We should live each day as if it were the last day of our lives. Accomplish all you have to do. Don’t defer until tomorrow anything that you can do today.

From News 93, Aphorisms
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
(originally in English)

Q: How can we know our purpose, be sure what our purpose is? When others ask, can we help them know their purpose in life? What work are we personally meant to do here?

M: I have mentioned somewhere already that we are here to bless the world and to know our greatness. When we know our greatness, we are one with the whole universal cosmic power. And whoever comes in contact with us also has the blessing from this universal cosmic power. The earth will get more developed as more people like us practice and bless the world quietly with our spiritual merit and wisdom. That’s our purpose. Otherwise, what else do you think? Are we here just to eat two or three meals a day, have a few children, and then kaput? That’s not the true purpose anyhow! It would not be logical for God to take so much trouble to create us, then put us here for a few decades and let us die in misery, sometimes with cancer, agony, disasters, earthquakes, and so on. This is not logical.

So, the purpose of human life is to know God. Knowing God means knowing our own greatness, knowing the whole cosmic power of which we ourselves are a part. Even when we say a part, it’s a whole, you see. For example, if my finger is cut off, then it’s only one finger. But when it is attached to my body, it becomes one of the parts of my body, it belongs to my body. Even though I say it’s a part of my body, actually it is also the whole of my body. Therefore, we are part of the cosmic power, but we’re also the whole, if we are connected again. The little gap in between is reconnected at the time of initiation. We turn inward, we tune inward, we plug in, and then we are whole with the universe. Therefore, we bless anyone who comes around, without having to lay a hand on them or do anything to them. Anyone we sympathize with or share blood lines with, they are saved or are blessed in some form or another. It depends on their karma, and it depends on our love for them.

From News 115, Selected Questions & Answers
Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Brisbane, Australia • March 22, 1993
(originally in English)