BORROWING AND PAYING BACK

BORROWING AND PAYING BACK

My beloved children,

Today, once again in the form of a human being, I come to discuss with you an important aspect of the Truth about which many of you are still unclear. That is the issue of Borrowing and Paying Back. Some of you might say, “I don’t need or want to borrow; why, then, would I have to pay back anything?” No, my children, you are wrong. Tell me, among all of you, is there anyone who could safely boast that he or she has never had to, never needed to, borrow anything? Of course, all of you have borrowed, and not only have you borrowed, but you have borrowed a great deal! Please do remember this fact: All of you have borrowed a great deal, yes, a great deal indeed.

Let me explain and clarify what I just said.

Isn’t it true that each one of you started to take human life form within your mother’s womb, from the blood of your mother and the semen of your father? Right there was where you first started to borrow. Then follows the nine months and 10 days time period of heavy burden when your mother nurtured you within her womb, going through many sleepless nights, many days with no desire nor ability to eat, and much painful physical turmoil within her body because of your presence.

Then comes the day of her delivery, with so many people, so many plans and preparations ahead of time and on time, as well as so much tearing pains your mother must bear, all that in the hope that you receive a safe birth into the world as a healthy and “whole,” baby.

Finally, when you burst out crying your first “Hello!” to the world, from the great rejoicing in your father’s heart relieved of a heavy worry, to the thankful and kind smile on your mother’s midwife’s lips, to the happy cheers and congratulations of many relatives and friends who receive news of your birth... again, you borrow from each and every one of these people.


With your first cry entering the world also starts your indebtedness to God for the air that you breathe, this pristine nurturing substance born of the heavens and the earth, which allows you to remain alive on this temporary world and carry out your individual learning and transformation steps. I am telling you, in this respect, indeed you borrow a great deal from God.

It is a great debt, because when I take back from you this tiny breath of air, you will loose everything, whatever properties you own, whatever career or fame you work for during your entire life, ...everything, everything will disappear along with that breath, everything, everything! That is why you must pay very close attention to this debt in particular, make sure to deserve and earn it, and, later, to fully pay it back. Remember, no short change will be allowed!


From your birthday on, you keep borrowing more and more. Food, which allows you to grow from a tiny baby into a full size adult, is borrowed from many animals and plants who sacrifice for you, painfully going through death so that their blood and bodies can nurture your blood and your body into maturity. The roof above your head and house in which you live, the clothing that protect you from heat and cold, the pens and books that help open your mind, the vehicles that carry you speedily from one place to another and save your limbs from tiring, the music that allows you to learn appreciation of harmony, ... etc, all of these convenient building blocks do not happen easily, but come from the contribution of many human beings who use much materials from the earth and go through many complex stages, all together synchronizing work to serve, so that you may become the person you are today.

Then, along each step of your daily life, you are faced with and interact with people and circumstances, experiencing joy, sadness, happiness, sorrow... Again, you are borrowing. A person who curses at you, hits you, or speaks ill of you, he is one who is allowing you to borrow from him. Why? Because he is playing the role of your teacher, he is teaching you some lesson. In turn, because you understand, because you are willing to turn within yourself to find what needs amending, because you eventually are willing to correct yourself, you then become capable of smiling instead of getting upset, capable to sincerely wish him well instead of hating him and trying to find ways to get back at him.

You are now capable of loving him, helping him, and understanding where he is coming from. Once you have arrived to that level, you have “passed the test”, and the person who did you harm could be considered the teacher who tested you. Thanks to this teacher, you had the material to test your orn willingness, the strength to overcome yourself, and, from there, the opportunity to eventually improve your character. Such is the obstacle-laden stretch of road that your soul must sooner or later walk through. It is the lesson leading to Serenity, Compassion, Wisdom, and Courage. That is why I say that you owe a great deal from those who hurt you, curse at you, even harm you. This is another tiny lesson, one among a myriad of other tiny lessons needed to help you forge your compassion, wisdom, courage, and serenity.

Why is it so? Some of you might raise the argument that, when someone curses us, hits us, talks ill of us, he wants us to get really angry and get back at him. For us to smile and remain calm instead only means that we have been able to manage our anger.

True, but if you look at it a little more closely, managing your anger is a part of the larger picture of forging compassion, wisdom, and strength of character. How can it be so? Because when you smile instead of getting angry, you actually are expressing compassion and understanding for the person who does you wrong. Your heart, your compassionate feeling allows you to see clearly that this person’s offensive behavior towards you, a fellow human just like himself, proves that there is a lack of understanding within him, an obstruction on his path toward spiritual fulfillment.

Then, wouldn’t it be correct to say that it is the strength of your compassion, generosity and forgiveness that has transformed your frustrations into understanding and triggered you to sincerely wish him well with a smile instead? In fact, that is the very inner working of the quality of compassion found in the heart of a Buddha.

Next, what does “forging wisdom” mean? Let me explain. When you get angry, your mind becomes clouded, you no longer have clarity of mind, and you become exactly like the person who curses you, hits you, talks ill of you. When you smile and do not repeat his destructive behavior but instead remain calm and forgive him, it shows that your mind is brightly shedding light and clearly showing you the consequences you would have to reap if you should involve yourself in behaviors such as his towards you.

No one truly knows what the exact consequences would be, but surely they would not be good ones, and breakup or severed relationships would be just a matter of course.

That is why, the fact that you did not return in kind, did not oppose or protest against his ill behavior towards you, first of all shows that your mind is brighter than his and leads you up the path of wholeness and peace, while his is leading him down the path of darkness and destruction.


This is much easier said than done, much easier to comprehend than to apply; yes, it is extremely difficult to become truly capable of allowing our mind to remain light and to clearly assess all aspects and issues involved at this particular moment in time. I know that many adepts of even the Vo Vi Meditation method have not been able to overcome this difficult part of the training and are still currently at a standstill at this particular junction. You must work much more at it in order to clearly distinguish between what is wrong from what is right, otherwise everything will crumble in complete destruction.


Now, how can someone who curses me, hits me, talks ill of me actually forge my strength of character? Yes, courage leading to strength of character must be intricately involved here.
When you decide not to protest but to remain calm in response to violent and cruel behavior aimed at harming and demeaning your reputation, you do examplify the caliber of courage, the strong trust in yourself that dares face any wrongdoing and demeaning blows to your integrity.

When you can calmly wipe off these blows from your eyes and ears and resume the same quality relationship you have always given that person, how else would one describe the inner process underlying your calm response except that it has been the forging of your strength of character?

As mentioned above, with the efforts and resolve which you have given to forge your compassion, wisdom, and courage, you will be serene facing the present and its circumstances. This single lesson alone, when thouroughly learned, will take you very far, for, by learning only one lesson, you will have learned to forge compassion, wisdom, courage, and reached the level of serenity of a buddha. You will no longer feel anger. Then, from that point on, the degree of compassion, wisdom, courage, and serenity gained from one lesson will transform, adjust, and be applicable to new circumstances, resolving varying levels of difficulties.

In a nutshell, instead of thinking that the person who harms you owes you a debt, you must, on the contrary, understand and recognize that you owe a great debt to him, for he was the key instrument to teaching you the essential lesson of forging compassion, wisdom, courage, and serenity for your soul. Mastering that lesson is key to your soul returning home. I repeat, if you miss fully applying any one of these four essential qualities in your life, you will have to stay on, you will have to remain within the cycle of reincarnations until the day you have fully applied all four of them.

The above explanations were about how, while alive, you borrowed not just money but borrowed from many people and many things on this earth. Now, how about after you die? Does your borrowing cease once you die? How could you borrow now that you are dead? Well, you still do, my children! Let me clarify myself. When God decides that the presence of a child of his, you, is no longer needed on this earth, He takes back the breath of air that He had lended you upon your arrival to the earth through your mother. Don’t think for a moment that, now dead, you lay there all alone.

How many people are involved from the beginning of your funerals to its end? How much tears, sorrows, preparations, and burial work are involved? Haven’t you borrowed again here? And then, after your body has been burried inside the earth, the dirt which now holds you will be ploughed up and turned over many times again in the future; yet, that dirt will always hold and protect you like the craddling of a loving mother’s arms around her beloved child, forever protective and caring. So, even after you have died, you still need to borrow, this time owing mother earth another debt of love.

As you can see, from the moment you were first created into a human being until the time your body disintegrates back to dirt, how many debts have you incurred? And how heavy or how light are your debts?
Once we have borrowed, we must pay back. To heavy debts follow heavy paybacks; to light debts follow light paybacks.
That is the Law established by Creation, the Divine Justice that no one can change. Let me make one point very clear: Light paybacks to heavy debts are unacceptable; heavy paybacks to light debts never exist.
That is why you need to pay very close attention to this Law and need to carry out a deserving life accordingly. Each word spoken and each action made must be carried out under the clear and conscious responsibility of your true self. This is so that you may not become a heavy debtor whose sorrowful life reflects the required price of corresponding heavy payback. Please do remember what I say!

As you know, as you make a loan in the material world, you also simultaneously have to a sign a promisory note to pay it back, with clearly specified date and time of payback.
When that time comes, your lender will fetch for you to get his debt paid, if you yourself had not come to him on your own first. And if at payback time you were not ready to perform your payback in full but instead request a postponment of payment with time extention, what do you think would happen? Your lender would be very upset, create much trouble for you, and you would not be at peace. As long as you have unpaid debts hanging over your head at time of payback, you will never have peace until the day all of them have been paid in full.
Once you understand this fact, the most important for you to do is to position yourself in the attitude of someone completely ready to pay his debts, sincerely glad to do so with both arms wide open. Whether it be a mean insult to your face, a cruel whip slashing across your body, or even death, the final taking away of your life, no matter what format the payback comes in to be, you must face it and accept to pay it.

Or, if payback should come in untangible format such as tumultuous emotional distress, endless sorrowful guilt feelings that make your life seem a living hell on earth or make you ready to comit suicide, you will still have to go on living with such extreme emotional turmoils.
No matter how many tears drop from your eyes, you still have to smile; in fact, the more unbearable the sorrows, the more brightly you must smile. You are paying your debts, and you are happily paying your lender back, showing him that, yes, I did borrow from you, and now I am willing, ready, and capable of paying you back.
That is the time when you need to literally find happiness in your sorrows.

I am talking about the important attitude you need to have while paying back your debts in order for them to completely cancel out: the attitude of one who is fully willing, glad, and capable of paying back the debts he or she previously incurred. Otherwise, you are not capable and not ready to pay your debts, and will need to continue living sorrowful circumstances until the time you are ready to pay with the needed attitude mentioned previously.

Payback time will come to you in many ways and shapes, at any time, not excluding any possible combination, depending on the individual corresponding backgrounds and circumstances involved. No matter where you might be, in the deepest forest or on the higherst mountain, you will not be able to escape. It will find you.

It is like a mirror in which you see yourself, whatever is looking in will reflect out perfectly, without a change. Those who have killed, who have afflicted sorrows to other humans in a previous life will have to pay in this life, unless they follow the spiritual path, repend, and correct themselves.

I can see that many of you here present have incurred heavy debts in your past. You must pay this life, pay off those heavy debts, so that you may start all over again from a clean slate and get ready for the upcoming New Era of Saintly Virtues.
Above are my words for those of you who are unwilling to follow the spiritual path in living, unwilling to voluntarily repend and correct themselves in order to return. As for those of you who are willing to do so, your heavy karma and debts will substantially lighten and save you.

Open your hearts, gladly accept to pay your debts with a positive attitude; at the same time, on your own, pick up and sincerely practice such spiritual path as the Vo Vi Meditation Method so that you may be ready when the time comes.

I wish you the best in your spiritual endeavor.
I give you my blessings.



(Translator’s Notes: Above is the translation of a short chapter in a series of talks given in Vietnamese by a Vietnamese spiritually enlightened leader to a group of meditation adepts in South Viet Nam in the early 1980’s.

The translation effort is aimed at transferring as closely as possible the meaning of the message, as understood by the translator, while at the same time keeping as much as possible the tone of the speech given in the original language.)