Spoken
by Supreme Master Ching Hai, Three-day International Retreat, Los Angeles,
USA,
December 16-18, 1998 (Originally in English) Videotape
No.639
Remember, you are greater than anything else in this life, be it happiness, disaster, personal affairs, business, success or failure. Nothing is bigger than you are. So keep it up. God loves us. I know that for sure. I experience it often. Even though Hes makes jokes with me sometimes, I am still okay. (Applause)
Really, you'd be surprised. For example, there are sometimes very small things that you don't notice. Like recently I renovated a place where I wanted to stay. It was an old place and it was dirty, so I asked some people to fix it up a few months ago. I left the money with them, but they didn't do it. It was one excuse after another. When I came to the house, it was still empty, dirty and not ready. So I rolled up my sleeves, called people, grabbed anyone I could and finished it in one week. They told me it would take maybe a few months. I said, "Nonsense! There's no such thing as a month of time to waste." So we did it in one week, not even one full week.
I got people only because it was like an emergency; I would grab them wherever I could. In the supermarket or wherever, I would ask them if they wanted an extra job. If they said, "Yes," I would say, "Come here, and I'll tell you what to do." They weren't even professionals, meaning they could only do it after work, from seven to ten at night, or seven to eleven at the most. That's it! But we finished the three or four rooms in one week's time.
But then one place in the kitchen was not painted; because they had to do the tiles first. But the tile guy could not come in the daytime, and that night I had to come here. So I said, "Okay, I'll do it myself." But then I had already worked for a week or more before, running around trying to organize things. So I was very tired. Apart from our other jobs, I also did the painting and sweeping and all those kinds of things, so I felt half-bad. I also had a little physical problem on top of that; I was stiff all over.
Anyhow, on the last day, I was supposed to go, but I said, "I have to paint the kitchen before I go." I wanted it done before I left. So I lay there, tired! I didn't sleep the whole of last night. I said, "Oh, God, how am I going to paint my kitchen now? I'm really tired. I talked big to all the guys, and now I am not doing it." It would be kind of like "losing face." (Master Laughed.)
