Host: Our Most Compassionate Supreme Master Ching Hai lovingly accepted a heartfelt invitation from Satchitananda (Seth Blaustein), executive producer of the Congress of World Peace, Mr. Adil Kassam, founder of UNIFY, and the Congress of World Peace team, to be an honored guest speaker at the inaugural Congress of World Peace to commemorate the International Day of Peace, observed globally on September 21, 2022. Held from September 21st to the 22nd, the event was a virtual conference, that sought to unify spiritual and religious leaders from various faiths, to share messages of peace, harmony and non-violence.
Other speakers included: the Honorable Chief Phil Lane Jr., the Honorable Rabbi David Rosen, Yogmata Keiko Aikawa, Dr. Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, Neale Donald Walsch and many others.
The following is the message that Master graciously recorded and was streamed to all who joined the event online.
Dearest Reverend Satchitananda, Mr. Adil Kassam, and the Congress of World Peace team:
Thank you for the honor of being invited to your important day of World Peace prayer and meditation. Due to some time constraints, I could not offer much more. Here are some of my thoughts about world peace and or inner peace for humanity: The thing is, we cannot have peace if we don’t give peace.
The Buddha was enlightened, that’s how He can give enlightenment to others who believe in Him. Because we have money in the bank so we could help others in some cases when they need it. Like, some of our financial availability. Talking about money doesn’t help us if we do not have any – least of all those we want to help. Inner peace comes only when we practice peace, not just by meditation, not just by talking about peace, not just by thinking about peace, or wishing to have peace for ourselves or for the world.
The Buddha said that we must have compassion for all beings – in practice, not just in talk. Buddha said that if we don’t follow the vegan diet, then even if we practice meditation or any means of yoga, we will reach some level of demonic or some Heavenly divine position only – we could never reach Buddhahood. And He even said that whoever eats meat is not His disciple.
So, I’m a follower of the Buddha. I would not dare to teach just anyone any kind of meditation just to have inner peace. Inner peace begins when we give peace to others. We cannot have peace if others are in pain, and mostly, or indirectly, caused by us, by our actions or our way of life. We cannot have inner peace if, by our way of life, such as consuming the dead animal-people flesh, who has been tortured, who has been imprisoned, who has been deprived of all kinds of freedom, dignity and peace his whole life in the animal concentration camp.
Not just in Buddhism – in all great religions of the world. All the teachings regarding violence toward others and toward the animal-people are written very clearly.
For example, in the Bible, it’s said that God made all the fruits and vegetables for us humans as meals. And God also made other things – nutritional herbs and vegetables for the animal-people. And God has said, do not kill any more she sheep or he bullocks to make offerings to Him because your hands would be full of blood. And when you pray, God would turn His head away. He will not listen. God said you have to stop, otherwise God will not listen anymore. That’s what we are doing now. We don’t listen to God and keep begging God to listen to us for what we want, and we don’t care about what God wants. Then how can we have the peace that we so much treasure if we do not listen to God’s words as to what to do in order to have God’s blessing, to have peace?
I can talk forever about this topic, but I just cited some of the teachings of two of the greatest religions on the planet to remind you. And that’s all. May my words have some impact on your intellect and consciousness. May your way of life change, U-turn to be Heaven’s way, God’s way, so that you can go back to Heaven, go back to God. Amen.
So, the first step for inner peace is to be vegan – abstain absolutely from all the suffering-causing kind of so-called food, so that animal-people, our co-inhabitants, our brothers and sisters, and as the Buddha said, our relatives from former lives or even this lifetime do not have to suffer. After they died, they might have become animal-people, maybe to be with us, to accompany us, or maybe to pay for some little karma they did.
Nevertheless, whatever the reason that made them become animal-people, they are still our relatives or friends, so we cannot let them be massacred and even en masse, billions per week or millions per hour, even, helplessly, agonizingly, and utterly alone – lonely, defenseless anywhere in the world.
We cannot have peace causing all this directly or indirectly. Especially, nowadays, we have the chance to search the internet or the media to find out how our friends and relatives in the form of gentle, peaceful animal-people have been tortured, have been imprisoned, have been molested, have been cruelly treated before their piece of dead flesh comes into our mouth. Not to talk about inner peace or world peace. This kind of treatment is utterly unjustified, horrible. It could compare to hell.
How can we learn anything, to have inner peace, if we, our hearts, our minds, our subconscious and conscience, know that our way of life causes untold suffering to numerous animal-people who are so innocent, so gentle and so helpless, defenseless? As the human being with full capability, full of intelligence and full of provided evidence of the suffering and anguish of our animal friends, our animal-people, how can that knowledge, consciously or unconsciously, leave us in peace or give us peace, or guarantee any peace in our life?
I, myself, personally cannot cry much longer. Every time I see all this suffering, even just on the screen, my heart feels like I’m in hell. That’s why we ask our own Association members to pray every day for World Vegan. Because if we don’t have World Vegan – World Peace is far, far, far, far away, as all of you know very well.
Even, for example, just the war in Ukraine, the whole world supports peace in Ukraine. The whole world asks Russia to leave Ukraine – go home and leave the people in Ukraine in peace. All kinds of support, and the war still drags on. It’s impossible to even explain this event. It’s impossible to even understand any kind of human who started this kind of war and makes people suffer so much – dying and fleeing as refugees in strange lands, having nothing with them. Children die in big numbers. Women being molested, raped – even children, boys, girls. And thousands of people die, or tens of thousands on both sides, for nothing, for no reason at all, except just to show power, or just to do it because of maybe boredom or maybe they are drugged or crazy.
It is because we don’t practice what we want. If we want our body to feel clean, then we must take care of it. We must wash ourselves until it’s clean the way we want it. If we want to cut our hunger, then we have to find food to eat. If we want to quench our thirst, we must drink water or some liquid, some fruit juice or vegetable juice – for example, like that.
But animal-people flesh, animal-people meat – even eggs and milk, fish – all these are the suffering caused to endless, countless living, kicking, sentient beings. Just because they don’t look like us, it doesn’t mean they don’t have feelings, they don’t have intelligence, they don’t have consciousness. We all know that by now. If we believe in Buddha, then we must know that Buddha preached that. They are sentient beings. Sentient – meaning they feel, they can have feelings, they have emotions. They have intelligence, just like us. Maybe in different ways.
We can see all on the internet or on the films that people make, how intelligent animal-people are and how much suffering they can feel, just exactly like us. How can we terminate a life who’s still breathing, who’s still feeling, who has love, who can show affection – not just to their own species, but to other species, and to us humans as well? How can we ever have peace if we don’t give peace to others? We don’t even have to give peace, we just leave them alone, then they have peace. Because God gave them… Excuse me. It’s just the emotion makes me… not feel very well.
Sorry. I hope this speech that you have requested me to make, that I feel honored to contribute, will reach you on time. Because of my special situation, I cannot always do things that anyone wants me to do in their own time. It’s not convenient for me to explain my situation, especially right now. And I just hope that my wonder team could even spare their sleep time to receive this and tidy it up, because I don’t have a script in front of me. I’m talking on the phone, so I hope that at the other end, later, they will be able to tidy it up, wherever maybe I repeat some words, and to make it nice and presentable, and send it to you on time. If not, then so be it. I’m sorry.
I am also sorry if I have offended any of you in the audience, but I’m not sorry to tell you the truth, because that’s what love is – to tell your loved ones the truth. Even if it costs you your life, even if it costs you your reputation, your friendship or your admiration from people – whatever. You just always have to tell the truth, because we are the ones who seek the truth. We are truth seekers. And we have found some of the truth that we are seeking to have.
And we have to tell the truth. I wish I had taught the whole world how to meditate, how to find inner peace. But that, they have to contribute themselves. First of all, the foremost, the first step is to leave the animal-people in peace, the way God has intended them to be – the way God has made them. God made them peaceful and provided them with things so that they can sustain their life on Earth, just like God has made nutritional food for us to sustain our lives.
But God has never in any religion told us to eat other creatures, because we are all children of God. The animal-people are also children of God. So, in all our humble wisdom we should respect the children of God, the creation of God, and we should never ever destroy them in cold-bloodedness just to stuff it in our mouths, fill our stomachs with blood and agonizing deadliness, and the utmost inhumane cruelty and atrocity.
So, in order to have inner peace, we must first respect other beings’ peace. We must be vegan. Then peace will come to us quietly, surely, permanently, and this also will lead to world peace, forever peace.
I cannot tell you otherwise. I told you only the truth, nothing but the truth. It’s up to you to decide what you want to do with your precious life on Earth – to find God, to be one with God, to respect God’s creation, or go the opposite direction, and you know where you will end.
May all the Heavens bless you, and may God protect you and enlighten you. May you protect yourself by choosing the peaceful, compassionate, natural vegan diet. Amen.
Thank you for your attention. Wishing you all the best, to find your own peaceful life soon, to be enlightened soon, to find a good Master soon, if you wish to, and to know that you are making peace by being vegan. God loves you. God loves us all.
Host: Our deepest gratitude, Most Beloved Supreme Master Ching Hai, for sharing this truth-revealing message of peace, thus illuminating humanity’s path to a future filled with respect and benevolence for all beings. Many thanks, Satchitananda (Seth Blaustein), Mr. Adil Kassam, and all involved, for your kind dedication to promoting planetary harmony. May all citizens of the world swiftly awaken and adopt the compassionate vegan lifestyle to realize true, everlasting peace on Earth, in Celestial serenity.
For more details and to watch the full event, please visit: CongressofPeace.com.
