There was a joke about love between family members. A millionaire had a car accident. He was brought to the emergency room. Three of his sons walked up and down the corridor outside, waiting anxiously for the doctor to come out. When the doctor came out, the three of them ran to him and said, "Doctor is there any hope?" The doctor said, "No, no hope. He just has a little broken arm, he'll be well in one week." (Laughter)
The answers and the questions are perfect examples of this, like the way you react to me because sometimes I answer your question not the way people expected it -- doesn't look like it fits the question, but it does. I just answer the inner question, not the outside. Sometimes you formulate it in a long winded way and it just turns around and around all the time. I know exactly what you want. Like that doctor, in normal circumstances we would think the three sons would be asking about the well-being of the father but the doctor knows. Perhaps he knows too well. (Laughter)
Yes, the practitioners of enlightenment are like doctors, they can diagnose our sickness without us knowing, know the innermost of our wishes. Sometimes more than we do. That's why we live the way we do now. We're cheating ourselves every day. We think we are okay. We think we are good. We think we are noble. We think we are perfect, that's why no one can touch us. No one can tell us anything. No one can scold us or correct us because we are already perfect. We already know what to do. We just know, but we don't do. That's what makes the difference between a Master and some one else.
The Master is not born perfect, I must remind you. I have done a lot foolish things in my life, youthful foolishness. I was foolish, made a fool of myself. I ran out of school and went see movies when I should have been sitting there in mathematics lessons, et cetera. I did a lot of bad things too. I raced a motorcycle a hundred twenty kilometers per hour, with only Honda. I broke the exhaust pipe. The Honda can go faster but it made a lot of noise. I didn't care about other people's ears, I only cared that I raced better than the next one. (Laughter)
I didn't tell you I was born perfect. If I was good in school maybe it was because I was born with a little more IQ. But it didn't mean that I really strived to be good or was consciously being good. So the Master is not a perfect person. Never is, never will be. You must know. But the Master is the one who can Master his or her mistakes. Can learn from them, and vow to make it better, every day. Just like being a genius is continuous hard work to keep it, similarly mastership is the same. Mastership is all about mastering yourself, nothing else. If anyone else follows you, it's just by the way, just because of your aura. Your true sincerity attracts them from inside. That's why you don't need to talk. You don't even need to tell them anything. They believe you. Mastership is like that. Do not believe that I was born perfect, I am at the moment perfect, or I will ever be perfect. No! I'm learning like you. But I have mastered myself. I don't let my mind dictate to me what to do. Because I know the mind. I make friends with it, we make a deal, saying "You do this and I do that, both of us don't bother each other. If you do it well, I'll also reward you. I feed you well, don't I?" I tell it, "I give you anything when you want it." Just that now it doesn't want much, because it knows it cannot get much with me, so it forgets it. Even when it wants to sleep, I say, "No, get up and work." Then it has to do it. So it gets used to it after ten years. It says, "It's no good talking to this girl. She's very stubborn. She just does what she wants, and no good arguing."
That's all there is to a Master, continuous striving for perfection, for a better, nobler personality. A better ideal not really personality because when you talk about personality you mean you still want fame and all that. You know you still have ego, wanting to be proud of yourself; it's not true. Just that you think whatever you want to do, whatever you think is noble, is the highly idealist, benefits others, is good, then you must try to do it. Doesn't matter what the cost, just do it and don't talk. That's the only difference. Otherwise, what is the difference?
If we were to be operated on right now, neither brains would be much better. Maybe I am a little bit higher IQ or you are higher, but that doesn't mean that we are much different. Our brains are the same. Our will-power is the same. Except that you exercise to make it grow stronger or not, this is your free will. Most of us abuse our free-will in a harmful way, in a retarding way, slowing our progress to higher consciousness.
Don't ask me why we have to strive higher. It is more comfortable to be a noble being, to be a wiser being, than just always to be ignorant, sluggish, slow, lazy and a "couch potato" just laying there and waiting for things to happen. It's better not to worship me, better not to follow me, just follow my example. Worship the result that comes out of my effort and then do it. Do the same, similar, then you'll become Master in no time.
Teach yourself to do what is better than ordinary people, to do the things other people cannot do when it benefits humankind and yourself, to endure what other people cannot endure when it benefits people and betters your judgment and wisdom. Do whatever in your power to know yourself -- that you can, to discover that your greatest strength is still further to be discovered, that you are nobler than you are at present, that you can do many other things that are a lot of benefit to yourself and other people. Then when you die you know. At that time it might be too late to look back and regret, but you'll feel very painful. That's why when most people die they are in agony. They haven't finished the things that they should have done, and their conscience strikes them. Their mind controls the body and the conscience affects the physical being. So if your conscience doesn't feel well, you feel sick, you feel painful.
Sometimes you feel very sorrowful in some situations. Then you feel pain in your body and muscles too. Sometimes some people put you into a terrible situation or frightening, then all the muscles become painful. First it is different, then later it becomes all painful. Sometimes you can hardly move.
Sometimes you are in deep sorrow, the whole body is so tired like you have been running for a hundred thousand miles non-stop. Sometimes you have some trouble, then you cry for many hours. After that how do you feel? Sometimes relieved but very, very exhausted. Is that not so? (Yes) Especially if that trouble really bothers your heart, really makes you feel very, very sorrowful, then your body also feels like collapsing. And if you have a strong will-power and tell yourself that it's nonsense, whatever happens, happens; now get on with it, forget it; go do other things; cheer yourself up, find something else better to do; then you will forget.
Many people don't have this will-power and intelligence to discriminate between passing moods. They sink themselves into the mood and that makes them more and more miserable every day, weaker and weaker, and they become sick -- psychologically broken. Then it takes a long time to heal. Sometimes cannot heal. They are broken completely -- their mental defense system. Then they have to go to hospital, or stay there for good, becoming a mentally incapable person, being a burden to themselves, their relatives, friends and the society.
So it's very dangerous to let go of your will-power and the purpose of noble sacrifice. Must always strive to do better all the time. Don't make any excuses for yourself. You can excuse other people but never yourself. Introspect every day, see if you have made any progress. Otherwise don't tell me anything. Don't tell me that you want to help humankind, you want to spread the Truth, and that you understand the Truth.
There is another joke about the Truth. There was a Zen Master who had some disciples. One of them wrote to the Master every now and again after initiation. Of course, just like you write the spiritual diary and send to me, or sometimes to report to me what kind of "progress" that you have made. So that disciple had written to the Master and said, "Master I am really deeply involved with enlightenment right now. I spend all my time in search of my inner true self." The Master read only the first line and then kicked it into the dust bin.
A long while later he wrote another letter to the Master, "Oh Master now the whole universe responds to my innermost thoughts. How incredible the Truth is! How magnificent human wisdom is! How great is the universal Power!"
The Master just blew his nose with it, (laughter) and threw it in the toilet. A third letter, he wrote again, "Oh Master, I have compassion now for all humankind and all the underprivileged beings! Even an ant, I hear his heart throbbing, I feel his soul striving! Oh Master, what a wonderful discovery! I will strive even more, I promise you! I will be your best disciple, you will see."
So the Master wiped something with it. (Laughter) You know where, I won't say it. (Master and everyone laugh) Then threw it in the toilet. He felt hopeless.
The fourth letter, the disciple reported again, "Master, now I am one with the universe! Everything is me, I am everything! There's nothing that is not me. I am everything. Oh, I congratulate myself!" (Laughter)
The Master didn't even bother to touch it. He just let the wind blow it to anywhere it might go and didn't want to say any anymore. Now, for long time the Master said, "Don't bother writing to me anymore. You just waste the paper and pen." So the disciple didn't write anything anymore.
Many years passed by and the Master was kind of feeling a little bit sorry, being so harsh to him last time. Remembering his fantastic disciple -- long time no see no hear -- so he kind of sent a message to him and said, "Hey! What happening now?" (Laughter) Perhaps he missed his nonsensical, "big universal" letters. "How is your spiritual progress?"
So the disciple wrote back, two words only, on one big piece of paper: "Who cares?" (Laughter and applause) Do you know how the Master reacted now? Yeah! He went and drank coffee or tea or non-alcoholic beer with 'seven-up'. (Master and everyone laugh) That's the way.
Only when you know that you are okay then you don't care. Otherwise doesn't matter how much you write to me, "I love You, the universal Power, compassionate me," and whatever, all this is nonsense, all theory. That's why many teachers of theory, whenever they open their mouths, they talk about compassion, enlightenment, wisdom and all that; but they don't do anything about it. Don't even know, they just talk about it. That's very boring, very difficult to make them realize that we don't need talking.
Why I'm talking all the time is that you like it. (Audience: Yes.) Besides I don't talk to teach you. If you think I'm teaching you, you're wrong because I'm hopeless with you too. I know I can't teach you anything. I just amuse you with my different expressions, hoping that you might catch something you like and hold to it. Then you'll remember me and won't forget to practice. One day you'll know everything yourself, not through my teachings, maybe thirty percent through my teachings. But it's more or less just so that you'll remember me and then we can connect inside.
To be honest with you, I don't believe that anyone can teach anyone at all. But whatever I can do, I just try my best just because you ask for it. You demand it so I do it. Not because I believe I can teach you by words, by talking, by language. But I believe that we can establish a very deep connection with each other, and through that deep connection we communicate inside. That's the only teaching that might perhaps happen. Otherwise you already are Buddha. You are an entity just like I am.
What is the need for me to tell you what to do? You have everything I have. Just that through the inner connection with each other, you are willing to be reminded of your true Self inside through my inner true Self. Then our inner true Selves will become one together, merge again in the whole, and there's no teaching at all. Originally there was no need and there will never be any need for any soul to learn anything, because the soul is born perfect. It's just that we, the human brain, the ego, are not born perfect.
That's why we make mistakes and we have to learn to control the tendency of falling into the mistakes again because it's comfortable, because it's easier to just go along with it than to check ourselves. That's why many noble ideas in society cannot be realized; because most of the people go with the trend of the majority of the people and don't want to stick out, and don't want to go for what they believe is the best, the noblest way of life.
Many people they say they like my teachings, they want to be enlightened, they want this and that. But vegetarian, "Oh, it's inconvenient. What will people think? What will my parents think? What will my children think? What will my wife think? What will my friend think? What will my colleagues think? What will my boss say?" Everything is very important to you, except your own liberation, except your own survival. That is ridiculous. After all, no one can help you if you die tomorrow. If you go to hell, your boss, your wife, your mother, your father, doesn't matter how many persons you have surrounding you, you go alone. It's very true everyone knows. Maybe you know, not everyone else knows.
So take care! Remember. We might die tomorrow. I've had many disciples who have died already. Not that I am sad about it, just that life will end. Believe me, it will. Mine will too. I'm happy when it will. I don't wait for it; but if it comes, it's okay. What I means is, we can't live forever and we don't have time tomorrow. What happens if you don't have time tomorrow?
Most of the time we believe that tomorrow we'll have more time than today, and we never do. Tomorrow we will only have more work to do and less time, because yesterday's work we haven't done, the future work is still waiting, and tomorrow's work is there. So we always cheat ourselves every day that we are okay, that we have time now. We can get away with it, fine, but not finally. Finally we will understand that we are the loser if we keep listening to the mind. I'm afraid of many things, I have told you -- including flying.
I don't like flying. I'm not afraid to die in the airplane but I hate the narrow space in airplanes. I hate the smoke that flies everywhere. Doesn't matter first class, second class, or non-smoker, the smoke doesn't care. Free "gift" for everyone, one cigarette for all. (Master and everyone laugh) That's very economical. I hate all of this. I don't like. But if I have to do something, I do it. Doesn't mean I like it. I don't care whether I like or not like it, if the thing must be done, I just do it.
I can have my opinion, whether I like it or not like it. It's okay. I tell my mind, "Okay you don't like it, I accept it, but we must do it." I don't tell it that it must like it. I don't have to bother about the mind, whether it likes or not likes; whether it's in the mood or not in the mood to do it. I accept everything that it blah, blah's inside, but I do what I want. That's the difference between a Master and a disciple. That's all there is. If you want to be a Master quickly, master yourself, master your decisions, master what you want to do in life, what you hope, what is dearest, best and the most beneficial to your growth and your fellow beings because the soul is ever clever, wise and pure. But if it is always being caged in a defiled body with a very terrible friend like the mind, then it cannot use it's mighty power.
Just like you lock yourself in your own house. How can you get out? Even if you yourself, lock yourself inside a house, still you are locked. Doesn't matter who locks, as long as you still lock yourself inside, you are inside. If you don't want to open the door with your own key and go out, it's your own fault. Doesn't matter how clever you are, if you're locked inside, you're still locked. You cannot say, "Well I locked myself, it's different." There's no difference. If you stay inside one month without food, without drink, without friends, without telephone, without communication, you are locked inside and then you die.
Similarly, if we don't stand up for what we think is correct, perfect and right, then we never will. And no one can do it for us, not even a Master. The Master can only tell you the road, but you have to walk. Of course when you're sick, unable, the Master will carry you. But he can't carry you forever. It's no good for you, makes a cripple out of you. Think about it.
