Spiritual Practicing Makes The World More Civilized
Columbia University, NY,USA. November3, 1989.
Page 5QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION Q.When you attain enlightenment what happens to the personality?
M. Do you mean if you are a veryangry person, will you become more calm? It happens. Yes, it affectsour personality to become more perfect.
Q.Buddha emphasized mediation, now Catholics struggle to learn meditationin a Buddhist way. In Catholic meditation we use some Bible, usethe words to learn, read, use word meditation. In the Buddha '5way, meditation is emptying the mind. How we can use this wayof meditation to reach God?
M. Once we are enlightened, weknow things differently, from the ordinary understanding. BeforeI also did not understand what was meant by 'emptying your mind'?What's the Kingdom of God? What's Buddha Nature and all theseterms? It was so big for me. After enlightenment, everything islike a child's game. In the Catholic tradition, some have meditation.You know that Christianity has many retreat centers, many hideaways,what we call secret orders. No one can enter even. What do theydo? They contemplate, they pray, they meditate.
What's meditation? I'lltell you. After prayer or maybe worshipping God for long hours,our arms ache from tearing the beads apart and our knees are sometimestired. So then we might just drop down and sit there or kneelthere in silence, to have a rest. At that time, God's instructionwill come. That's meditation. We have to be quiet in order tolisten. We always talk and God has no chance to tell us. So theprayer is the talking, the demand; and meditation is the listening.Most people just keep praying all the time or always make noiseor always talk, and God has no chance to tell them what to do.No wonder their prayers are unanswered. God has no opportunity.
So the meditation isa must from a logical standpoint.Whether you are Buddhist, Christian,Muslim or whatever, I don't care. If you cannot make time to listento God, then God can never be communicated with. Even if you talkto a friend - you telephone, you talk and then you must listen.Even if you ask me, you must first ask, and then now you mustbe quiet so I have a chance to tell you. How can we treat Godeven worse than a friend. We keep talking all the time, and giveHirm no chance. Meditation is the time of quiet listening. That'sall there is, and God will come.
Q.You say a genuine master should not perform miracles, yet Jesusperformed miracles and healed people.
M. Remember what Jesus said toHis mother: Why do you tell people that I can perform miracles?He was very reluctant to do this. Because His mother had alreadytold people to prepare water and leave it there, this forced Himto do it. Many other times He cured the lepers, He cured the sickpeople; but He waited until no one was there and went and toldthe person to get up and get healed. When He saw people come afterHim, He immediately disappeared. Do you remember? He hid Himself.He didn't want to let people see. He also told the patient notto tell other people. But that person came out and told everything.
So even if masters havemiracle powers, they seldom openly use them to attract the attentionof the masses. They only want to attract the sincere seekers forthe Kingdom of God; because if you are after miracles only, thenmiracles are all you will have not the Kingdom of God. If youare after the Kingdom of God, you seek the Kingdom of God, thenall things shall be added onto you. You'll have miracles and allthings. Therefore most masters avoid attracting people by miracles,for fear that they will pay their attention only to that partof the God power and forget the whole.
Q.My life is in danger. Do You feel it?
M. I understand; but whether yoursor mine, everyone is the same. Whether you know it or not, ourlives are always in danger at any moment. So if you want to protectyourself, then get enlightenment. Use your wisdom to protect yourown life. No one else can do it!
Q.To be a lifelong vegetarian, without mea1-eating is prevent fromkilling. But can we eat eggs?
M. Eggs contain half of the life.They unite together and become a chicken. This is the first reasonwhy we should not eat eggs. Now some eggs are unfertilized, butstill they contain half of the life in them.
The second reason isthat chickens they eat all kinds of worms with bacteria and disease.So when we eat them, the eggs are not that pure not good for ourdelicate system. The more we practice, the more we becomevery sensitive. It's dirty.
The third reason isthat all the black magicians, witches, they use eggs to attractso-called dead souls, controlled souls. If we eat them, we alsoattract these souls to ourselves. We add more negative natureto our own beings. It's not very helpful for spiritual progress,so we don't eat eggs.
Q.As the Buddha asked His disciples to filter the water,; do wehave to filter our environment and our actions so we may attainenlightenment easier?
M. Yes, we do! Therefore the emphasisis on keeping the precepts, the commandments.
Q.What do You think of astrology?
M. Doesn't change much. Doesn'thelp much. We have to change from a higher plane of consciousness.Not just by knowing what happens tomorrow. We have to change ourlife, our way of living in order to better our life and smoothour path not by consulting an astrologer; because he might tellyou to avoid one disaster, but the next will follow. You cannotalways have an astrologer in your pocket. Whereby you have yourwisdom all the time with you and this is the best 'astrologer,'the best guide to tell you everything. In the course of time,even he doesn't tell you.
It takes care of youeven if you are not yet at a very spiritually perceptive stage.The Master inside will take care that you do not run into so muchtrouble, and smooth your path for you. That's the best thing todo; not to consult an astrologer. Besides, once we are very highlydeveloped in wisdom, we are above astrology. No one can read yourpalm any longer. No one knows under which star you are influencedanymore. Finished, you are above the stars, the sun and the moon.Nothing affects you.
Q.Why is there so much suffering in this world? Is there innocenceinvolved in suffering?
M. No one is innocent. Exceptwe are born again, we are not innocent. Born again means repentingour past misdeeds and promising God to lead a better life, a virtuouslife. Then God's grace will descend on us, will help us, cleanus, purify us, and make us become a child. Then we can say: "Iam born again, I am innocent." After the initiation we cansay we are innocent.
If we follow the virtuouspath, then we will always be innocent; but not before that. Weare burdened with the so-called original sin, or the past karma.We cannot say we are innocent. We, everyone of us, are responsiblefor the condition of our world today. Whether knowingly or unknowingly,we have done some damage to the world. We must repent. We mustchange our way of life. We must live in wisdom, in virtue.
Q.If there is only one God, Buddha, why are we God ourselves?
M. Because we are all one. Itis an illusion that we are many. After enlightenment, you seewe are all one. It's only one spirit, one unity, one great beingin all of us. For example, the sunshine, is it the whole? Sunrays are from the sun. It's a part of the whole. But because thesun has to shine in different directions to benefit in differentaspects, therefore we have many sun rays. We cannot say that asun ray is a separate sun ray. It's an illusion to say a sun rayis a separate sun ray. It is not at all. It's an illusion, ignorant,to say that the waves are different from the ocean. Is it nottrue?
Q.What's wrong with occasionally having a beer or a glass of winewith friends?
M. It looks like nothing is wrong,but people start from there. People start from a glass of harmlesswine and a beer with a friend, and become alcoholics. They couldn'tsuddenly become an alcoholic, no? It develops from a glass ofbeer, a glass of wine, and becomes more habitual - take more andmore and become possessed with it. So don't start. Don't playwith fire. Also any drop of wine, anything that's alcoholic dullsyour wisdom, kills your memory, takes you further from the Truth,makes you forget who you are, and disconnects you from the gloriouspath and your highest wisdom. Therefore we better avoid it.
Many people were bornmentally damaged. It's due to them having killed their own wisdomwith too many intoxicants in the past, like alcohol, drugs orsuch things. So do not play with fire! We do not know how muchwe can control ourselves. No one knows until it is too late. Allmistakes come from the overestimation of our control of will power.It's easy to say, but hard to practice. So better not to try.Now you see the world is already very mysterious and foggy. Whydo you want to add more confusion to your mind? Our vision isalready blurred, already not clear. Why should we add more toour, unclear mind with alcohol or drugs.
Q.Why can't people control themselvessometimes?
I told you already.It's easy to control people, but not easy to control ourselves.It's because we do not learn controlling. Also it's because ofthe karmic set-up which we do not understand. Some people we seefor the first time, we fall in love with. We call this love atfirst sight. Someone we've just met for one second, we want tostart a fight with him. It's not that we do not want to controlour emotion or anger, we just can not because of the karmic background.
Maybe that person wasin love with you before or made some nice, good impression inyour mind. So when you meet that person for the first time, youfeel overwhelming love and sometimes mistake it for love at firstsight. It's affection from the past. The one whom you want toget into a fight with, it was maybe because in a past life hewas angry with you all the time and troubled you a lot.
Q.Can an ordinary person, a worldly person, also get enlightenment?Can they attain the supraworldly state?
Please explain, Master!
M. Of course! No one is an ordinaryworldly person!You are only cheating yourself. The Most High isin your heart, so how could you be an ordinary worldly person?No one is an ordinary worldly person, but you deliberately makeyour-self one! We do not wish to know that we are the Almighty.Everyday, we just earn money, sleep, eat, raise children, andnever seek anything else. It is all right to work, eat, sleep,and have children; but we should also be enlightened, know whywe are doing this, and know that we are the Most High. If youare not enlightened, and engage only in worldly work, of coursewe will stay forever in the world, and forever be an ordinaryworldly person.
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