has erupted. The heat from the lava can melt stones and minerals, which gradually cools down and becomes different materials. That which cools down more quickly becomes harder materials, while that which cools down more slowly becomes stones, et cetera. Although they’re different kinds of materials, they’re all similar in quality. So you see, wood can turn into coal after being compressed for a long time.

What can coal turn into if compressed for a long time? (Audience answers: “Diamonds.”) Yes, diamonds. That useless black material can become diamonds, precious stones. It consists of the same elements, but the different pressure turns it into different things.

Similarly with us human beings. We’re all equal originally. But what we become depends on how much effort we put into it. It’s true that we’re all equal and we all have the Buddha Nature within, but it depends on whether we train ourselves to become Buddhas or not. We can’t just half-heartedly hope to change ourselves, or we’ll only be like coal and emit black light. Nevertheless, diamonds also come from coal. All precious stones are created from coal or from ordinary wood.

It takes a long, long time to create a world like this. We say that it’s not perfect and sometimes we dislike it. But in fact it has taken a lot of hard work to create it. Even an insect, a mosquito or a fly is of a great design. The Creator had a great plan and made a special design for each kind of living creature, not only human beings. It took a lot of time to create even a small animal. So God was also in anguish when Hes destroyed the world.

But one has to give up an instrument after using it for a while. Just like when we drive a car for a long time, and it becomes old and damaged. What can we do about it? We have to discard it and leave it in a junk yard. Later it’ll be crushed into a piece of metal, which will then be used to make other things or parts for another car. Similarly, after this world was destroyed, it could have been re-created by other instruments.

Only The Instruments Are Destroyed

The human brain becomes bad when used for too long a time, because it collects bad influences. When it’s filled with bad information, a person will become bad. After a while, it becomes too bad to be used anymore. Then it has to be erased and re-created all over again. However, our souls exist forever.

God has given everyone a living-loving spirit. Hes can take it back and integrate it within another instrument, then Hes won’t lose anything. It’s the instrument that has been damaged or destroyed, not the person, not the soul, not God or the Buddha Nature. This is what happens when we die. If we can separate our Buddha Nature from the instrument, we’ll be free to find another instrument to attach to; but if we can’t, we’ll be attached to our old instrument unable to disassociate from it.

After initiation, God’s Power helps us to repair our instruments. In case it can’t be repaired, after we die, Hes will help to permanently separate it from us, and then we’ll be free to find another useful instrument — better, more perfect, more useful and more easily maintained and reparable. That’s all. It’s not that we lose anything. We’ll still be the same, but our instrument will be new.

It’s just like buying a new car when our old one doesn’t run. But we have to have the money. The initiation gives us the “money” — makes us wealthy, and gives us merit to buy a new instrument later, since we can’t repair our old car and can’t sell it for the time being, even though we ought to drive it away to discard it. That’s why we still drive it for the time being. That’s why it’s said that fixed karma can’t be changed. We have to wait until we buy a new one. That’s all.

The World Can Be Saved If More People Practice Spiritually

This world is really not a big deal and nothing happens actually. It’s just that if it’s reparable and if we can repair our own instruments, there’s no need to destroy the whole world. We can gradually repair our instruments one by one. For example, if you’ve fixed your car, you can help to tow another car or fix it, or you can give people a ride so that they don’t have to drive their damaged cars and have an accident. So you save your own car, then take others with your good instrument — tow their cars to the airport or to the garage to get repaired.

Therefore, if many people practice spiritually, this world wouldn’t be destroyed but could be repaired gradually. It’d be enough to repair a portion of the human being population. Then these people could carry others. If everyone carries some and takes care of his share, then it would be balanced and everything would be all right.

We can see from this story that at that time, no one believed in God except Noah’s family, who followed God’s instructions. That was why God destroyed the entire world. If more families in many places had believed in God, Hes might not have done that. Since there was only one family, it was very simple for Hirm to handle.

Our world will not be destroyed, because there’re some people practicing spiritually. However, I think that it’s very difficult. After practicing for a while, they become sluggish and forget their purpose in coming here. They quarrel over trivial things, struggle with nonsensical feelings, and forget the matter of life and death. We should first strengthen our faith regarding life and death; and then whatever we do, we won’t forget God.

It’s not that we can’t do other things. For example, Noah had a family — he had a wife, children and many animals — but he didn’t forget God. This is why he was different from others. Other people also have spouses, children, businesses and animals; but they’re completely attached to them. So we spiritual practitioners should know what’s the most important thing and what’s secondary.

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