Any Master Who comes, anybody who does good, will be slandered. You don’t know how much I have been slandered over these years, privately, or openly. But the Masters knew already – have to bear it. Even just not talking about Masterhood or anything yet.
Like, for example, in Buddhism, recently even, if somebody likes one monk especially because he shows outwardly some kind of principle, then they begin to not like other monks who are more normal – doing just the normal work and being a normal monk, not strongly emphasizing or showing his holiness or principle-keeping, for example. Then the two groups of followers will have problems with each other – even come to violence, went away to other temple areas, other compounds, and beat up the monks and even the old nuns, just because they voice their opinion about the other monk that they follow.
Everyone follows someone else! And even that monk, maybe outwardly he seems holy, but who knows what he is inside, what his motives and intentions are, and how much knowledge, wisdom, he has – how much enlightenment he has already gained. Maybe nothing. Just outside only. And maybe the other nuns and monks who criticize these so-called “holy” monks are even holy! It’s just the way they have to do their work. So they (the followers) should not beat up the other side of belief and divide Buddhism, make it weak. And then don’t even go to their temple and go running after the other so-called “holy” monk – you can, you can do that, but you cannot just abandon your previous teachers.
He did what he could. He sacrificed his life. He doesn’t have a family, a wife and children the way you enjoy your life. And he eats more simply; he wears only simple clothes, has only a few pairs of clothes, and lives in a simple place – even in the temple, a small room or something. He “threw” his life away, all the pleasure around him, in order to be a monk. Maybe he’s not an excellent monk, but at least with him, you have learned to remember the Buddha’s teaching. He teaches you what he can. And if you think he is not good enough, then you can find another monk or teacher, of course. But do not come back and throw stones, tomatoes at your old teacher because he knows less or he doesn’t show enough discipline for your frame of liking! That is violence against the Buddha’s teaching. The Buddha would never want any of His followers to go and beat up another follower.
Because you’re also a normal being; you don’t know which monk is holy, which monk is really not. Sometimes some monks are good intentioned inside, but they may say some words wrong in the heat of the talk. There may be no planned lectures, no teleprompter like some rich people have. I don’t have at the moment. I had it at some point, several times. But the things I say sometimes, I jump out of script anyway. And I don’t like to prepare a script unless it is for some… No, I don’t do it. Anyway, just several times when they prepared it. I don’t do it; I just talk. Like now, I’m talking in the dark, naturally, whatever comes. Because it comes from my heart, from my very soul, from my very, very love for you all, even though you don’t know me.
Many don’t know me, and I don’t know many – physically not. But I know all your souls. I know you love happiness. I know you want to go Home, even if your mind stops you, deludes you. Even the maya of the world, which rules the planet, tries so hard to separate you from your original Home, from your original noble intention and aspiration. Please try to go back. Find some time in the day to remember your original ideal and why you come here, and ask God to guide you to some teacher. If you can’t find out for yourself, ask God fervently, sincerely, desperately, to bring you a teacher.
And now we go back to the monks’ battlefield. Many religions fight against another religion. And within a religion, sometimes they fight each other. Also, in the Buddha’s time, His cousin, also a disciple, and even brother-in-law, went against Him, even wanted to kill Him. He just propagated to others that he was “more disciplined” than the Buddha, more ascetic and all that. What a stupid thing!
Some people will eat three, four meals a day, and they still are enlightened. Some people eat nothing at all and are not enlightened. Like the Buddha, when He ate only three, four sesame seeds a day and drank just a little water, He wasn’t enlightened at that time. Until He realized it was wrong, and then He U-turned, lived normally in the middle way – so ate once a day, but well, then practiced a different way – and then He became enlightened.
But the Buddha had learned many things during the ascetic time and also afterward. He had a lot of time; He was all alone, and He learned many things. There are methods to learn how you read your past life, methods to learn how to read other people’s minds; there are methods to learn how to walk on water; there are methods to learn how to fly in the air. Buddha mastered some of that – flying in the air. So, sometimes, if it was too long and too inconvenient, He would fly with some of His disciples to the invited house to have lunch. It’s recorded in the sutras. If you don’t believe me, have a look. And He had the ability to read people’s minds and to go back to the past life of Himself and of anyone else as well. And He could do many other things. Because He had learned all that even before He became enlightened, and some also after enlightenment. And some also come naturally with enlightenment, like you can hear far away, you can see far away.
And nowadays, some people still have those magical powers. They can also disappear in thin air; they can fly in the air – even still can do it! Some do it obviously. Mostly they don’t show. It’s just sometimes they do it and accidentally other people see it and photograph it. Nowadays, you can photograph, you can keep anything, you can show anything because you have high-tech. But, at least a few hundred people are still practicing all kinds of wholesome magic like that for their own convenience. And also, they don’t have to eat anything anymore. But there are not many you can meet. They hide. The Buddhas left many more sutras about how to learn all this kind of magic as well.
When He (the Buddha) was alive and many people followed Him as monks, they also had all kinds of magical powers like flying with Him, going through stones, things like that. So, one time even, one of the monks who followed the Buddha was sitting in front of the ashram where the Buddha stayed at that time with some thousand monks. He was mending his jiasha (kāṣāya); the monk’s outer dress. And one of the Kings came and wanted to visit the Buddha but He didn’t know where the Buddha was. So, He asked this monk who was mending his clothes, “Can you go and see where the Buddha is and announce to the Buddha that I’m coming to visit Him, please?” So the monk just walked through the rock and went inside to find the Buddha for Him. And later, the Buddha saw the King. The King was very impressed and asked the Buddha, “Who was that?” – the monk who was sitting outside mending his jiasha (kāṣāya), it’s a special name for the dress that the monks wear. After the official monkhood ceremony, they wear the special jiasha (kāṣāya).
So the Buddha said, “Ah, he was one of the poo cleaners, following me and became a monk.” The King was very, very ashamed and feeling very repentant. Because when these people wanted to become monks and became monks by the Buddha’s permission, then many people slandered them, made fun of them, rejected them, saying, “Oh, they just came for food, fortune and fame.” But it’s not true. In a short time, they learned all kinds of things from the Buddha and walked into the rock to go to the other side of the big rock to go a quicker way than having to go the official way. That King was very surprised and impressed. It’s like that. Many people who followed the Buddha at that time were not rich and famous or anything.
And even the wife of Mahākāśyapa, They never had intimacy with each other anyway, She was following Him to become a nun. Like, in the beginning, because She was new, so Mahākāśyapa took care of Her. He brought food for Her and They ate together. And then others gossiped and slandered, all kinds of things. So later They separated; They didn’t eat together anymore, and They each took care of themselves, alone, for example like that. Being a woman near the monks’ company and having a former husband bringing food to you and being nice to you… It’s because They were nice together! They were husband and wife, but They separated for a noble cause. It doesn’t mean that They should separate and look upon each other like strangers or anything, because They never had anything wrong done to each other, and still didn’t!
But humans are humans, and we always have trouble. They always look at the outside things, outside actions, and don’t look inside for enlightenment or the status of that saintly person. Even if they want to, they cannot because most of humanity lost everything already. They came down from Heaven since a long, long, long time ago, and they keep losing, losing. And now and then, they gain back their own wholesomeness, but it doesn’t mean they could be enlightened and become Heavenly beings again. So, their judgment is all blunt. Their eyes are all blind, even if all open. Their ears are all deaf, even if they still can hear you talking. But they don’t hear the real things from the inside world, from the real world. They don’t see the real things from the inside. Inside themselves, they have the real world, the whole Universe, but they see nothing, they hear nothing.
Photo Caption: A Humble Origin, Can Still B in Regal House.
