Quan Yin

An interview with Supreme Master Ching Hai
by Ms. Helen Stone, KLOE Radio Station
at the Quan Yin Vegetarian Restaurant, Houston, TX, U.S.A.
November 14, 1993. (Originally in English)

Q: I heard, many years ago, that Quan Yin was the Japanese goddess of love and happiness or goodness and health; and I was confused as to how we might now have the Quan Yin Method and have it span numerous cultures and go beyond Japan?

M: Quan Yin is not a goddess of the Japanese alone. She is a goddess of the Chinese, Au Lac, Indian, and Tibetan people. They called her different names: Avalokitesvara, in India, and they call her something else in Tibet, I've forgotten what. And in India and Tibet, is a "he". Come to Japan, China and Au Lac, it becomes a "she". [Master laughs] So, I don't know who that is! Anyhow, it's just a mythological figure.

She was one of the masters of the past, just like Moses. When she was alive and people prayed to her, she responded, but only when she was alive. All her disciples and the non-disciples who were sincere had benefit from her presence and her blessing. Then people just continued like that even after she died. The same is true with Jesus and Buddha. That's why we don't have responses so much, because all the masters have ascended. We have to pray to the living master, but then after a master dies, people continue to pray, because their grandfather prayed and it helped. The grandchildren continue to pray and forget the essence, that the blessing field, the magnetic field, of the master is gone.

You can pray to a master after he has died for a few hundred years, but not longer than 500 years. After that, it is of no use, because his magnetic field is gone. What causes the magnetic field is the devotees' hearts. They are connected spiritually. The disciples still stay for a few generations after he has died. Their hearts carry the magnetic field, the loving atmosphere of the master, because they still love the master. They love the master and they were already connected with the master while he was still alive - at least the very advanced disciples. Therefore, the living lineage, the living bloodline, still continues after the master dies and passes it on to a few generations. That would be at most 500 years. It is because of the disciples, because the master is still living in the hearts of the disciples. Therefore, his blessing and love are still there through the disciples. But after he has gone, the connections are all gone, the disciples are all gone, and you don't have good disciples to keep the lineage alive, if you pray to that master, it is no good.