[Lecture] The Creative Source Of Our Real Being
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The Creative Source Of Our Real Being
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Spoken By Suma Ching Hai
In Los Angeles, California, USA
September 13, 1997 (Originally In English)
I was mostly an introvert when I was young. I didn't talk too
much the way I do now -- only rarely. I also didn't know what to
talk about. Remember I told you how my husband's friends talked
to each other about everything for so long and how I always
wished I could talk about half that much to my husband? Things
would have been more lively that way. But normally I didn't talk.
I didn't know what to talk about. I've really changed. I've
really changed into a different person. I don't know how, but
things have changed.
Even many people who knew me before, from the times when I ran
around Indian ashrams, were surprised that I talk so much. When
these people read my lectures that you print in the magazines, or
when they got some tapes from someone, they were surprised. They
said, "Oh, Jesus! This girl--she talks?" Because when I ran
around the Himalayas or different ashrams in India or elsewhere,
I rarely talked to people. I didn't even have close friends. I
was always very quiet, and very shy toward people, shy toward the
public. God has changed me, really. Hes has changed me completely
into a different person. I never talked like this before. I never
knew how. I really couldn't talk. I never did. I am surprised
myself.
So this is how God can change us if we just let it be, just put
complete trust in the name of Christ, the name of God, or the
name of the Buddha. Then everything will be arranged the way it
should be. We should just become like kids. Don't forget the
child inside you. It is always there, and whenever we call, he
comes out. He peeps out. That is the God nature. That is the
nature of purity. We shouldn't worry so much. We shouldn't
calculate so much--"If we do this, what will we get in return?" A
child doesn't do that. A child never worries about tomorrow.
The Bible also says the same thing. Don't worry about tomorrow.
It is enough that you take care of today. Consider the lilies in
the fields and how they grow! Even the little blades of grass,
God takes care of. How would Hes not take care of you? But most
of us cannot become childlike in this way. That's why we have a
lot of sorrows, a lot of problems. Even if we ourselves can be
childlike, but our relatives, our close ones and our loved ones
are not childlike, it also can cause us problems, pulling us back
into the frigid kind of world in which we sometimes feel
suffocated. It is difficult to live together when we are less
than childlike.
Being childlike doesn't mean that we don't take responsibility or
we don't do what we have to do. It means that we just do it with
a very pure joy and without expectations, because knowing God as
God is, we should not really worry. Hes made the whole universe
in seven days, but what a mess! (Master and all laugh.) Don't
tell Hirm, okay? This is just a bad joke between us. Perhaps Hes
should have taken more time. Hes was like a child and too much in
a hurry, creating things in a quick fashion. So now we have to
fix it a little. It is okay, though.
Actually, Hes did that on purpose because suppose God had made
everything too perfect, what would we have to do? We'd be even
more bored, with no cinema to watch and no soup to drink. No one
would ever be hungry or thirsty; we would have no need to amuse
ourselves, no need to do any sculpture, painting or any artwork
because everything would already be there, already perfect, and
we wouldn't have to do anything.
Yes, everything is already there in the universe. Everything is
already perfect. But sometimes we choose to ignore that, we
choose to close the curtain between us and the perfection so that
we can see some flaws, some mistakes, something imperfect so that
we can create something new, or make it into perfection, into the
likeness of the original one from God. That is why we are here as
humans, or else we don't need to be here, really.
Many times when you enter samadhi, when you enter the childlike
state that I have mentioned, the real childlike state when you
are like an angel, like God, when you are in the pure joy of
existence, when you just exist alone, at that time, we truly know
everything is perfect. At that time, everything we wish for can
be fulfilled but then we would never wish for anything in that
state. You remember those times when you were in samadhi, and you
really enjoyed it.
Do Without Doing
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It is true that for people who have wisdom, who meditate, who
become childlike, and entrust everything to God, things go just
the way the wind blows, just the way the sun rises and sets.
There is no need, really, for effort. I think of all the
painters, for example, the professional ones, who take days or
weeks to paint one painting, yet I do it in a few hours,
sometimes half an hour, depending on the situation. And I have
never learned any techniques. I have not even read books about
painting, and other people still like them -- outside people,
that is, not only us.
I didn't even make much effort. And those professional painters
can mostly paint only in one style. Sometimes you see someone's
exhibition at a gallery, and you see almost the same style from
the beginning to the end. It is just the angles that are
different.
For example, a person specializes in painting forests with the
sun rays penetrating through them, and there is a little pond
underneath. Then he does that all the time, maybe from different
angles. He cuts the pond into many pieces, and in one painting he
puts in the picture of the pieces on the left side, and in
another painting, he puts in the pieces from the right, and in
yet another one, he puts in the middle part. When I look at one,
I don't even need to look at the signature. I know it is his,
most of the time. I am not saying that every painter is like
that. And it takes him a lot of time to learn to do that, and a
lot of time to finish that picture. But most of the painters are
like that.
I don't need to do that. I could paint the same thing again but
I'd never want to. It's boring enough to paint one already. To
repeat it again, I couldn't do that. Imagine spending your whole
life painting almost the same thing all the time, and even taking
so long, with all your expertise and your experience in the
field. That is something I worship. People are really patient;
they really have endurance. I couldn't do that. It would bore me
to tears. And then these painters cannot get money too.
But this is all different. That is technique and know-how. And
mine is just natural, childlike, and I do it for the pure joy of
doing it. I don't even think of making money or pleasing the
public. I have no one else in mind at the time and I don't have
any idea what I'm going to paint next. I have no fixed idea or
subject. I just do it the way I want, the way I feel at that time
and it just feels good. Every time I finish one painting, lousy
as it looks, I like to look at it for many days, until all the
paint naturally dries. And sometimes I go away, but I still miss
it. I want to come back and look at it.
Now I've grown up a little. I don't miss little things anymore.
But I used to miss my paintings. Can you believe it? I don't know
if all the other painters miss their paintings or not. It might
not mean much to you, because you have different ideas about art.
Everyone is different, of course. But when I first painted a
picture, no matter how lousy it looked to you, it meant something
to me because I was so happy when I did it. I did it just for the
pure enjoyment of seeing how it came out. So I didn't exert any
effort, really.
Perhaps, sometimes I made an effort. I'll tell you what gives me
a headache -- when I do some still like pictures, imitations,
painting flowers, fruit or things like that, making a copy. At
that time, I feel tired. I think, Jesus, no wonder the painters
charge a lot of money for them.
Painting fruit is not so bad but flowers are difficult. I thought
it was easy: Just put the flower here and it looks easy; I'm
going to do that, just for fun. Oh, it wasn't fun. It wasn't as
much fun as when I wanted to do my own creation. When I create
something, I can do it more freely. I enjoy it more. But when I
started on the flowers, I had to finish it. I had to project
them, and oh, I couldn't believe it.
I don't know how other painters enjoy painting because if you
have to copy something, the inspiration is no longer there. I had
to pay attention to minute details of the flowers and still
couldn't make them look real. Mine look better, though, because I
also put a little revolutionary touch in there somehow. I didn't
want to make the picture look exactly like the flowers but I
wanted to express something through the flowers to at least find
a little comfort in that inspiration, that motive.
Or else, I would say I could never paint like this again.
Painting flowers is so difficult. I never knew it was that
difficult. When you see Van Gogh or things with sunflowers, don't
think that it was an easy job. It looks easy, but it is not.
Maybe it is easy for the painters; I don't know, because they are
used to copying things.
Now I know why things that are not original make us tired. That
is why this world makes us tired, because it is not original.
This is the shadow of the real thing and we have to do things
according to rules and regulations. That is why it makes us
tired. And that is why driving makes me tired, because it is just
like copying. I cannot do what I want. I have to do exactly the
way it should be done. It is okay now, but that's why I am not
talented.
Every time I give a lecture, I can just speak naturally the way I
do to you now. That is okay. But if I have to think ahead of time
and draft a speech, oh God -- I never thought it could be so
difficult. I wasn't very bad at essay writing in school. I was
always number one. I could write, but I never wanted to, except
in school when I was young and was forced to do it. I can do it,
very easily, and at any time.
If you have to describe something or describe an occasion, then
it is okay. But when you have to describe God, and think ahead of
time what God looks like, it is not natural anymore. When I was
in Europe, how difficult it was for me when I had to draft a
speech in German or in French! Especially when I have not spoken
the language for a long time, it was like a headache. Even if I
have to write in English, I feel so weird. I feel so fake, like
it's not real.
Express Our Creative Talents With A Childlike Heart
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Because we were originally the creator, the spark of the creative
energy and the divine, so anything that forces us to go by rules
and regulations, to draw like some other person, to copy, we do
not like it. That is like being a copy machine. So if we do not
have the creative energy flowing out of us, which is more natural
and lets us make use of our own creative talents, then we feel
tired. That is why all the jobs in this world make us tired, no
matter how much money you are offered. I just realized that it is
not that you are lazy; it is not that you don't want to work; it
is not that you don't want to contribute, but many jobs really
drag you down and drain you because you have to do exactly what
they say. Sometimes it is really tedious.
I feel very sorry for us sometimes, that we can't be childlike,
even though we want to. Sometimes the reality, the world, just
wants to drag us back into this very heavy kind of material
existence, and we feel very tired. Even though sometimes we work
only four hours, part-time, we get tired. At the end of the day,
we have kind of used up all our energy. We become more tense,
more critical, more stressed. Of course, and then we cannot be so
innocent anymore. We have a lot of preconceptions about a lot of
things, which sometimes might not be true, and sometimes we know
it, but at our cost later on.
Everything hits us in the face and tells us things are not good,
things are so hard, money is difficult to earn, and you have to
fight, you have to compete, and you have to do this, you have to
do that, in order to get ahead. There are many schools that teach
you how to be a billionaire in no time, how to earn money without
working.
Actually, it is not like that. We don't need to really exert so
much effort with the mind; instead, we just try to remember the
creative source of our real being, and then we can create
anything. Actually, energy can create subjects and it can even
make things materialize. In Tibet there are some kinds of
traditions, some kinds of sects, where people teach you how to
visualize things. You can visualize anyone you want. You can pick
up a guy like that, imagine him, and then make another one. The
cloning machine is not necessary. You can do that with your own
imagination until that person becomes a reality, and you can even
touch him. That's the problem.
But that is not even the highest level yet. That is where all the
magic comes from. You can imagine anything you want if you
concentrate hard enough. This is just an example. A guru in India
sometimes can materialize things and give it to you out of thin
air. It is not that he tricks you; he really can do it, or at
least produce some ash.
This is really not the super level of consciousness yet we can do
that. What more can we do if we can go back to the real, the
highest source of creation of all things in the universe -- from
the small worm to the big sun that warms the whole world, without
the energy ever being used up?
So actually, all this know-how is very nice, but why we rely only
on that, we'll be in trouble. But some people are successful.
They know how to talk and if they don't know what else to rely
on, and if they've forgotten God and wisdom, then maybe they
should try that.
For us, we can try it if we want to; but we must remember the
child inside is the real God. Unless you become pure as a child,
you cannot enter the Kingdom of God. You remember? That is just a
way of saying that we have to rely on God for everything. That is
the only thing that can give us everything we want, really. We
just naturally encounter something and it brings us joy and
benefit. We don't even have to do any kind of work or exert any
kind of effort.
So this is the child that we should become -- not the
irresponsible one, but the wise child. When we become so wise, we
become so pure, because when we know everything, then there is
nothing that we should know, nothing we seek to know, and nothing
that we want to know. That is why we become so contented --
because we feel at least that we know whatever comes is fine,
whatever arrives is okay. God will arrange everything. God is the
master in us. God is ourselves, the creative energy that made us
in the beginning, and that is part of us, that is us, and that
forever will be. (Applause.)
Excerpt from the Suma News#89
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