Teachings Karma  
 

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Karma

Our bodies are created life after life from desires. Strong desires repeat themselves again and again, forming certain fixed habits that cannot be changed. This is what is called being tied down to karma. Karma is habits cultivated through many lifetimes. Regardless of whether it is good or bad, it ties people down.

From News 101, Aphorisms
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
(Originally in Chinese)

Q: Does bad karma stop the development of enlightenment in any way?

M: It doesn’t stop it altogether; it just stops it a lot. But you can also change bad karma. After enlightenment or after initiation, the real Master will erase the past karma for you and leave only the present karma alone. Because if everything is erased, we can’t live anymore in this world and we have no excuse to exist. By leaving the present karma for this life to continue, we still have the good and bad karma included in it.

So I can’t tell you that all the bad karma will be erased. But by following the discipline and the vegetarian diet, which minimizes all future karma, our life will become smoother. We’ll have to deal only with our existing but not our newborn karma. So we won’t be reborn again as a suffering being but as an enlightened Saint if we wish to be reborn again in this physical world. And if we don’t wish to, we can stay in a more elevated spiritual world as a teacher or simply as a citizen of the universe, but enlightened and happy.

Bad and good karma exist because we’ve sown them in previous lives. But we can never destroy stored karma without a living Master’s help. That’s the law of God. That’s what the grace of God gives us through the Master, to be authorized to take care of the stored karma and burn it up so that the Truth seeker will be more light-weight in order to go on the road because it’s very difficult.

It’s very difficult to work in this world and be spiritually aware as well. That’s not even talking about the stored karma waiting. And if the stored karma isn’t destroyed, the person still has to come back. Because what he paid is just this present lifetime’s karma, which is already fixed. The stored karma hasn’t been destroyed. And after paying for this, he has to pay for another one. So the Master will have to destroy the karma that’s in storage and only leave a little for this present lifetime.

But this is easy. And the more we meditate, the more we communicate with God, the more we know how to handle even bad karma. We don’t feel the burden so much anymore because we’re stronger. It’s just like having more resistance; then even if we’re down with the flu or something, we won’t die. We don’t feel so weak. We might get sick, but we recover quickly.

From “The More We Meditate, the Better We Can Deal with Karmic Retributions”
News 148, Selected Questions and Answers
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Europe four-day Retreat in London, UK
August 27, 1997
(Originally in English) Videotape #595

Q: What is universal law?

M: Universal law has two classes: One is the law of absolute love and grace, while the other is the law of action and retribution. When we’re in the higher dimensions of the Kingdom, then we have only love and grace; that’s the only law. But when we’re in the lower scales of the universe such as this physical dimension, we have to abide by the law of cause and effect. That’s what is meant by As you sow, so shall you reap in the Bible.

So, most people who are not in contact with God have to suffer the law of cause and retribution. But for those who can ascend to a higher dimension, they enjoy only grace and love. God never judges us.

From “The Highest Realms Are Ruled with Love and Grace”
News 167, Selected Questions and Answers
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Stockholm, Sweden • May 31, 1999
(Originally in English) Videotape #655 (Part I)

Q: What is karma and what is the association between karma and enlightenment? Is there such a thing as immediate enlightenment within the concept of karma?

M: Karma is what we call cause and effect. Whatever you sow, so shall you reap in the Bible, that is karma. Now, we can sow and we can reap, but then we can wipe off also. Therefore, Jesus, Buddha had to come to earth in order to help us to pay this terrible debt that we could not pay ourselves, which is called karma, which we sowed so many, now we reap so much. So some people like the Father, Son or the Buddha come down with unlimited merits, understand, and they can give anything you need, they can pay the debts for you. Because God is all merciful, limitless of grace and blessing, whatever you ask, you will get. If you knock, it will be opened.

Now mostly, we don’t ask, we don’t knock and we just knock our heads against the wall, (audience laughs), so we get not much grace and blessing. And we think God is not merciful. God is. Hes always sends some of Hiers messengers to the world like Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, etc. to save us, to lead us back home. Despite our karma, in spite of our heavy debt, they can take us home and we can get immediate enlightenment through such persons’ grace.

For example, now we are born in a very poor family. Our family, generation to generation, has been poor like that and we can never have any hope to get any richer or to get any better situation in the society. But then along comes a prince or a very big officer, and he has so limitless wealth and he happens to chance on our family and he happens to like us or like our daughter, wants to marry her. Then, we become different people, we become a different family, our position will change. However much debt we owe to the neighbors, or to the landlord in our region, he will pay with his own money and take us to the palace.

Now God is similar to a very rich, wealthy, billion, billion, billionaire. Whoever calls on Hirm, Hes will cleanse all the sins and make us angels, make us God-like. Why is it possible? Because there’s nothing impossible with God, anyhow. If Hes can create the whole universe, Hes can just take us home if Hes so desires. But then because we do not know where God is, and between God and us, there exists a very thick curtain of so-called karma, so Hes needs to send someone looking like us in order to go through and shake hands with us and say, “Hey, come.”

God is so intangible, so abstract. Even though Hes appeared to us, we would not see. We are used to seeing illusion, we are used to seeing concrete forms. If God appeared, we could not know, we could not recognize. So we need someone who is expert to tell us, “Oh! Yeah, what you saw yesterday, that is God, or let me make you see God in a moment, or in five minutes you will see Hirm. When you see such and such and such, that is God who appeared to you in such a form, or in such energy, in such wisdom.” Then we understand.

So, you can get immediate enlightenment for sure. No doubt about that. We can see God immediately because God is within us. In the Bible it is said: Know you not, that you are the temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells within you. If Hes is within us, then we could immediately see Hirm, no doubt. It’s just a question of know-how. In American we say, “know-how”, hah?

From “Is God A Being Or A Non-Being”
News 51, Media Reports
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Berkeley University, California, USA
October 13, 1989
(Originally in English)

Why do most people reincarnate in the cycle of life and death? It’s because they are reluctant to leave this world, and so they want to come back again. There is something that they can’t give up, so they want to come back to enjoy it. Or, some people have serious guilty feelings and so they want to come back to repay their debts. However, we no longer have karma! Our past karma has been burned by Master and now we don’t create new karma anymore. We keep the five precepts and are vegetarian. We don’t owe anything in the world. If we earn money for our own use and don’t accept any offerings from others, then do we owe anyone?

The karma in our storage is very simple to get rid of, a fire can do it. With the San Mei fire (Holy fire), the whole world can be burned, let alone your little karma. Only the present is important. In the present and future, we are not creating any new debt so we will not owe anyone. If we are no longer reluctant to leave the world, then why would we want to come back? At the time of dying, although we try our best to think of something that we like, we just can’t find anything. What we think of are all very painful and very terrible so that we only want to run away fast. Therefore, spiritual practice is not blindly believing but is, instead, logical.

Even if you do not believe that I can incinerate your past karma, you still have other logic to believe. For example, a farmer has saved a lot of taros or rice in his storage for the next season’s planting, or he has saved the seeds of a new crop. However, when the planting season comes, he does not take them out but keeps them in his storehouse. So, the longer he keeps them in there, the more rotten they become. They can be eaten by insects, become rotten, or be carried away by mice and ants. Then they have no chance to develop and no chance to sprout. No one gives them water, no one gives them enough soil, and there is not enough sunshine. They lack everything. Therefore, they will become rotten themselves.

Similarly, our past karma, it remains in our memory. When it has a chance to come in contact with the outside, it will develop further. Now, we don’t do that anymore and we don’t give it any chance to develop. For example, now we no longer make mistakes like we did in the past. In the past, we did many things wrong. If we continue to do a wrong thing now, it will trigger our past mistake and develop into present or future karma. However, we don’t do that anymore, so that it has no chance, no material and not enough conditions to develop further. Do you understand? (A: Yes!) Therefore, we should keep the precepts, we should be vegetarian, and we should meditate. Even though we meditate, we still create a little bit of karma each day. In case we have created new karma carelessly, we can do the Quan Yin to wash it out. Therefore, we are very safe and have no leakage to let the karma sprout.

From “The Karma Has Disappeared!”
News 67, You May Not Know
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Pintung, Formosa
January 24, 1993
(Originally in Chinese)

   

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