 Moses
led his people out of Egypt to the desert and then came to settle down
at the foot of Mount Sinai. One day, the Lord spoke to them through
Moses. The Lord said, I've taken you out of Egypt to this place. I've
been protecting you and given you plenty of good food, because you're
my favorite people! I'd like you to become my special friends. Would
you obey my words?
They answered together,
"We would!" Then the Lord said, The day after tomorrow, I'll come down
upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. So the people started
to cleanse themselves and wash their clothes, because the Lord was going
to see them.
 Keep
The Commandments In Order To
Become Special Friends Of The Lord
Indeed, when that
day came, the people all heard thunder and saw lightning and a thick
cloud upon Mount Sinai. They all trembled, because they knew that the
Lord was coming! Would you tremble when you saw God? No? Of course you
wouldn't, because you haven't seen Hirm. (Laughter) However, they deemed,
as what's recorded in the Bible, that the thunder that they heard and
the lightning that they saw were in the sky. In fact, that wasn't true!
They were from inside. We all have had these kinds of experiences. When
Moses and Aaron, two friends of the Lord, climbed up Mount Sinai, the
Lord bestowed on them the "Ten Commandments" and instructed them to
tell the people that only when they kept these commandments could they
become special friends of the Lord.
The Lord also said,
I'm the Lord. You should worship me and respect me only. You must not
make any graven images or bow down to them. Each time you mention the
name of the Lord, you must do it with veneration. Also, you should rest
on Sunday. (This means meditation). Originally, the sixth day was the
Sabbath Day. Since Jesus Christ resurrected on Sunday, the Sabbath Day
was shifted to Sunday. However, the Jews still observe Saturday as their
special Sabbath Day. On this day, people aren't supposed to work, but
only do things for God, such as chanting scriptures, reciting God's
name, meditating, or getting together at church to remember God's name.
It simply means to stop doing any worldly work!
An example of this
is that you come here today and we study the scriptures of God and do
God's work together; and we meditate and remember God's great name in
order to serve Hirm. This is correct and is to Hiers liking. So you
see, the wind stopped as soon as you came here today. (Master and audience
laugh. Applause.) After you meditated for a while, even the rainstorm
stopped. There was supposed to be a heavy rainstorm! This shows that
God is pleased! (Master and audience laugh.)
The commandments include
being filial and respectful to parents, not harming other sentient beings,
being loyal to one's spouse, and refraining from having relationships
with other men or women. They also include refraining from stealing,
telling lies, and coveting things that belong to others.
This is just like
what I've told you, that you shouldn't covet things from other people.
We shouldn't take anything that doesn't belong to us or that people
don't personally give to us, even if it's only a blade of grass, because
it's not worth ruining our reputation and gentleman's manners, not to
mention breaking the precepts. It's very bad already that our self-esteem
has been damaged! Do we have to wait for people to put us in jail?
Being human beings,
our self-esteem is very important. There's no need to wait for others
to tell you whether you've broken the precepts or to judge whether you
were right or wrong. No matter what other people say, we know what we've
done. This means that God knows or that our inner Master or God inside
knows that we've done bad deeds. This is bad already! Therefore, we
actually keep the precepts only for ourselves.
What I've just read
to you are the "Ten Commandments" set out by the Lord. The Lord explained
to Moses about how to apply these commandments in various worldly situations
and wanted Moses to explain them to the people. When the situation was
different, the commandments were to be applied accordingly. The commandments
were meant to protect people, not the other way round.
For instance, a person
almost starves to death and is very weak. He and his wife and children
are dying of hunger or his parents are dying of hunger. If he goes out
and steals some bread or rice to feed his family, he doesn't break the
commandments. I'm speaking frankly, if this person stole from me, I
wouldn't accuse him; instead, I'd give him more. By doing that, he wouldn't
break the commandments. In that kind of situation, we can't say that
he stole.
On the other hand,
if we have enough to live on or people have offered us enough to live
on, yet we desire to be more comfortable, more beautiful and more glorious,
in this case, even if we steal only a blade of grass, it's stealing,
because it's unnecessary! Therefore, we should make a judgment only
after we've clearly understood the commandments and considered the intention
and situation.
In another instance,
I've told you not to accept other people's offerings and not to casually
accept gifts from others. However, if you're ill and have no money because
other people have not repaid you, in that case, if I give you some money,
but you still refuse to accept it, you're being really stupid! (Laughter)
At that time, it's not that you're coveting it, but that you truly need
it. If you don't need it, even if you accept only a dime, you'll incur
heavy sin! However, if you really need it, it's no problem no matter
how much you accept.
Therefore, we shouldn't
cling to the commandments. We should see whether it's suitable to apply
any of the commandments to a situation. Of course, we ought to strictly
keep the commandments in the event that we may harm others by doing
otherwise. Sometimes when others try to harm us, we should do our best
to protect our lives. In case we're killed, we shouldn't harbor any
hatred against them, nor should we kill them for our own lives. It might
not be bad for them to kill us, because they might help us to get liberated
from the life and death cycle sooner. (Master laughs) In that case,
we ought to be grateful to them! Therefore, when Jesus Christ, Shakyamuni
Buddha and all the other Masters of all the ages were harmed by others,
They wouldn't resist like the worldly people usually do. Although the
worldly people may be good in some respects, when they aren't treated
well, they still have the notion of killing or taking revenge. As spiritual
practitioners, we leave everything to God no matter whether it's good
or bad. So we have nothing to fear.
Then, Moses began
to explain the commandments to the people. Hence, those people promised
to keep and respect the Lord's commandments. Then Moses went up to Mount
Sinai, because the Lord told him that Hes would write the Ten Commandments
on a big stone tablet. He climbed up to get it.
However, Moses might
have stayed in samadhi for too long this time. He didn't go up there
only to get the commandments. He might have studied the commandments
while sleeping. He might have meditated, become tired, and after some
rest, continued to meditate. He might have wanted to have a retreat.
Before he received the commandments written by the Lord, he might have
wanted to purify himself and strictly kept the commandments first in
order to have more wisdom to understand them. So he might have meditated
there for too long.
Knowing that he had
been away for forty days, people who were waiting for him down the mountain
became impatient. They began to get angry, sway, and their faith became
weakened. They murmured to each other, "Well! I wonder what happened
to Moses and why he hasn't come back!" They told Aaron, "We want another
God and a different master. Moses led us from Egypt to this place. So
he's our only master. However, now since he's gone now, we need another
one. Let's have one quickly, okay?" (Master laughs and says, "They even
placed a fast delivery order for a master!")
Aaron was rather dumb.
He agreed with the people and asked all of them to give their gold and
gems to him. Then he molded the gold into a calf. He proclaimed, "This
is your new master." He then made an altar to put the calf on to let
people bow down to it. Then the people were pleased. With the passage
of time, they forgot what had happened before and said, "Oh! It was
this golden calf, this master, who led us out of Egypt to here and liberated
us from slavery." They kept worshipping it. Then they reveled in dancing
and singing, while worshipping the god of the golden calf.
Seeing that in such
a short time period, people broke what they had just promised to Hirm
and worshipped another god, the golden calf, the Lord became angry.
It's written here that the Lord was in wrath. I don't know whether God
would be angry or not. However, if Hes was angry then, I wouldn't blame
Hirm. When Moses came down from the mountain and saw the people dancing,
singing, and worshipping the golden calf, he also became angry. At that
time, Moses' anger was very intense. He cast the tablet carved with
the commandments of the Lord down the mountain and it was broken into
pieces. He then burnt the golden calf and ground it into powder.
Moses scolded the
people, "How could you do such a terrible thing? You're senseless and
stupid!" He kept scolding them, not simply like that. He might have
scolded them a lot, but only a couple of sentences are written here.
After the reprimand, since Moses always loved his people deeply inside,
he prayed to the Lord to forgive those ignorant people, not be angry
with them, and give them another chance to repent and become good again.
The Lord was also
very patient. So Hes wrote down the commandments for them again. This
time when Moses took the Ten Commandments back to the people, they behaved
well, didn't sing or dance, hadn't molded another golden calf as their
master, and didn't worship other gods. They became very humble, and
listened attentively and patiently to Moses when he expounded on the
decree of the Lord, the Ten Commandments. From then on, a covenant was
made between the Lord and the Israelites, and everyone was pleased.
|
Master
Says
Keep
The Commandments In Order To Become Special Friends Of The Lord