Spoken by Suma Ching Hai, Harvard University, Boston, MA USA
 February 24, 1991 (Originally In English)

Q: The last goal of meditation is liberation. Please, Master, let me know if a liberated soul is really liberated from greed, anger and lust, etcetera.

M: Yes, I already said the enlightened person when he is angry, it's not real anger. He is not deeply shaken. Or the person who the anger is directed towards is not affected with hatred, with the negative atmosphere. The enlightened persons are never angry for selfish purposes. He's never angry because you don't give him enough money, because you run away from him, or his wife runs away to another man or vice versa and he tries to chase her back and finds other ways to harm that person -- the rival. The enlightened person may appear to be angry, but for different purposes.

Sometimes you have to use so-called aggressive energy to break through it in order to work and to advance in your mission. He's not angry because no one feeds him, no one gives him money, or no one loves him. You cannot get away from anger. You must use it. There is a difference between the real anger and the one who is enlightened who uses anger as a weapon.

It's just like a knife in the hand of the surgeon. It's different than the knife of a murderer. It's still the same -- it hurts, it bleeds, but it heals. The surgeon knows how much to cut, where and how long. But the murderer, he just blindly kills people out of hatred or for selfish interests.

Anger, greed, lust and all the so-called negative qualities all came from nirvana; all came from the Kingdom of God. They are all noble qualities. Why are we greedy for the things of this world; because we came from the glorious Kingdom of God. We are used to glory, we are used to richness, we are used to the things that we don't need to work for. That's why we are mostly lazy -- don't like to work. We just want money, we just want diamonds. (Laughter) We must know in this world, it's different. We use this greed to push ourselves through this world in order to achieve the precious stone which is inside us, the wish fulfilling gem.

Greed is not bad. Anger is not negative. Lust is okay. Just we have to use them in the right way. Use it as a tool to heal, not to kill. Then everything is okay. Nothing is negative. It's our misconception that makes things negative. (Applause)