I can only tell you that God is the greatest Power that you can ever imagine. The greatest Love that you can ever have. The greatest satisfaction that you can ever long for. Hes will… God, or whoever that Power, the Buddha Nature, the Highest Love, the Highest Ideal in the Universe, that is God. And when you get That, you become higher.
(What is God, in Your terms?) God is…is That. God is That. Oh, my God! What is God? If you want to know, I can let you know in a few minutes at the initiation. But if you ask me, I’m also lost again.
I can only tell you that God is the greatest Power that you can ever imagine. The greatest Love that you can ever have. The greatest satisfaction that you can ever long for. Hes will… God, or whoever that Power, the Buddha Nature, the Highest Love, the Highest Ideal in the Universe, that is God. And when you get That, you become higher. You become everything; you can accomplish everything; this is what God is. But so little people know of God because they think they have everything in this life already. To talk about God is so abstract, hence, no one understands that. And it’s difficult for the one who has realized God to even talk about It. Because we human beings, with the poor language and limited understanding, cannot perceive God by explaining, but by self-knowing and realizing by own experience. The Quan Yin Method is the method to know God quickly, immediately. And every day you know Hirm again and again; every day after initiation, Hes looks after you. Then you know there is God. Is that alright?
(Why is there an age limitation to initiation?) The same thing. Because sometimes people, when they get too old, they are a little bit confused in the mind, and they cannot understand the instructions, or they cannot follow the vegan diet. That’s all. If you could, and your mind is still very clear, then you’re welcome. No limit. Even 80 years old. The soul is forever young. It’s only the mind that we need in practice. Because if the mind doesn’t grasp what is talked about, then he won’t accept it, and he won’t let it go through. It is a gatekeeper. If you’re not friendly with him, he won’t let you come in.
(If people are reborn, why is the world population increasing?) Because people are reborn. Because most people are not enlightened and not liberated, therefore the world population increases. Because there are some from hell that come up to be incarnated as human beings. There are animal kingdom beings – after paying their retribution as animal-people, they come back and become human. The more cow-, duck-, chicken-, pig-people we eat, the more overpopulated the world will be. These souls have to find some revenge field for these actions. Also, there are some angels, some people from paradise. After some period of many thousand years or hundred years, they will reincarnate again on Earth as a human being. Therefore, the world is always overpopulated.
(If we are created in God’s image, then why are we so ignorant? Why didn’t God create us enlightened?) Hes created us enlightened. It is that we don’t walk with the (inner Heavenly) Light; we put it behind. We hide that (inner Heavenly) Light; we hide our (inner Heavenly) Light in the closet. If you want to know where the (inner Heavenly) Light is, you just get initiation, and immediately see it. There is no need to ask God why Hes is not so loving. Hes is so loving! It is, we don’t use it. Just like you put your eyeglasses on your head, then you telephone somewhere, and then go around looking for your eyeglasses. It is here, you can immediately see it. That’s why it’s a pity people don’t see it, and I’m wondering every day. It’s so easy to see God. This is the work of the negative force.
(What is the role of… I don’t know what’s that.) What is the role of tantric ritual? What is yoga, right? Is that right? Tantric yoga is like this... The real tantric (yoga) is the secret practice of a kind of meditation. Why is it secret? Since ancient times, the Masters’ lives were in danger. You can see, for example, many Indian Saints were slayed alive. Christ was nailed on the cross. Buddha was nearly assassinated, and attacked nearly every day in His life. So, the ancient Masters were hiding Themselves very well. So, whenever you want to come to a Master, it is difficult. So, they call it a secret doctrine; secret way of practice.
Now, tantric (yoga) is one part of it. The real tantric (yoga) is the practice of the Quan Yin Method, the Method of enlightenment. But nowadays, everything changes. After the real Master dies, everything changes; so as with any religion, or any sects, any kind of practice. So, again and again, a real Master always has to be reborn in order to correct the proper method and tell people what is the correct one. But whenever the real Masters come, people reject Them, thinking, “No. I practice tantric (yoga), I practice Buddhism, and I practice Catholicism, and that’s enough.” They do not know that the living Master is important, and that tantric (yoga) nowadays is not the real tantric (yoga).
And all the rituals are symbols of the real inner realization. For example, if you light the candles and the light, beat the drums and the gongs, and ring the bells, these are symbols of the inner realization. The inner (Heavenly) Light and the inner drums, the inner bells, the inner conch, etc. So, in any ritual, they blow a lot of music, they play a lot of music, and they light a lot of candles in any church, in any practicing center. These symbolize the inner power, the inner realization, the inner (Heavenly) Light, and the inner (Heavenly) Sound. Now they only have rituals and no essence, no realization.
And what is yoga? Right? Or? Choga? (Chöda.) Choga, I don’t know. Not yoga? (No, Chöda.) Choga, what is that? (The destruction of the ego.) Oh, that is Indian, right? (No, this is Tibetan Buddhism.) Oh, I see, I see. Is that the…Just tell me a little bit about it, and then I’ll understand what it means. (It’s the ability to ritually destroy the ego. Chöd, the ritual of Chöd.) Oh. A person going near a dead person or a tomb, putting a tent over there, and every day kind of punishing himself and telling himself, “I trample upon the ego,” and all that kind of thing. That is their practice. Sometimes it makes the person become crazy by this practice. More often like that. But the Master will not care about this. He says once you committed yourself to Chöda, then you have to take the risk of gaining it or losing your life. Is that so? So, I consider this too dangerous for the modern time. And we have not so much time to go to the cemetery or to put up a tent in an isolated and scary place in order to kill our ego. I believe, to kill our ego is to merge ourselves with God. When we are one with God, then we lose ourselves. And it’s as simple as that. There’s no need to try to tax your brain with outer punishment and hypnotism. Yes, I believe. Thank you. That is Chöda. This is in Tibet; they practice like that. It’s a little bit dangerous. You become so thin, so yellow, and so white. You don’t eat, and every day you might beat yourself, and sometimes you practice until it becomes really painful, you feel the pain, that you convince yourself you are pain. And nobody kills him, but he thinks someone kills him. Nobody bites him, but he believes he is bitten, and that is very painful. And then you can become, I’m sorry, N-U-T-S.
(What is the mind? Where does it exist in the body? When we use the term, “I have changed my mind,” what does it mean? What is the role of mind in the process of enlightenment?) The mind actually doesn’t exist. We know it when we think and when we change our idea. So, we know, “I have a mind. I have changed my mind.” If we have no ideas, no thinking, no thought, then we have no mind. Where does the mind come from? Only from thinking. From the data we collect from the outer information. Our thinking is the result of our learning and our contact with other people. That’s what we call mind. And the mind really doesn’t exist. The mind, we can call prejudice – whatever we collect, we believe or not believe. And then, we collect this... after some time, we call that the mind. If I believe in Buddhism and somebody comes along and preaches to me Catholicism, and I don’t believe that priest, I say, “Catholicism is no good. It is heretical and atheistic,” and things like that. And that is when you know you have a mind. You can say you have prejudices, that’s all – the collected thoughts from someone else, it convinces you, and then it’s rooted inside you, and you can’t root it out. And that is what the mind is. And it’s nowhere in the body. It is somewhere in the brain maybe, in the gray matter where you collect the different information and store it up there. But if we operate on the brain, we couldn’t even find it; it is invisible. It is thought waves. That is the mind. And now, what is the question? Where is the mind? After you read the question, you give it to me so I might refer to it. I’m getting old and can’t remember everything.
“When we use the term, ‘I changed my mind…’” Yeah, we change our idea. Like, I just want to marry… Eh! No, I mean, I’m a monk. I cannot. Some other example, like I want to eat a candy. I was just thinking about you, and then talked about me; I can’t get married now. I just want to eat a candy, and then I think, “No, no, candy makes my tooth ache. So, I change my mind. I eat a fruit,” and that’s what we call, “I changed my mind.” So simple is that, why do you have to ask me? We change our thinking, our choice of something, that is when we change our mind.
“What is the role of mind in the process of being enlightened?” Oh, this is very important. The mind has a very big role in the process of enlightenment. It can help us, and it can destroy our faith. Therefore, a Master, however high degree, has to use a lot of logic and reasoning in order to befriend the mind in order for the mind to accept the ideas. And then, you can go get initiation and start the practice. If the mind doesn’t accept it due to a lot of prejudices, due to a lot of preconceived ideas, then you are in trouble. Just like the first questioner, she or he said, “I’d like to follow You, but my mind doesn’t get the message through.” That’s the problem because we have so many preconceived ideas. Like, “To become a Buddha, we have to read the Lotus Sutra thousands of times. To become Buddha, we have to read the Om Mani Padme Hum dozens of times. Or to go to Heaven, we have to go to church every Sunday and listen to the priest’s sermon, etc.” We can’t believe that the so-called (Supreme) Master Ching Hai from Taiwan (Formosa) can give us God experience. And that is how the mind can hinder us, and it plays a big role in our process of enlightenment.
Most people cannot get enlightened. Most people are born over and over again in this world and make the world population more crowded every day because of the mind. They could not break through the mind’s gate in order to receive a Master’s instructions and be liberated. That’s how great the mind is. It is the greatest after God, I tell you. It may be even “greater” than God, because here in this world, the mind controls everything. The preconceived ideas, the prejudice, the collected data control everything and let us forget our inborn Nature and make us forget we are not these preconceived ideas. We are not to forget our judgment; we have to find our inborn wisdom. But the mind is always in between. And this is how the world is overpopulated – the mind.
