So, the real Master truly is also hard to find. And I hope He or She won’t beat you up like Marpa did to Milarepa, and They just give you enlightenment immediately, the way I give it to my own disciples. So it depends on your luck. But the criteria is that you have to see the Light of Heaven and hear the Voice of Heaven, the Word of God, the teaching of the Buddha directly. That’s the criteria.
Because if you look for your own religious kind of system – a priest, monk, mullah, imam, prophet, or whatever you name it, then you might be disappointed. Because as I said, like the river, it runs elsewhere. It doesn’t stay in that same place all the time. After a while, it disappears underground, and then it emerges again elsewhere. So enlightenment is what you seek, not the outer appearance of someone who should impart that enlightenment to you. It may be in the same religious system, it may be in the same place, but it’s not necessarily like that.
So, you have to truly yearn for enlightenment – be humble, be sincere, be longing. And when you’re ready, a Master will appear for you; God will make a Master appear to you somehow, directly or indirectly: through somebody, or through a book, television, radio, or a CD. You have to have such intuition in your longing heart and be sincere, then you will find a Master, or the Master will find you.
And when you’ve found one, then stick to Him/Her. Just stay with Him/Her, and practice only what the Master told you – nothing more, nothing less. Don’t look to the other meadow, just stay put where your grass is green and comfortable. Even though the neighbors’ grass may look greener, it may not be so. It’s just the illusion; it’s just the condition; it’s just your expectation. It’s just like in the desert, sometimes you look in the distance and you appear to see a lake or a pond of water, but when you get there, there’s nothing. It’s because it’s just a mirage in the desert, in the hot weather. It is also like that sometimes on the road, on the asphalt road, you might see a pond of water ahead, but when you get there, it’s all dry – nothing like that.
Because I don’t write any script in advance, and I also don’t have any teleprompter or ghostwriter for me, so whatever I remember, even though it’s not in ABC order, please understand.
Now, we go back to the meditation method, or the Master who can transfer enlightenment to you with some of His/Her Energy to give to you in the beginning to boost you. Now, if you think just asceticism, the way the Buddha did, would bring you enlightenment, then you have to think again. It’s not like that. Otherwise, why did the Buddha not get enlightenment when He almost starved Himself in doing an ascetic method – almost starved Himself to death. And He didn’t get anything until He woke up and treated things in the middle way, not the extreme way; then He got enlightenment, got another Master or another determination, another type of practice method.
Not starving yourself, not punishing yourself – your body does nothing wrong. The body is the temple of God. We have to respect it, take good care of it, so that it can help us to find enlightenment in this lifetime on this Earth. It’s just like a horse-person who carries your cart. You might think he’s just an animal-person, but without him, your cart cannot go, cannot carry you to somewhere else, or carry some of your friends/relatives on the cart that he carries – the horse carriage, the horse cart. So similarly, the body is very important. Don’t ruin it. Don’t run after its lowly desire or ego, but take good care of it, understand what it is. And use it, respect it. The body is a temple of the Buddha. And in Christianity, they say it’s a temple of God, the church of God. So take good care of that. Even the Buddha took up a wrong practice, doing asceticism until He almost died. He was almost dead because of a wrong practice – didn’t give the body enough nutrition, even. Many people do that, and they die also, pitifully. Recently also. One person tried to not eat anything and then just died.
Breatharianism – you have to know how, you have to have expert guidance; otherwise, don’t try. I was just a young and impulsive person, so when the Abbot teased me, like, I ate too much, “One meal is equivalent to three meals” – but it’s not that true. Anyway, it doesn’t matter; even if it’s true, so what? But then after he said that, I stopped eating. And then he panicked; after a while, he kept panicking and asking. But I was OK. I continued to do all the temple’s work and helped him to transcribe what he spoke into the recorder. Nothing happened to me. And I never felt weak; I never felt ill; I never felt desire for any food, even though I had to cook for them and it was arrayed in front of my eyes all the time. But I never felt hungry, I never felt desire for food. I just felt like I didn’t exist in this world and that I walked on cloud nine. Everything was so light, so light, so light; so impossible not to be happy. But then I started to eat again, and the first meal tasted like straw, dry hay or something. It didn’t taste like food. And I could have continued forever even, because nothing happened to me; I stayed breatharian for that long, nothing happened. But finally, I gave up. Just bored – had not enough things to interest me to continue with the breatharian method.
Now, you can also drink water; you’d be waterian. Or fruitarian – it doesn’t always have to be breatharian. And you could be; you could also go without food. But you have to prepare. You might get very weak. When I was a breatharian, or even when I went back to one meal a day, or before that, I never felt any trouble. I lived, but I felt like it was without my body. I walked, but it felt like it was without my feet. I talked, but it seemed like I didn’t have a mouth to do that. It was just a very funny situation; hard to describe. I didn’t eat anything those days, and I felt OK. Then afterward, the Master reappeared, and I thought, “Oh, that must be it. It must be the Master who needs the food to save money, so he doesn’t want me to continue to eat. So he teased me like that so that I would feel bad and I would not want to be a nun anymore. And then he would replace me with the monk that he brought here.”
So the five extreme ascetic practitioners who were with the Buddha, they were also practicing actually extreme asceticism, like eating only a couple of sesame seeds and drinking only a little bit per day, every day like that. And originally, they looked down on the Buddha because they thought He was so weak, He just left in the middle like that, He was not good. But the Buddha changed to a different method, and He succeeded in becoming the Buddha. And the other five were still attached to this asceticism, believing that that’s the way to enlightenment, that’s the way for liberation. That is not correct, not correct at all. Even if you eat nothing, you might not be able to get enlightenment. You must have a Master, and then practice for a while until you’re able to do it yourself. Then the Master doesn’t have to watch you.
And the five persons who stayed as ascetics didn’t get any enlightenment; just more and more frustration, more and more weight loss, losing the will to continue, and they just were miserable. So, what I mean is that being an ascetic doesn’t bring you to Buddhahood, doesn’t bring you enlightenment. Only after the Buddha talked to the five – explained to them, expounded to them the religious book in their religion – then after that, the Buddha probably gave them initiation right there. Thus, they became hugely enlightened. That’s why they were very thankful to the Buddha. All the good disciples are thankful to the Master, because They truly bring them liberation.
You see, it’s just that after the Buddha taught these five ascetics and taught them the method, then they became also enlightened and followed the Buddha. Otherwise, just the Buddha talk alone is not enough. He has to give some of His bloodline, Energy to the five persons. Of course, the more initiates in the Buddha’s Presence, the more karma the Master will have to endure. And some Masters die because of that. Some die on the spot if some too bad disciples mingle in there or if too many people. But it depends. Some people are already very well-established in spiritual sincerity. Then sometimes, he meets the Master by chance, just has a glance from Him/Her, then he will die peacefully and go to Heaven instead of hell or wherever lower level that he was supposed to go. Because the Master has tremendous Power and can bless anyone He/She likes.
Photo Caption: May B Fragile, But Still Shines, a Beacon of Love.
