Give it to him. OK. You tell us the story. Sorry. I forgot about that. (Oh.) Yeah, “One day…”? (One day… I was living in this park, and I was going to the laundromat and I had to pass through this path to get there.) Yes. (And it was early in the morning; there were two small rattlesnake[-people] on the path.) Yeah. (So I came back and then I asked them telepathically, “Would you please leave so I can go down the path to do my laundry?”) Yeah. (So then I later on, I came back and they were gone. And I just had an idea from that, that’s Your 1,000 acres that You have, that maybe we can make peace with the snake[-people].) Sure, we can. No problem. (Be friends with them.) Sure, that is not really a problem. A snake(-person) is never a problem. We lived in worst places before.
When I first had my rented room, I told you, after we had been camping in the river for so long, we didn’t have room. And so we had one rented room. It was full of those black and white snake(-people). They were all over in my room, they came and sang to me and all that stuff. And sometimes my assistants were not careful, even injured them and they came complaining to me. So I told them, “You don’t use the brush to brush them out, because that might hurt their eyes or something.” And they think I’m so compassionate and thinking of these animal(-people). But I just do know. I just do know. Because they think if they don’t kill them, it’s good enough, it’s already compassionate. But you have to use… I just use a bag. I put it nearby and they crawl inside, and then I put them out in the bush together. But they kept coming in, they never bit us.
Those are black and white, they are poisonous, aren’t they? They have patches, black and white. (What kind of?) What kind of snake(-person) is that? Does anybody know? (Cobra.) Huh? (Cobra.) How do we call a “hổ mang” (cobra)? (Cobra.) Cobra? They’re black and white? Oh, OK, cobra. They had the whole family there. Big, small. They all came singing, open mouths. They couldn’t sing loud but they sang loud inside. I could hear. They opened their mouths next to my sitting cushion. They talked, sang and danced, especially those babies, they loved to hang around me. So I had to tell them, “Be extra careful where you’re walking because you could walk on them.”
It just happened that in our rented place at that time, they used this kind of marble, also black and white – looked very much like them. So they both blended in perfectly. I guess that’s why they love to come there. They feel safe, like, “Wow, such a big ‘cobra,’ as big as the whole house.” So they ran all over there, singing and laughing. It was so funny. And sometimes, one of the nuns was not careful, she slept on top of them, but they didn’t bite her either. Poor thing. He didn’t dare. So next time I said, “If you’re not careful, I’ll make you stand forever, not lying down and not sitting.” She’s a little fat and new, newly joined as a nun, she slept right on top of the snake(-person). Poor snake(-person) – didn’t dare to break any precepts. The snake(-person) didn’t break precepts, but the nun did. Well, she didn’t do it intentionally, but still the snake(-person) also died unintentionally, but he died nevertheless. It was a poor thing, so we had to apologize and all that.
And you have to walk carefully. So that is not a problem really. We have people who can talk to them also. We can also tell them to move out within a week. But then they move to the neighbors. But never mind. It’s not the problem. It is not a problem. Besides, if your karma is not for a snake(-person) bite, even if you want them to bite you, they won’t bite you.
But you have to go there and start from the beginning again. And I don’t know if we can have permission for all these things. But it’s a good area, though. But why do you like that place? Why do you like it so much over there? (Oh, what? The thousand acres?) Yeah, yeah. (I don’t know. I just feel the presence of it. I see the property. I feel that it seems like it’s a nice, interesting place.) It is, it is.
It is a little far from here. It’s nearer to Tampa, like half an hour to Tampa, and half an hour to... Actually, there’s a very near shop, though. Like in ten minutes, you’re in the shop, a Publix. For example, Publix. It’s not so bad, but it’s far away from everybody. From an airplane viewpoint, you don’t see any neighbors. Or the nearest neighbor is about a mile (~1.61 kilometers). But otherwise, you don’t see them mostly because they’re all farmland, big, big farmland. Every place is like a thousand acres, two thousand acres, three thousand acres, five hundred acres. They’re just one thousand after another. It’s just I think we don’t have water there. We have to dig wells. But they have water in the land. I saw they dug some holes for cow(-people) to drink. They’re full of water. And they have enough trees for us to pitch tents. And they have enough water if you dig.
But I’m so tired of getting permits and starting all over again. I’ve been starting all my life. I started in Miaoli; I started in Cambodia; I started here; I started in Costa Rica. I started in San Jose, the first Center, whatever, you name it. I just bought it blindly. There was 20 acres of it, and it was half a million (US) dollars. And at that time, I didn’t even have much money. I don’t know how I managed to do it. Always disciples come first. And we didn’t even have enough clothes to wear; we had to share between the nuns and monks. But buy half-a-million-dollar Center, which has only one house, a mobile home even. I must have been naive. And then there was a horse(-people)’s shed, and I had to work day and night with some brother disciples to turn it into a temporary meditation hall.
We really did do nailing things, you know, physical work. Not just like now, I’m just sitting pretty, “Do that! Do this!” Oh, actually, at that time I was more getting-down, “get dirty and do things.” Because at that time I didn’t have too many people, so I had to be everything, the brain and the action. Now I’m just a thinking tank. And I don’t even have much to think anymore. I’m too tired to even think. I’m just thinking of the work, I’m tired already. It’s OK for you guys if you have not done much, but I’ve done it from one Center to another. Even if I was not always there physically, I had to think and tell them what to do and then details and all that, and take care. Yeah.
(I have a story.) Animal(-people) story? (Yes.) You can talk to them? (Yes. I had a cow[-person] as a friend when...) Yeah. Give it to her. Give it. You want to come here or you want the microphone to go there? Oh, that’s it? Just one time you moved the snake(-people), that’s it? (I was going to ask You something too. Sometimes it’s like I’m in samadhi and I talk to the animal[-people] and I get a big transmission of knowledge from the universal mind, like…) That’s right, that’s right. That’s correct. That’s good. Yes, they do that because they’re higher beings. They’re just like us. They can give you good knowledge.
You have that too? Oh, good, good. (I used to be in the convent in the ‘60s and ‘70s, early ‘70s, and I used to be afraid of cow[-people] because whenever we had a five-acre land and there was a fence, and we used to help, the cow[-people] would help eat the grass and stuff like that. But I’d always climb over the fence and they’d chase me and I was so scared. And then one day, I just decided I wasn’t going to be scared anymore. And I had this one cow[-person] as a friend and she came to me one morning and told me that she was… A family had raised her, and they were going to use her for meat. So she came to me one morning and told me that she was going to be slaughtered.) Oh. (And so, I don’t know how I did it…) Can you believe that? They even know in advance. (Yes.) And you think they don’t know anything. Eating all that (animal-people) meat! Poor thing!
(I don’t know what I gave her to eat because we used to make the little wafers for the communion.) Yes. (And we’d feed that to the cow[-people]. But for some reason, I gave her something that when she did die and they did butcher her, her whole body was contaminated with something that) They didn’t eat. (the family couldn’t eat it because she didn’t want to be eaten.) Oh. (So they wound up bringing everything back and then burying) Bury her under the... (her remains in the ground. So she wasn’t eaten. Not one part of her was eaten.) Wow. (Yes. She just, she didn’t want to be eaten by a human being. That’s all. I can’t explain it. It was just…) OK.
None of them are really willing to be eaten that way. They don’t like to be just forcefully butchered and then eaten like that. You ask any of them, they say no. It’s not the natural way. It’s not a natural way that they are born to be doing. You eat just for the gluttonous thing, this is very bad. Even plants, they also complain if you just eat for the sake of it. So respect all life. When you eat, you pray and you offer to God, and that is the right thing to do. And thank them. Thank God for making them and thank them for sacrificing their life for you. But plants are the least harmed. Because they’re not moving too much, and mostly they’re not as conscious. They’re still evolving. But still, even if you eat them with disrespect, they gruntle. So this is a good idea that you come and talk like this, and people would be more aware of animal(-people)’s feelings, and they’re great beings. You can learn a lot from them.
Sometimes, you ask the Maltese, and they will tell you that Love is the best thing. Because a Maltese is very loving. They call them “million-kisses dog(-people).” They always love you, kiss you all over all the time. They used to be very beloved in Europe. They came from Malta island, next to Spain. That’s why they call them “Maltese.” And they will tell you that Love is the best thing. And fear is the next best thing. When you’re fearful, you try to learn things, and you have more knowledge. But when you love, when you have love, you just know. You don’t need to learn. If you have love, you just know. And everything will just be easy. So, he says, “If you have fear, you learn. If you have love, you know.” It is very good though.
So I feel sorry for a lot of people who are just munching, eating, and harassing, and mutilating these great beings. In the Bible, God says, “I made the animals just to help you, be your friends.” They’re really helping us. The cow(-people) help to fertilize the land. So, it’s incredible how people can do that. I’m really sometimes very startled at our ignorance about the nature of creation. Oh, man.
Photo Caption: Brightening Sphere in the Wonderful Forest
