I greet you in the name of the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, and God Hirmself, our Father. May God bless you so much to heal whatever sorrow that’s still felt while we are in this physical existence.
(I wish you all a good evening. I leave the speech to Supreme Master Ching Hai.) (Good night to you all. I leave the microphone to Master Ching Hai.)
How do you say "good evening" in Turkish? （İyi akşamlar (good evening).） İyi akşamlar? （Yes.）Oh, very easy.
I greet you in the name of the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, and God Hirmself, our Father. May God bless you so much to heal whatever sorrow that’s still felt while we are in this physical existence. We also share with you the suffering of thousands of people in the recent disaster. Our hearts are with you. We prayed for you. We did pray for you in a very far land, in every land apart from Turkey, away from Turkey. We did pray for you and for the whole world, too, including Turkey. We have also sent comfort in the form of material assistance, but we pray more so that God will send the real comfort in spirit to your country and your people, my people too.
I am very excited to be in your country because this is my first time and your country is so beautiful, so beautiful. When I was in Germany I knew a lot, a lot of Turkish people who lived there, who worked there. And they are all so very, very generous, very hospitable to me. But I only knew the humble, humble class people, and they work very humbly, and they're very humble and they trust God; they are not the arrogant kind. And because of their humble position and in a strange land - not only in Germany, I know them in France and in England, and even in Holland - and because of their humble position, they are far away from home, and they have to work in a strange land, and sometimes the language is not their basic skill, and they have sometimes hardship.
And so people, because they are so humble, so humble. I think the Turkish people are humble because they fear God, not because they fear any other people in that land. But they have been sometimes misunderstood because they are very humble people.
They're humble because they pray five times a day. They just remember God. They forget to be so fierce in this competitive world so they did not give an impression of very aggressive people, But I know them through friendship, and I know that they are really great, and they are so generous and so hospitable. Whatever they have, they share with you. But because they're so humble, sometimes some of the native people do not give them due respect because they don't know they have come from such a great country, such a great history, great culture.
Before I came here, I also did not know that. I did not have enough time to study your history. I just know it recently, and I also did not know that my friends, the Turkish people that I knew came from such a great heritage. You have two of the seven wonders in the world. You have so many other famous things that people don’t even know, including myself. I did not know.
I wanted to say that the people who went out of Turkey and work in the foreign land, they did not represent a complete picture of your culture as a Turkish race, as a great historical race. So, I was so surprised when I landed in your capital and went around a little and see all these great things that are still left over in your country. It's sad. But it's OK. The joy is more, doubled because I am surprised.
Similarly, we are the children of God, the Qur’an told us that, the Bible, every bible told us that, every religious bible told us that we are children of God. But we don't really have a good impression by being here. Because we are too busy for survival, we have forgotten our great Home. Only some lucky people truly can have direct contact with our original Heaven. Many people still have lost the connection with our Father. And we look upon each other as just a mere mortal, a mere human being, and we have forgotten that we are brothers and sisters, and we are truly heavenly beings.
But in some moment of our deep prayers - I mean really real prayers, not mechanical prayers - we do have glimpses of Heaven. And that's when we know God really exists, Heaven really exists, and we feel so blessed, so happy that we could not even talk in human language about this happiness. Just like I heard people talked about Turkey and I know Turkish people, but I didn't imagine your country is so beautiful. And when you come here, you feel different, you feel the excitement, the newness of discovery. But when you are in America or Germany, you heard of Turkey, maybe you don't even want to go.
Similarly, we heard of Heaven, we heard of God, we heard of the angels, but we thought we normal people cannot see them, only the Prophet or the disciples of the Prophet can see them. But we can see them. (Why?) Why? Because we can. There is a way.
There is a way to ascend to Heaven while living. Just like everything else, like I come to Turkey, I take an airplane and later, I finish, I go back home. If I have money, I have visa, I can come back to Turkey again, come back home again, come back to Turkey again if I like, go back home again. All I have to do is go to the airline, the correct airline, pay the correct money and go to Turkey. And if I don't do anything unlawful that breaks the law of your country, I could stay for a while and come back again and again.
Similarly, we could go to Heaven, come back, go to Heaven, come back. But we don't go with the physical body; we go with the spirit. Just like when you sleep, you leave your body, you don't even know the body exists. Sometimes you have a dream, you think you go somewhere. Some people even sleepwalk.
And similarly, we could consciously leave this physical temple for a while and go contact the spirit in a spiritual world with our same spirit like their spirit, and the angel will take us there, if we know how.
The reason the Prophet, Peace Be Upon Him, told us to contemplate, to pray to God five times a day is that if you pray hard enough, long enough many times, there is a chance that you might have a glimpse of Heaven, that you might be calm enough to contact the angels or the messenger of God - the invisible one - and then they will take us to Heaven, they will show us the way, but we must calm the mind, we must forget the whole world while praying. That is the real, real prayers. That's what the Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon Him, did in the cave. He calmed His mind, He forgot everything – His possession, His wife, His work, His success, His money - everything. He forgot His body. And that's how He can elevate Himself to the level of angels in spirit. And that's how He can contact the angel in spirit, and that's how He can get the message from God. The same, we have to do, we can do.
