spiritual awakening
Meditation or contemplation is just another kind of opening our sincerity and longing to be a kind of receiver for the abundant blessing and love which is always present throughout the universe. Perhaps sometimes coincidently or through the arrangement of the highest intelligence, we feel more blessing in some places or in encountering someone special. Maybe because that someone is also in the same frequency with us, in the same sincerity, longing and openness to God like we are. At that moment, the two united forces experience the blissful feeling or the so-called spiritual awakening.
Spoken By Supreme Master Ching Hai, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. (Originally in English), This Article Was Published In The Central Daily News, Formosa. Apr 1996
Enlightenment is already within us, therefore whatever our fellow initiate credited to me, I should not accept because it's all yours. Whatever greatness, whatever blessing you receive during the course of development in your spiritual training or rediscovery, it is all yours. But because humility is the nature of a highly developed spiritual brotherhood, they always credited all the miraculous power, all the blessings to the Master.
"Wisdom is the Lord. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." The Lord is within ourselves, that is our almighty power which stays there dormant, and anytime we can awaken it and make use of it, at least to our own contentment.
The initiation comes from within, from the spiritual awakening of your own nature. And even then the levels are different. Therefore two persons sitting in the same place or next to each other will have entirely different levels. And therefore, also, the master will from inside teach individually different, and only he knows. Only he inside knows what the master teaches him, and his experience is different from his wife or his kids or his father or brothers, etc. So you can call that different initiations if you wish, but I would say that it is the continuation of learning from different individuals.
True Master Awakens Your True Inner Self
Q: How can we tell true masters from false masters?
M: Oh, that I don't know. I haven't met any false one. I've met only true masters. False or true, it's up to you. There are many ways to discern a true master. When the so-called master just clings to one part of the truth and forsakes the rest and then teaches the disciples only one part of that from the whole truth and then we call him a false master. But actually the name is not very correct. Maybe he is a kind of "partial master." "Part-time master" (Master and all laugh), but not false. And when a master teaches you the whole truth that is within yourself and awakens that which already exists within yourself, that is the true master because he awakens the true master within yourself. That is the true master. And what is your true nature? What is the true master within yourself? That is God! That is the holy spirit which dwells within your church, your temple. (body) And when that God manifests, we can hear the teaching through the heavenly music. We can see him through visions, through abundant illumination like thousands of suns sometimes. That is our true nature when it is awakened. So if any master can awaken these heavenly wisdom, vibration and heavenly light within you which is your self nature, which is your self mastership, then that is a true master. It takes one to know one.
Q: What is the easiest and safest path to self-realization and god-realization?
M: This method. Did they say it? "Immediate Enlightenment" "Quan Yin Method". That's the best, the easiest and the quickest. You get enlightened immediately without any preparation, without any cost, without any condition today after the lecture. Okay? And if you don't get enlightenment immediately, money-back guarantee. (Laughter & applause) Oh, by the way... by the way, there's no money-back guarantee because we don't charge a penny. (Laughter and applause.)
Life Is Ephemeral, So Practice Before It's Too Late
We have to be awakened through many means. Therefore, I said earlier, there are many ways to find the wisdom within. If we don't long to find it ourselves, sometimes the Creator will send disasters to wake us. So we see that many times, in time of stress and disaster, we pray more honestly, more sincerely to God than when we are well-off, than when we are in happiness, or in stable condition. Is it not so? So, when we have pain, or our family have people died, or some disasters, then we pray. At that time we remember God very clearly. "Please, please, please ...." So many prayers.
Now, we do not need to wait until a disaster befalls us in order to remember to practice to become Buddha again or to be like Christ. We should do it when we have time, at leisure, and good conditions. So that we do not have to have experience disaster. What we call in Au Lac: To prevent is better than to cure. We all know this. Every nation will say the same thing. But we just don't do it. We just don't prevent things. We just do things, and then reap the result and then we cry. Now we have been through life, 30, 40, 50 years now. We should have known a little bit more about this ephemeral nature of life. We should turn back to God now, so that the day we leave this world, God open the kingdom for us, Buddha welcome us. Not the darkness, not the evil plane of existence what we call Satan power, or the Negative power, or the power of Maya.
So I'm here like everywhere else, just to offer you a way to find your own Greatness. With God, well and good. With Buddha, it's also well and good. Without God, without Buddha you still can find your Greatness. Because you are that, you are born from God. You are bound to go back to God, whether you believe or not believe. You are that, you cannot escape anyhow. So I just want to offer you what I have found as a treasure, hidden treasure within myself. And I know that the hidden treasure is within you as well. I would like only to help you to know your greatness, your self-worth. And then you live in the world as king, as saint, as Christ did, as Buddha did. And not having inferiority complex, and not doing your work well, and not sleeping well, having guilty conscience, having sickness, disease body and mind. That is my purpose. Now I will end my lecture. Thank you! (Applause)
Spoken By Supreme Master Ching Hai at Harvard University, Boston, U.S.A., October 27, 1989 (Originally In English), This article was published in China Times, Formosa on Sep. 1995
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Spiritual Awakening |