And so Moses began His apprenticeship with the Master, and the Master told Him to keep silent, whatever happens. Keep silent means keep your mouth (…shut.) shut. Yeah. You’re right. But it’s very difficult. You try to shut up tomorrow and see what happens. Even if you don’t want to talk, people come to you and say, “Hey, what’s the matter with you? We are only on the four-day retreat.” So, then the Master said, “It doesn’t matter what happens. You have to keep silent. Don’t talk at all until I allow you to.” So, Moses said, “D’accord” – OK. And then the two of Them wandered through the countryside for many days, and sometimes stopped here, sometimes stopped there, stopped in a hotel, something like that.
And one day, They passed by a very, very, very, very, very, very beautiful countryside. And the beauty of it was so extraordinary and dazzling that Moses couldn’t help but open His eyes to look and then open His mouth as well. And then He didn’t open it alone, He made some sound out of it, “Oh, Master, isn’t that beautiful!?” But the Master forgave Him. He said, “I told you to keep your mouth S-H-U-T, shut.” So, Moses said, “Oh, forgive me, Master, forgive, forgive. I will shut up. I will not talk again.”
And then, when They went further down the road, They came across a river. And there was a mother crying on the bank of the river because her baby happened to be swept away by the currents. And the current was very, very strong. Then Moses wanted to save the child. And the Master did not let Him. And of course, Moses also could not do it because the currents were very strong. And then He said to the Master, “Master, You are powerful, You’re mighty. Can You save the baby? How can You keep silent and just stand here? Oh, the mother was crying, You didn’t see, and the child is drowning. And You keep silent.” And the Master said, “Shh. Silence.” And then He also gave Him a good look, like this. You know that look very well from somebody, I will not mention the name. When She’s angry, She looks like that too. Her eyes become twice as big as usual. So now, you know that person, huh? Somebody calls something, “Tzu, Tzu, Tzu.” I don’t know that person. OK.
And so, even though Moses obeyed the Master and kept His mouth shut, after the baby’s drowning incident, He was very, very troubled in His heart. Not you. But He could not ask anything. But still, in His heart He was very, very disturbed and He kept criticizing the Master all the time. He said, “This must be a very insensitive man, has no compassion, no love for mankind. He preaches all the time that we must be compassionate, we must have love for mankind, we must do this and that. We must help the needy and the troubled and the ones in danger, and all that. We must help mankind. And here He is, standing around, watching the baby drowning and the mother helplessly crying. And He does nothing.” And He was having doubt in His heart; very, very many doubts. He was very, very much troubled, a lot of critical thoughts about the Master, but He just kept His mouth shut.
So, you see, to keep your mouth shut doesn’t mean you are silent. So be careful about the noise inside, not the noise outside. Mostly, during the retreat or when you are residing in a meditation center, like an Ashram, for example, here or anywhere else, practicing spiritual practice, mostly the Master would recommend silence. It means don’t talk. Don’t talk. But “don’t talk” doesn’t mean you always keep your mouth shut. This is a different case. When the Master imposes on you total silence, just for a period of time to practice silence or maybe for something, for your throat. Maybe you talk too much or something like that. So the Master makes you keep silence for a while. Or sometimes you impose the discipline of silence upon yourself for a period of time so that probably you will be more withdrawn inward, and then you will be more sensitive to your inner nature. So you can find your own enlightenment quicker. Something like that. That’s the difference.
But in most cases, in the Ashram or in the spiritual centers, people would say, “Keep silence.” That means you don’t talk nonsense. But you talk when necessary. When some people ask you about spiritual practice and you know, you tell them. When some people need your help explaining something, you do it. But briefly, clearly, and then no more. That is how you keep silence. It doesn’t mean that when you’re in the Center, you say you don’t talk. And then anybody asks you, you just say… You’d make people feel rejected and feel hurt. That’s different, OK? So “don’t talk” means don’t talk when you don’t have to. Don’t talk nonsense. Don’t waste your energy. Don’t dissipate the Blessing Power that you have earned during meditation or when you have seen the Master’s eyes or when Master has touched you or Master gave you some Blessing. Don’t dissipate it by talking nonsense unnecessarily. That means “keep silence.” Don’t talk. It’s not “don’t talk all the time.”
And also, during meals, it’s better not to talk. Because when you talk, you don’t chew properly. I’m talking about the material. We haven’t talked about the spiritual yet. You don’t chew properly. And sometimes you talk and then you swallow it in the wrong channel. Instead of going to your stomach, it goes into your lungs and then it causes you trouble. Sometimes it’s like that. You see? It goes to your nose, and then sometimes you can die from it. So since the ancient times, the people say, “When you eat, don’t talk.” That is a logical explanation.
Another explanation is that most of the time the devil goes through the mouth because it’s the widest opening of all. And we open it, most of the time, so, if there is anything trying to possess you, they would enter into the mouth very quickly. So, when we eat and we open the mouth and talk all the time, the devil will hear and then come and go inside with the food or contaminate our food and make it indigestible for us or make it poisonous or make it something troublesome when it enters our body.
Also, when we eat together, we talk, and we breathe all kinds of germs into the food. And then the other person also has to inhale and eat the food which is infected by our germs. Things like that. Sometimes, we have an infectious disease, and we don’t even know yet. It just entered and it did not develop in our body, so we do not know we have a contagious disease. And since we eat and we talk and we breathe into the food, other people might get infected by us as well. Therefore, while eating, it’s better that we don’t talk. And if we have to talk, then it’s better not to talk directly into the food. Not like you crawl on top of the table and talk to each other like this, and then of course all your mouth water (saliva) and the breathing, all the germs will come into the food as well. Maybe we don’t see it, but it is there.
And sometimes we eat and we talk and then all the salad is in between the teeth and all that. And suppose you are at a romantic dinner, then there you are. You end on a bad note. Something like that. Or sometimes you talk and then something’s very funny and then you laugh and then all the food comes out. And then you have to order a new dinner for the guest. Otherwise, the guest will just politely say, “Well, I’m full.” Even though he had only eaten half a bowl of rice, when he sees all your food from the mouth spread all over on the other food on the table, he’ll say “Goodbye.”
I told you about my “dream marriage.” Remember last time? Oh, no, you were not here. That was in Chinese. It was probably printed on the magazine. Did you read it? Not yet. (Yes.) Yes? (Yes.) About my marriage, my dream of marriage, about my “dream person”? Perhaps I forgot to tell you that when he talked, he breathed into the food and he “blessed” my food with his mouth water. And so before I finished my dinner, I said to him, “Goodbye.” So, when you look for a girlfriend or boyfriend, be careful, don’t talk too much at the table, And when you talk, don’t talk too loud. You talk with a quiet voice, then the mouth water doesn’t come out that much. If you’re afraid that your voice is too low and cannot reach the other person’s ears, then use a microphone. Just like me. So every time you go out for dinner, the prerequisite, the condition is: the microphone on the table? Alright? For each. It’s better if you have earphones as well. And then you’re all equipped. And then you can talk, no problem. Because you can talk with a very low voice, and the other person can hear you very loudly. And then you will not “bless” the other people’s food with your mouth water.
Because the mouth water contains a lot of things inside. Our mouth contains a lot of germs, even though we are very hygienic and brush our teeth every day. It is a natural thing that they breed inside there. But I don’t know, the doctor said mine doesn’t have any. “Few,” he said “Few, very few.” I had a checkup on my blood and with the blood test, they test everything, blood type and everything. And then where the column says “bacteria,” it says, “Few. Very few.” At that time, I was very sick. So those few were from somebody else. Those few are not supposed to be there at all. So, I was very sick. That’s why I had to have a blood test. Just a few bacteria made me sick. Can you imagine how much it’d make you if you kiss somebody or let him “bless” your food with water from his mouth and his nose and whatnot?
Just a few bacteria made me sick so much. Allergies all over my body at that time and it took many months to cure it. Just a few bacteria. And he didn’t find the bacteria for that. He had the blood test for everything, just to see what’s in there. And the bacteria’s only a few, he said, very few. And I don’t know what it is. But even then, he didn’t find out what made me ill. But I know that the few bacteria made me allergic. That’s what it is. Originally, they’re not supposed to be there. That’s why. That’s why just a few bacteria made me sick. Perhaps occasionally I will have a few bacteria like that, or other kinds, because you can’t avoid it when you’re always with people. And I take all kinds of things. Perhaps you have a very strong resistance, but now and again, you’re sick or you’re weak, or you don’t meditate enough, and then your resistance goes low, down, and then the bacteria come. (Yes.) So that’s why I know I don’t have bacteria. But in case I do, don’t go near. But what I mean is I think most people, maybe including myself, all our mouth water or breathing will have germs anyhow. I don’t know why. That’s what they reported, no? The scientists, they have researched and they found that people’s mouth water have a lot of bacteria. So, when people kiss each other, they exchange a lot of bacteria, and it’s a very generous amount.
Photo Caption: “Strong Heart Is Not Afraid of Challenge!”
