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Devote Yourself to the Romance of Godhood

Spoken by Supreme Master Ching Hai
Youngdong Center, Korea, May 6, 1998 (Originally in English)

Q: If one is to be a monk to work for You, is it possible to have one's own business at the same time or are You very demanding?

M: I am not demanding; people are demanding. I don't think you have time as a messenger to do business; being a messenger is your business. You'll be consumed. We don't have enough people to send all over the place as it is. Even though I have a lot of people, it's still not enough. It's not that you just go, give the initiation, and then leave. You have to be there for a while, get used to being with people and let them ask you questions before and after, make some more human contact and get more confident. After being in that place, you should go have a rest and recharge yourself. Then after that you feel strong again, you will have an urge to go out and give of yourself again. We can't just do it forever.

Doing business is very stressful. You can't afford to be that stressed if you are a messenger of God. You have to have time for yourself, to think, to be yourself again, to go within yourself, to develop your inner qualities, to remember your inner qualities, to be like an artist, like a very leisurely person, very loving and stress-free. Then you can give. If you don't know pleasure, you can't give pleasure. If you don't have peace, you can't give peace.

So, if you want to be like a messenger, you have to prepare yourself. You have to have time for yourself. You can do a lot of other things, but not like conducting business, not like a fixed thing. You can paint. You can draw. You can write poetry. You can change your job: for example, you stay in the Center, and sometimes you can go out as a messenger and do more theoretical work;, then you can come home and do some computer work for yourself, surf the Internet, type a letter, run errands, clean the floor, or do whatever, just for a change, just to make your life balanced. But you should not have to be occupied with making a living. Otherwise, I think it might be a very tiring and very unloving life for you. You will lose the sweetness of a monk that people expect from you. All work is God's work. But some work demands more inner contact. The more you contact inside, the nearer you are to God. You have to be yourself. People who have more time for themselves in a very direct way are more romantic, more artistic. The same is true for the monk or devoted renunciate.

The reason why most monks or nuns don't marry is because married life is also very demanding. It makes you forget a lot of things and makes it very difficult to accomplish your work. Most people cannot handle it, that's why, and not because sex is no good! It's just a very powerful energy and most people find it difficult to handle once it's opened up.

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