It’s similar to the life I lived in India before, I told you, in Rishikesh. (Yes.) I love this kind of life. I don’t miss anything except that, except that life. I miss it sometimes, so much, so much, so much. Feel so free. You understand me? (Yes, Master.) You feel so free. We don’t need a lot of money. We have a very simple life.
Before that, we did have a little piece of land in Hsihu already. Small one, like down in the Forest Hall. Not even the whole Forest Hall like that, just where some of the tents (are). That’s where we had, smaller, maybe half an acre or an acre-something, less. So, we stayed there and then we made something to sell, so we had some money and we saved some. When we went to Hao Tsa, lived in tents like that for a while, we didn’t need to go begging. In Taiwan (Formosa), it’s not allowed to go begging for monks and nuns. I don’t see any of them. Most of them live in a big temple anyway, comfortable. More comfortable than me. And people come and make offerings to them. It’s also good like that. And they offer service to the followers. So, it’s a two-way service. I like that life very much.
I keep telling you, no? Didn’t I tell you before? (Yes, Master.) Living in a tent (Yes.) on the riverbank. Yes? (Yes, Master.) But the riverbank has also higher steps, higher area. So, we camped on the higher area and we went down a little bit, not too high so that you have to climb very hard. It was very nice. You just step on some stones and you’re up to your tent. And then you step down little bit and you wash your clothes there and then you take the water to cook and the clothes are dry in no time on the hot rock. It was a good life.
It’s similar to the life I lived in India before, I told you, in Rishikesh. (Yes.) I love this kind of life. I don’t miss anything except that, except that life. I miss it sometimes, so much, so much, so much. Feel so free. You understand me? (Yes, Master.) You feel so free. We don’t need a lot of money. We have a very simple life. Just go out and get some simple things, the basic staple food, like rice or potatoes. Some vegetables that last long, like cauliflower and cabbage and potato, carrots and all that. These last a very long time. Could last without a refrigerator. And if you want it cool, you put it in a bag and dip it in the water, under the rocks so it doesn’t fly away. So, it is very natural; you don’t have to pay anything. So wonderful.
Of course, we had a little camera and they did the theater sometimes, but we didn’t always use it. And if it ran out of battery, we asked some brother to come in and charge it in his home and bring it back to us. This kind of life, I really love it so much, so much. So happy time, so happy. We never had any problems, quarrels, or any bad words, or any bad temperament, or quarrelling with each other – nothing, nada, niente, nix. Always happy every day. Either sit there on the rock meditating, or hibernate in the tent, or walk around the banks, or climbing the mountains, or go look for some wild food, wild vegetables. Everybody was happy. I was happy. I never asked if they were happy or not, but I never saw them crying or complaining, so they must have been happy. Nobody wanted to come back to Hsihu before.
We had a little piece of Hsihu there before. We didn’t have as big as now. Just one-fifteenth of it. One fifth of it or one tenth of it. I don’t know, 10% of what we have now, something like that. Even then, we didn’t want to come back. It’s more convenient, but we didn’t want to. But then I had to, maybe I had to because of some program – already wanted to go out to lecture, already prepared or something. I don’t remember why we came back. Must be some lecture waiting.
OK! You want the ghost, not my calendar. I’m going to read you the ghost. Why was it that I talked so long? Did I...? Ah, I already started the story, right? (Yes, Master.)
- “So, the man died, nobody knew why. And then after, many weird things happened. Then they tried to get many priests. They went to the temple, the church, and asked the high priest named Yo’el, the priest who stayed in the other city of Zamość. He was very famous about doing miracles and magic. So they all went there and requested him to come to help get rid of the ghost for them. And then of course, the high priest Yo’el immediately went to the haunted house. And then he was very sincerely and kindly requesting all these ghosts, ‘Please leave the house.’ He asked them, ‘Why? Why are you haunting this house? Don’t you know...’ He talked to them, he preached to them. He said, ‘Don’t you know that you have no right to stay among living human beings? According to your position, your race, you should go to some wilderness or somewhere ugly, dirty. You should not stay among humans. Who allowed you? Who allowed you to stay with humans?’ So the ghost, the soul of the ghost answered him.” He could talk to the ghost, you see? Some people can. Some of my disciples can; Association members can.
“So, the ghost said to the high priest Yo’el, ‘In general, it is like that, yes. But this house belonged to us and we have the right, legal right to stay here.’ So the priest Yo’el asked him, ‘How do you know that this legally belongs to you guys when you never went to the court to claim it or to declare it? So now, first thing is that you have to bring your story, your complaint. Go to the Poznań Court. And then if your case is correct and if you win the court case, then you can say that you have the right to possess this house. Nobody can put himself above the law, even the ghost.’ That’s what the priest said to them. Ah! The ghosts heard all this advice and then they agreed. They said, ‘OK, we will go to Poznań Court and air our grievance.’ Next day, together with the high priest Yo’el and also the other lesser local priests, the human owner of the house and the ghost went to the court. When everybody sat down already, suddenly they heard a voice, but they didn’t see anyone. They just heard the voice and that voice said, ‘Your honor, please, I want to explain my situation. It’s that a long time before today, a long time ago, there was a person, he was a jeweler.’” He makes jewels. He’s a jeweler. Jeweler.
“‘He stayed in that house. And then he had two wives. One was a human wife and the other one was a demon wife or a ghost wife. But he loved the ghost wife more than the human wife. He loved her so much that even in the middle of the prayer time, he would drop it and run back home from the church in order to be with the ghost wife. So, like that, he continued to stay with the two wives. And both of them had bore children with him. But the human wife did not know anything about the second wife who was the ghost. But one day she found out. It’s like this. In the feast of Passover.’”
You know Passover. (Yes.) You know the festival of Passover? (Yes.) You know what, right? (Yes, Master.) Yes, that’s the festival to celebrate the time... the Jews escaped from Egypt and passed over the sea, to be in safety. Otherwise, they would have been chased by the Egyptian army and they would not be able to survive. Because after they passed over the water, the sea opened for them to pass over, to walk over. And after they all walked over, the sea closed again. So, the other soldiers of the Egyptians were drowning or dared not come down. You know that story, right? (Yes, Master.) Just in case you forgot. So now, where were we?
“‘One day, the human wife found out because it was the festival, the Passover feast. And in the middle of the party, the husband stood up saying that he had to go to the bathroom. But the mother and many children, their children, were waiting, waiting a long time and didn’t see him coming back. So she stepped out and went looking for him, worried that something happened to him. And then she went home... She looked everywhere in the house and didn’t see him, and the bathroom didn’t have, so she went down to the basement. And because the basement door was always locked, so she looked through the hole of the lock and she saw a beautiful furniture set, with a table and sofa and chair, gold plated. And there was a beautiful bed, luxuriously decorated. And on that bed, there was one beautiful woman sitting there without any clothes. And on top of that, her husband was kind of embracing her, and kissing her and all that as a husband would have done to a wife. So, this woman, the poor human wife, was so scared, frightened, she ran back to the dining room. She could not speak one word. She just sat there as if she had lost her mind, and all her body became trembling. After a while, the husband came back to the dining table. The wife also did not say anything. And then all the evening after that, she never spoke one word to him. Next morning, when the light broke, she immediately went out to have a look, to find the priest, and told him everything that she had seen. And then the priest…’” You should know this is a Jewish story, so a priest is like a rabbi also or some rank like that. “‘So she talked to the rabbi instead of…’” I just said the priest, but it’s a rabbi in their language, in their religious terminology.
