Many people expect that the enlightened persons or to be enlightened, that being must be something extraordinary, must be perhaps seven feet tall or have feet like this or hand like that. Because we read the sutras, the Buddhist Bible, it described that the Buddha had such and such marks, like his feet link together like the duck (Laughter) or his leg look like the deer's leg and his eyes look like a cow's eyes, things like that. (Laughter) And they try to make the Buddha beautiful. But if you put all these together, it makes a funny Buddha, you know? (Master laughs.)
They don't realize that perhaps in the old time, these kings of animals are the best symbols of beauty and a noble character. That's why the one who love the Buddha try to convey to others that he's so beautiful, like the way he walks like the king of goose and his chest like the lion and such and such things. But when you put all these animal parts together you don't know what kind of Buddha that is.
Now this is the outside only, and the inside of us, each one is the same. I think all of you know that. But how same, and how can we know that? This is a difficult question. Even though it's very easy but it is difficult, because we have forgotten it. That's all. We have forgotten completely what we really are. And we are busy with chasing our dream everyday and trying to fulfill our immediate desires and we forget, we forget what we really are and where we come from. Just to tell... you know forgetful we can be, I'll tell you a true story of myself.
I went to Australia, I think two or three years ago, also due to invitation first time and we supposed to have three lectures in different cities. The first lecture went on all right, no problem. The second lecture also all right. I was on time. The third lecture I was late! The only reason is not traffic. It's not that I slept. It's not that I have no car or nothing. The only reason is that I forgot. I forgot that I have the lecture that evening.
I keep doing my things, like the room is a little bit untidy so I keep tidying it up and then I try to move things here and there like it's my house. Perhaps it balances my busy schedule, give me something to do. Perhaps so or perhaps I'm a perfectionist. Whenever I see something it's not in order, I try to put in order. But that was to the extent that I forget that I had the lecture that evening.
I forget until half an hour
after the beginning time. And then some nervous disciples run
in, broke in, kind of crashing in and said, "Master, where
are you?" And then I said why, I'm here. Really cool. They
said, "Master You suppose to be in the lecture hall."
I said, "What! What lecture hall?" I've
really completely forgotten. I
guess no one as terrible as me, but perhaps we do forget sometimes.
You do, or not?
Sometimes you are engrossed in some other business and you forget the main purpose of your goal that day. Did that happen to you sometimes? It does, huh, okay. And of course I have to rush and apologize to the people. I feel really terrible and I promise to God that if He made me lecture again, He must put alarm clock for me. So from then on I always put alarm clock everywhere, and whenever the lecture I set it on everywhere so that I will remember in case I forget. How can you forget a lecture? Oh! I even don't understand that. But that's what I did.
So now if we are here too long, one life, two lives, hundred lives, then of course we forget even more what the purpose of our coming here. Some of the people sometimes they die temporarily, for like a few minutes or twenty minutes even. Clinically dead, declared dead by the doctor, stop breathing, no pulse, etc.. But then after they came back, they told many stories of the other life beyond and then they also remember why they came here for, what for they came to the earth. But many of them, most of them forget immediately what they have seen in heaven or what they suppose to do in this life. They know that they have seen, the purpose of their life, but when they came back here, they came back to this life again, they forgot. They just know that they know, but they don't know what.
The Chinese have a saying that before we are born into this world again, the king of nether world would give us some soup, kind of hot drink, maybe chocolate or something. (Laughter) That is supposed to make us forget completely our past life and start anew. Many of us promise that we come here, if we are given the chance again to be human being, we would do this, do that, and others. And we will go and practice the meditation and so on, and then we get enlightenment and we dedicate all our life and energy to serve mankind, etc., etc..
And we really meant it well. But because of this soup, this "forget me soup", everyone forgets. So the only thing for us to remember again is that we must open the gate of secret knowledge. Without that gate open, we can never, ever peep beyond this world and the only thing we know is this material existence and all is suffering, joy and temporarily other things, and we would forever identify ourselves with this physical appearance and suffering with it.
But why? Why must we remember the purpose of our coming here? Not because we have promised to do so, but because if we don't remember, we must come back again and again and again until we remember... until we fulfilled our mission in this planet and then we can go to higher existence or remember our original great position in heaven or in nirvana. The suffering of this world is not due to only the war. The war is not the catastrophe. It's not the lack of food and all these, but the suffering of this world comes from ignorance. Because we don't know our mission, our purpose, we mistaken the playground for home and overstay our due and sometimes suffer the cold, danger outside the house.
But even then the Buddhas, God Almighty always try to look for us, for the lost children, for the ones who love to play and forget to go home. Therefore the Buddha sometimes come down and endure the suffering of the human existence, endure the humiliation of the petty physical life in order to find the lost children, to bring them back to safety before it's too late. Because any house, doesn't matter how solid it built, one day it must be demolished by itself or by some other elements or some causes or have to rebuild a new one because it's too old. This world is a big house, very beautiful, very solid house, but it's not a permanent house.
That's why the Buddhas, the Saints, like Jesus, Mohammed, etc., they came down to us, extend their blessing to us. We walk one step, they walk hundred thousand steps to receive us and forgive our mistakes, cleanse our past unwholesome actions, and teach us the new kind of life, new beginning, or better speaking, and lead us back to the original way of life, the way we must live, the way we should carry out our life.
Because up to now, all the cells in our body, all the nerves in our system listened only to almost negative orders from our information center. That's why we have war. That's why we have assassination. That's why we have competition at the cost of other people's jobs or business, or wife or husband, because we do not have a positive information in our brain center to order our body to do good things. And the people who are good in this world are also sometimes, or often overwhelmed also by the negative, by the negative influence in the society, also become shaky in their faith, became weaker in their goodness, and sometimes eventually also give in to the negative power.
So when we have only negative information in our brain, then of course we can only give out negative information or negative orders, and the cells in the body, the nerves in the system also can follow only the negative orders and then do negative things. That's why we have no peace in the world. That's why even up to now brothers are still killing each other. Even parents are killing their children for pleasure, for privacy, for individual freedom, "pro-choice", etc.. Not because they are bad, not because all these war makers, all these parents bad. Or the husband who killed the wife or the wife killed the husband or the brother killing each other, not because they are bad, just because their brain are fed only with negative information, only with negative ideas and that's what they carry out. Whatever the brain order, the cells complied, the cells have to do it, the body must function. And that's why we sink deeper and deeper into depression and that's why our world is almost any time in danger of disappearing, from our own making.
So the only thing to help us now is very logical, is that to feed us with positive information to change our information stream. Everyday we must receive good information, positive information, constructive information, enlightened, wise information, and then from the brain they will direct the cells, the nervous system and everything will do only good, only peaceful, only wise, only constructive positive things, and that's how we save the world. Otherwise, it doesn't matter how much peace talks, how much money we spend on the arms, on the army, still we don't have secure feeling. Look, one day this country just finish the war, shake hands with each other. Okay. We start anew. And the next morning, we heard that the other country broke out in war. And then the United Nations run over there and that's not yet finished, the other one, the other country makes war with the other country over there and then over here, over everywhere.