Selected Questions and Answers

Poverty Would Disappear
if We All Shared Our Abundance

Supreme Master Ching Hai's Interview with SABC TV Station,
Cape Town, South Africa, December 1, 1999
(Originally in English) Videotape #676

Q: We've heard that You go to places of suffering, places that have been hit by disasters and so forth.
M: Yes.

Q: Why do You do that?
M: You'd also go if you were me! If you have the means to help people, if God gives you more than you need, you should go and share the things you have with people. Because that's why they're given to you! Much is expected from those to whom much is given.

God doesn't give it to me so that I can eat more or sleep more; Hes gives it to me so that I can share. Just like when you have a big water tower in a city, it's not the purpose of the tower to hold the water there, but to share it with the whole city. So I'm just one of the pipes that directs the water to where it's needed. And since I'm alone, or even if I'm with my whole family, we don't need all the money that I earn. God has given me a lot more than I need, my family needs or even my disciples need. So we share it. That's a normal thing to do, no question.

Poverty exists because we don't share. You asked me why I go to places where disasters have hit or why I give my things away or why my members are also encouraged to give directly to people. They give all the time! We give some things because it's official. But the unofficial things we give as daily "basics." For example, we give to people on the street; we stop our cars at red lights and give. So some giving is official and some unofficial, but we give all the time.

Regarding the question of poverty, it would never exist if all the people in the world shared what they have. We have enough food; we have more than enough of everything in this world to feed the whole planet! It's just that some keep too much and some don't have the opportunity to get their share because of where they were born or because of their background or because of some political situation that stops them.

Sometimes we want to help in certain countries, but the political systems don't allow us to come in. Many times we still manage; through the Red Cross or the United Nations or through other organizations we manage to get through to those brothers and sisters. Poverty is man-made. God doesn't intend it. God gives us so much! Each one of us has enough, and then some. It's we who keep it from ourselves.

Selected Questions and Answers:

A True Master Transcends the Duality of Time and Space
The Best Blessings are Born of Inner Development
Poverty Would Disappear if We All Shared Our Abundance
Knowing God is the Highest Virtue

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	Aphorisms: The Noble Bearing of God's Children

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