Spoken By Supreme Master Ching Hai,
Hsihu, Formosa, April 9, 1991 (Originally In Chinese)

No one is perfect, but it's all right if you don't regard yourself as an ordinary human being. However, this isn't easy, because you have become accustomed to despising yourself life after life, and have lost track of your identity. You learn worldly knowledge and develop worldly talents blindly, caring only about surviving in this world. You have forgotten your greatness, so now you will train yourself again and rediscover your identity; it's that simple. Once you have rediscovered it, you can do anything you wish without running into difficulty, without having to give up your career, hobbies, relatives or friends. You can continue to embrace your lover. What it means is: When you realize who you are, everything is the Truth; and before you realize it, nothing is the Truth; this is the only difference.

Once you attain God-hood, you will sing and dance as you like -- no problem, I can guarantee that! I mean that once we know who we are, we even become better in our worldly hobbies and talents. Therefore, I'm not asking you to forsake the world, but we have to be mentally prepared to forsake it in exchange for the Truth. We have to be ready to renounce it if and when it's necessary. If we're in this state of mind, we can soon reach deep into the Truth, into the vast ocean of wisdom. It's good enough to be mentally prepared without having to do it. We should have the determination and spirit to put the Truth before all else, and then the obstacles will definitely be removed from our spiritual path. If we don't have the spirit of renunciation, it would be useless even if we became a monk.

As I recall, there's no secret behind my attainment of the Truth. All I had then was pure sincerity. I pursued spiritual practice without any ideas, demands or any person on my mind. I was naturally like that. Even if you asked me to die for the Truth at that time, I would have done it, as I was not attached to anything in the world. Whether I had food or not, I would persist in my spiritual practice. I never complained, nor was I distracted from the Truth by food.

I remember, when I was in India, I offered all my money to the so-called masters that I met, so I was left without a penny. I never anticipated that I might sometimes yearn to have some biscuits, candy or ice cream. I had a better appetite at that time and ate a lot each day. Since I had no money then, every day I dreamt crazily about having some biscuits, but I couldn't get any. Only when I went out with people occasionally, would I swallow anything I was offered like a hungry ghost. Even then, those things didn't distract me from my aspiration for the Truth. That's the only quality of mine that I can remember, and that's why God loved me, and let me have a taste of what the "Truth" is like.

Therefore, I want to impart this secret way to you. Should we want to attain the Truth quickly, apart from securing an experienced master, we also need to have a sincere aspiration for the Truth; then it's enough. God doesn't require us to offer money, or to be a pure vegetarian. We observe a vegetarian diet to reduce our obstacles, and to refrain from incurring blood debts. God never imposes harsh demands of any kind on us.

For instance, when we go to school, the teachers never demand that we go to bed late, get up early, or learn this or that. They don't make harsh demands on us; but as students, we know that we can't study well unless we get up earlier and go to bed late. Also, when we're studying, we refrain from indulging in pleasures. Didn't we have a tough time when we were students? We sacrificed everything, and pleasures were very rare. Only occasionally would we go to dances or parties; we couldn't go every day. It wasn't because our professors or teachers forbade us, but we knew we must not be lazy and that that was the way to successful learning. If we were sluggish, we'd have to stay another year, or fail the exams.

We spiritual practitioners also have to follow some secret guidelines, for instance, being a vegetarian to keep our body, speech and mind pure. Free from the annoyance of subtle guilty feelings, our conscience will be at peace. We also have to take good care of the family and observe monogamy. Why? Because if there is turbulence and bad feelings within the family, we can hardly continue with our spiritual practice. Our minds will be distracted, and we can't focus on spiritual cultivation. The precepts are there to help us, to give us more time to concentrate, just like when we're studying in school.

Another example is that we refrain from watching bad movies and reading erotic publications. This is meant to prevent us from getting stimulated, and then forgetting our inner Self and our aspiration for the Truth. Keeping the precepts will not take us to God-hood. No! No! No! Let me cite another example: A student never goes dancing or indulges in pleasures, but can he graduate without studying? He can't! These are only helpful ways. In the same sense, you won't reach God-hood by keeping the precepts, being a vegetarian, or chanting the scriptures. At the most, you can only acquire some knowledge and know more about ethics. Attaining God-hood requires an entirely different lesson of training yourself to discover and dig out your treasure from within.

Someone asked me: "Is it enough to just take the precepts as our teacher?" What do you think? It's not enough! I'll give you one more example. For instance, when we're in the army, we have all kinds of regulations telling us what to do and what not to do. All soldiers must observe these regulations. However, if a soldier is only good at obeying the discipline but not at training his skills of fighting a battle, resisting the enemy, and defending himself and the nation, is he a real soldier? Of course not! Nevertheless, soldiers, especially new recruits, must follow the regulations.

Now you must first discipline yourself, and when you've become a general, you can do whatever you want! You'll tell others to follow the regulations while it's all right for you to be a little lax. It's because you've already gone through the training, and reached a higher rank than they have. It's time for you to train others instead of getting trained.

Therefore, when you've reached God-hood, perhaps I won't comment anymore about what you should do, but not now. Now you still have to follow the rules and train yourself to be disciplined. Otherwise, you'll be distracted and can't concentrate on our ultimate goal. For new spiritual practitioners, they had better keep the precepts strictly to build up their faith in the Truth. Therefore, don't ask me, "Why are You so strict?" I'm not strict! I just offer you the secret ways of spiritual practice. If we're too casual in spiritual practice, it will be difficult for us to learn the supreme techniques. Therefore, new practitioners should follow the instructions of the teacher. It's very difficult to follow the master's instructions. You all think that you can do it, but you may fail when the test comes.

It was written in an Indian scripture: The Muslim commandment says that not only should you not consume alcohol, even your clothes and your prayer rug must not be placed near alcohol. However, there's another saying that goes: If your enlightened master tells you to soak all your clothes in alcohol, you must comply. That means you must do whatever the teacher tells you, and this is really difficult! There's an ancient Chinese saying which says: Upon entering a temple, you should offer your acts, speech and thoughts to the Dragon God Dharma Guards, which means total surrender. When you're totally free of your own ideas, ego, and human prejudices and thoughts, then you've reached the state of total renunciation. However, it's very difficult; from my observation, very few people have passed this test.

When I was India, I once met a world-renowned master. I was coughing very severely, perhaps because I was allergic to dust. When I was there, I swept the floor every day. I observed that no one was willing to do the job, and the staircase was filthy and heavily covered with dust. Even the screens on the windows were very dusty, so I cleaned them thoroughly. Perhaps I didn't take good care of myself when sweeping the dust, so it went into my lungs and made me cough for several months. I coughed until I felt like my lungs were going to explode and I couldn't stand it anymore, as if I would die very soon. Day and night I coughed and could neither sleep nor meditate. Then, the master there summoned me. I believed in him very much then; I believed in every master. (Master laughs) Strangely, I had extraordinary faith. Whenever people said that someone was an enlightened master, I would believe it without testing him. That was how I treated all the masters I met.

At that time, I happened to believe in this master. He summoned me when he noticed that I was coughing very severely. I thought he would give me a secret remedy to stop my coughing, perhaps by using some miraculous power. When I went in, he asked me to drink a cup of liquid. After I drank it, they checked the bottle. Then, both he and his attendant turned green. They were shocked. Oh, no! That was massage oil! I drank a large cupful of it. It was good enough that I didn't die from it. I must have had very strong life power. Both of them were pale and frightened, but they didn't let me know it; I found out later.

After that, they came every day to ask me: "Are you feeling okay?" I said, "Why? I'm all right." (Master laughs) However, I felt really awful when I drank that medicine; I felt so bad that I wanted to vomit, but I didn't dare. How could I throw up the medicine given by a master? I regurgitated and swallowed it again several times until I swallowed it all. Phew! It was really terrible! It was sticky, spicy, bitter and oily. Good grief! I had never drunk any medicine that tasted so bad. Only later did I find out that they had given me the wrong thing. Yet I still didn't doubt him and stayed on for quite a while. Other ordinary people might have said, "He can't be an enlightened master! If he is, why would he have given me the wrong medicine and almost killed me?" But no suspicion was aroused in me!

Most probably because I was so simple at heart, and so dumb, God became more merciful toward me and let me realize the Truth sooner. I have very few secret ways. All I have are these very simple and easy ways, and I have told you all. Should you want to attain the Truth, your heart has to be as pure as a child's; be pure and simple in doing everything, then you'll soon attain the Truth. If you're complicated, dispute too much, debate too much, think too much about right and wrong, and take victory and defeat too seriously, don't blame me if you're very slow in attaining the Truth; your frustrations are self-created.

There's nothing really serious about the world. Sooner or later we'll all die, and our graves will be covered by plants in no time. So, before we enter our graves, we should try our best to live more happily, do what we love to do, and do it wholeheartedly; serve the world, take care of ourselves, take care of the family; enjoy all the beautiful things that the world provides for us. Sometimes, ugly things are also a kind of lesson, and have their beautiful aspects. When we observe things through more enlightened eyes, we discern beauty in everything. Have you noticed how pretty the frogs are? They're very cute, aren't they? We can see the lovely side in everything.

Therefore, let's do our best to treat this world as a temporary paradise, and treat all the people around us as Gods and enlightened beings. Although they don't recognize themselves as that, we should still respect them and treat them as we would ourselves; be strict but also forgiving; be loving but also detached. Then we'll be more relaxed in our actions, speech and thoughts, and we'll naturally attain the Truth by practicing in this way.

Don't rush, don't be nervous, and don't force yourselves. It doesn't matter what level we've arrived at, as it differs between individuals. By and by, everyone will understand. I can only promise you that you won't have to come back to suffer in this world, won't go to hell, won't become animals, and will definitely ascend. However, the level that you can reach depends on your confidence and sincerity in your quest for the Truth. You can't hold me responsible; I can only guide and teach you. It's up to you to go slower or faster, and keep yourself going in the right direction or the wrong one.