Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai Group Meditation, Hawaii, USA March 28, 1993 (Originally in English)

St. Peter is supposed to be very serious - he has the key to heaven, you see. At one period of time, God forbade any "unserious" person to go to heaven because they always came there very undisciplined, lying around everywhere, drinking, making a mess, and they didn't clean their garbage and all that. So God forbade, and said, "Only serious believers can go to heaven! The unserious persons have to go to the intermediate state, stay in hell, or stay in the human realm. We have had enough with casual laughing, loud noise and garbage everywhere. It can't be like that!" So, St. Peter knew it, and he took the order very seriously, checking that anyone unserious could not come.

There was one woman; she had always been a good joker in her life. She had never taken things seriously and she laughed all the time. When she died and wanted to go to heaven, St. Peter said to her, "No, you can't. Lately God has had enough with laughter and the "unseriousness" of human beings. Hes forbids any "unserious" person to come up. So, sorry."

The woman was very sad and said, "Oh please, won't you give me a chance? I promise I will never tell any jokes in heaven. I will be very serious. I will never show my teeth again. I will never show a "tooth".

St. Peter said, "Oh no, I can't believe you people. You are always cracking jokes. How can you be serious?" The woman said, "Please, please, won't you believe me? I will never say anything anymore, never, ever!"

St. Peter felt very sorry for the woman. She was very sincere and she hadn't done anything bad in her life. She had always gone to the church and given the priest what he demanded; given to charity and did everything that the church demanded. So actually, she was a very holy person. St. Peter said, "Oh yes, I've looked at your record and you are all right, except that you laugh too loud all the time. But if you promise to be serious, I will talk to God about it first."

So he went back and reported to the "Boss" up there. The Boss said, "Is that right? If she is that good and she promises not to laugh again at random, all right, give her a chance. But you have to give her a test first to see whether she is truly serious. Let her cross the one-thousand-mile bridge. If, during the crossing of this very narrow bridge, the razor's edge bridge, she doesn't laugh and she doesn't tell any jokes at all, then she can go to heaven. Otherwise, the bridge will break and she will fall down."

So they crossed the bridge together. Then suddenly, the woman started to blah, blah some joke as habit would go. St. Peter said, "Don't joke! Don't laugh, okay?" She said, "All right, I forgot. I won't talk. I won't laugh." But then, as they walked on, suddenly the bridge broke. Do you know why? St. Peter laughed. He heard the joke and he couldn't help it. He laughed.

Accident It's Too Late