In this episode, the conversation carries on with gentle humor and heartfelt appreciation between Supreme Master Ching Hai and disciples of Bambi Baaba.
Well, they’re big boys. They grow so big. (…all natural.) Oh, yeah. I know. Natural, natural. I know. This is the product. They grow it themselves. They grow, grow, the bananas themselves.
Can you hear me? I think my life is the test of the microphone. Does the Master have a microphone there? (Sometimes, yes.) Sometimes. What do they use? Battery? Because [there’s] no electricity. Or do they have? (Sometimes we use a battery.) Oh, yeah, yeah. Couldn’t we make a kind of self-generator or something? We could do that. (Yes. At one time, we had that generator.) But it’s troublesome. It breaks down, and then you have to always take care of it. (Annoying. A lot of noise.) A lot of noise. Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, oh, oh, it’s burning. Turn it off, please turn it off. He seems… An insect or something. Turn this one off too – quick, quick, quick. (An insect flew up; he was burned.) (What is burning?) (Master, we can’t see You.) Use your Wisdom Eye. Now they only want to see the bananas. They care not about me. Oh, my God. Because of the insects, so, that’s the trouble. I don’t like to see insects burning. What is it? (Sorry about it.) So we had the banana celebration already, so you had the best picture already. Up and down – you can, I mean, now and again, you can turn the light on. Do we have the light upstairs there? (I think there is.) Yes? Yes, please. If it turns on, maybe we’ll have enough. Or here even. The big one.
So, this is the letter from the Master. Oh, my. …He knows it’s good for my ego. He forgives me. (He understands.) He understands, huh? This is no problem for Him. He’s a very wonderful person if He understands that. But I don’t know how He gets hold of my books and all my things and all that. He knows everything about me. And I know nothing about Him. That’s “fantastic.” I know something about Him – I know that He can walk on water, that He can sleep in the air, and He can disappear. He had learned the art of invisibility and all that kind of thing, right? I also can do that. I can walk on water with the help of a piece of wood underneath and so on. And I sometimes lie in the air with a hammock, only with a hammock. And I always descend from the sky, whenever I go somewhere. I just came from the sky, in fact – Air France. No problem. I’m always full of magical power.
Oh, the Master – He knows the symbol of the thing that we have done. The symbol – not the money, but the symbolic power it adds to your country. Your Master is truly humble. I have to learn this humility. This I like very much because I’m the Supreme Master. The trouble with the Supreme.
Your Master is truly beautiful. He must be a very beautiful person – very pure, very humble – except when He tells you to write the letter, 20 times, re-write it. At that time, you think, “You’d better go to the Himalayas.” Yes, yes. No matter how much we are devoted to a Master, it is hard to take some scolding at times, and we think, “What am I doing here?” Twenty times re-writing a letter – my God. But (Lord) Milarepa took four years: rebuild and build the house again and again, and with all hardship. Writing a letter is pretty easy. You do it with a computer. He’s so beautiful.
He’s so beautiful. You wrote this with His agreement? All this? The Master dictated? (Yes, that is His exact dictation.) Oh, my God. He’s so humble. He’s a Master Himself. What is He talking about? He talks like He’s my disciple. Do you think I can bear all this? (Perhaps the Master knows better than the Master writes.) I’m not used to it. I’m not used to it, with all this politeness. You know the way I talk – I joke, I’m very “rough”. Maybe I’m too “rough” for Him. Do you think He can bear me when I arrive there? (Certainly.) Huh? (He will.) (Certainly.) Does He know what kind of person I am? I think He’s a very sweet and serious man. He laughs, or not? He does? (Yes, He does.) He does?
He makes a lot of jokes? (Yes.) Then, it’s fine. Otherwise, I don’t know how to relate to Him. You see how white the Moon here is? (Because it’s in Europe now.) Yeah. It’s black in Africa, right? Black is beautiful. Oh, you write beautiful letters. Who is this mother? Emmerasi, Emmerasi Jerani. Oh, you have long names in Africa. My God, it takes me half an hour to read the name. Odera Emmerasi Jerani Nambieri Keramera.
It’s a beautiful language. When you speak… Can you speak something in African for me to listen [to]? It sounds very crispy. Yeah. The names in Africa are beautiful. (He speaks Suwanese, and I speak Chiganda.) Yeah? You cannot communicate. Oh, it’s different? (Yes, he comes from Mata.) (But I can speak in Ugandan also. I mean, Luganda.) Yeah. Then please speak Luganda. Please speak. Can you? (…Master Ching Hai.) You repeat, too. You talk to him in Luganda. (…Ching Hai.) What’s…? I understand “Ching Hai,” but the rest, I don’t know. So, what is it with the “Ching Hai?”
(We are saying that we’re very grateful to be given this most rare Blessing and Grace from the Masters of Wisdom Who have enabled us to arrive and be blessed with the presence of the Lotus Feet of the Master Ching Hai.) Thank you so much. Your Master has taught you very well, the way you speak. My disciples don’t speak like that. They don’t know what the “Lotus Feet” are. They never talk in such a way. When they come to me, they never say, “Oh, we pay obeisance to Your Lotus Feet.” They say, “Master, where’s the food?” “Where’s the kitchen?” “And my (vegan) candies, my (vegan) cookies, my blessed (vegan) food – where?” That’s the way my disciples talk. I’m afraid they will infest your ashram with some of their rough manners. I never [taught] them [this].
It’s beautiful the way you speak. I think it’s better. Most of the traditions are like that, except ours. They don’t talk the way you do. They don’t make poems like that. Whenever you see them, they just want food. When they see me, they just want food. They want (vegan) food from the airport, and they want it up to here, and then tomorrow they want again.
Oh, this is beautiful, the way you speak. Most of the Africans I have met, they spoke like that. They speak like poetry, and it pleases me so much. I think I’ll send my disciples to Uganda to be taught by your Master how to have manners and how to speak. (But in Africa, we also think that we would be learning high manners from Taiwan [Formosa].) Oh, really? No. In Taiwan (Formosa), we only work. We probably do not pay too much attention to the poetry side of spiritual life. Perhaps because I’m too impatient with the mission that I have to do. I want to have it done fast and retire, go to Uganda and find a bush next to your Master and pass my time. And the manners of the world, let them learn. (You are welcome.) “You’re welcome,” huh?
Photo Caption: “We R One!”
