To slander the Buddha or any enlightened Saint is one of the gravest sins. Or to kill the Buddha, or to kill your parents, or to hurt your parents in any way, to hurt the Buddha in any way. To hurt, does not necessarily mean to use a knife, or physical means to hurt. To hurt also the reputation.
In this world, magical power, secular power, there is never enough to protect yourself from all harm. Now I’m telling you with all his magical power he could not save his mom. The reason was that his mom had committed the gravest sin, one of the gravest sins that you can commit. Even if you are a nonbeliever. Even if your son or your daughter, even if it’s a Master, your son, your daughter or the disciple of the most powerful Master, like Buddha, for example, or Jesus, still you cannot avoid the consequences of your own actions. If there is an action, there is a reaction, retribution. She had slandered the Buddha, slandered His disciples. The pure disciples, at that time, all of them were Arhat and great Saints, great Bodhisattvas already, and they had done nothing wrong. They had done nothing wrong to her physically, emotionally, mentally, psychologically, spiritually, nothing. They were innocent, but she kept slandering them to other people, to make sure nobody believed the Buddha. Whomever she could, she slandered the Buddha and the sangha.
I guess she was following another kind of faith, but with the wrong concept, like her faith was the only one. The rest, whoever new, was not true. Just like when Jesus was alive, people were still waiting for Him to come. They always thought the Messiah would come one day. And then when Baha’u’llah, God bless Him, arrived, they were also waiting for another Master to come. And when Guru Nanak came, they were still waiting for the Savior. So very few people followed Him, even though it looked like a lot, maybe even millions, but how much is millions? In the world you have billions. Thus, whatever Master comes, they are still waiting for a Messiah. Same with when the Buddha arrived, they were still waiting for a Messiah, the Savior. They did not believe in Him. Similarly, maybe she was following another set of doctrines, saying that the Messiah would come and everyone else was not true.
In some of the religious faiths nowadays, they still think like that. They still think that maybe that was the last one, the last prophet, the last Savior, no one else after that. So, we cannot argue with all this. Fine, we don’t have to.
And nobody needs to believe in anyone if they don’t want to believe, but you should not slander, in case that being, that person has attained Sainthood, then you will be punished severely. It’s not the Saint that punishes you, it is the law of cause and effect in this world.
Thus, Maudgalyayana’s mother was one of them, who had a bad mouth, bad seed of karma, bad influence from maybe her faith. Maybe the people who led her into that faith. Maybe somebody who was jealous of the Buddha and indoctrinated her into many wrong concepts, made her become slanderous of the sangha and the teachings of the Buddha, and the Buddha personally, even though her son was a disciple. Or maybe she had no faith at all. She loved her son, like all mothers do, and sometimes, too much love becomes possessiveness, and thus when her only son, the beloved of her life, the jewel in her eyes, left her home, and became a monk, following the Buddha everywhere and became a renunciate, she could not tolerate it. Similar to many mothers, when her son is married to another woman, the daughter-in-law is another woman, and she cannot bear it, and then there’re many things happening within the family, with the in-laws.
Well, this is famous anyway. I am not saying bad things about anybody, it just happened, just happened. Especially if her husband had left the world and she had only one son, and that was all her life. And if this so-called life was taken away from her, she became furious, and then she became very, very bad like that.
To slander the Buddha or any enlightened Saint is one of the gravest sins. Or to kill the Buddha, or to kill your parents, or to hurt your parents in any way, to hurt the Buddha in any way. To hurt, does not necessarily mean to use a knife, or physical means to hurt. To hurt also the reputation; hurt the reputation to make that person be so degraded, that Saint degraded, humiliated or harassed in any way. Not even physically; it’s the same as making the Buddha bleed. Making any Buddha bleed is the gravest sin, according to the sutra, and I know that also, that is true. Or slandering any Buddha, you will go to the so-called nonstop hell, meaning you will never get out. You can never get out of that, and you could never be pardoned, no matter how many Masters come and go. Because you denied the representative of the Truth and the goodness and the virtuous. You turned your back from it; that means you’ll be there forever. Got that?
So, the mother of this great monk had to go to hell according to the law of karma, which governs this entire physical world. That means the maya, the illusionary force, can do with her what it wants. No one can interfere, even the Buddha cannot, because Maudgalyayana went to hell. He had the power to go to Heaven, high Heaven, at will. And he could even go to hell at will, whatever hell, the deepest hell, he could go to. He was a disciple of the Buddha, and he also had magical powers. He went there and saw his mother suffering so much. Not only did she slander the Buddha and defame the sangha, she cooked meat and invited the monks to eat; cheated them, understand me? Cheated them to eat meat, so that they would also commit the offenses. Because the Buddha had declared already, they should not eat meat; the real monks should not eat meat. And she cheated them. She said: "Oh, it’s vegetarian." She pretended to be nice and pious, and then invited them and then gave them this impure food to eat. Therefore, she went to the non…
We have everlasting life, but we have also everlasting hell. She went to that kind of hell. Over there, she’s always feeling hungry, thirsty, but she can never eat anything. Even her son, the great monk, came down there to bring food; used his power to manifest food to give to his mother. As soon as she swallowed, it became burning coal, burning her throat and her body. Continuously, she can never eat anything. Forever hungry, because she gave the wrong food to the sangha, so her extra karma is like that.
Normally, if you are enlightened and practice diligently, then five, six, up to nine, ten generations will be liberated forever. Might not be on the Fifth Level yet, but can be guaranteed of ultimate liberation, gradually, because of your merit, and because of your Master’s power. This one is an exception, because she denied everything and she degraded everything that was meritorious for her, due to her son.
Can you imagine how much more, if people even killed the Buddha and all that. Everyone, even disciples or non-disciples, who slander the Buddha will all really go to hell, whether or not the Master wants it. The same with the disciples of Jesus who betrayed Him, even though maybe not intentionally, maybe being cheated into it. And another one, Devadatta, who was always against the Buddha, the same. He would have gone to hell for a long time, and even with the power of the Buddha, maybe long eons, after kalpas, after billions, trillions, Gazillions… of years, maybe they can fish him out, but then he would do bad things again. And then go back to hell again. The seed inside cannot always be destroyed by hell fire, even for thousands of billions, zillions of kalpas, meaning uncountable lifetimes.
Yeah, I told you, it’s very difficult to be a Master, because you can’t please everyone. And there are many established long-time doctrines already. And due to people’s ignorance, not understanding the doctrines of the past Masters and Saints, and due to the ignorance of the so-called leaders, religious leaders, you know, the blind leading the blind, both will fall someday. Thus, the public are being misled, believing something that is not true… It’s not the truth, it’s not correct. And so, they all become very ignorant and arrogant, and do not treat the real Saint, the real Savior, nicely. Thus, they have problems. Even though they might come and follow such and such Master, maybe just for fun, or maybe just because their friend’s in it, just because their wife’s going, he wants to check out what’s the wife is doing in the assembly. Why she keeps going every Sunday and doesn’t stay home. Or the husband, why, whether or not he has another woman, or something. So, they just join just to check out, or just join because there is a girl he fancies or a boy she likes. And if anything she doesn’t like anymore, she comes out and then…
Because they don’t understand, don’t want to listen, nothing. Just follow that goal only. The object only, not follow the Master’s teachings, so they do not understand. So, any little unpleasantness, she or he will come out and turn against the Master. The same, life after life like that; it’s very difficult.
Also, the Master has former enemies coming back. They also follow maybe, but they are doing many things that are harmful to the Master and the assembly. Maybe not physically, but mentally, or hurting the reputation, or obstructing the teaching, obstructing other people, making their faith waver. Something like that.
Milarepa, even though He had so few disciples already, His Master told Him, “Don’t go out, don’t preach to anybody, don’t accept anyone as your disciple.” Most people in the world, they only want material blessings. They don’t really want to practice. That’s why mostly He hid Himself in some remote mountain, eating even just some nettle leaves, to survive. He’d rather, than go down in the village or town, where people would make offerings to Him. In Tibet and India, there is still this wonderful tradition, that they make offerings to the renunciate or the Saint, if they believe you are a Saint. They don’t question a lot.
So yeah, that’s why I told you I wish I was in India, or a man, you know. In India, and if you are a man, it’s also easy. They don’t question you a lot. Like, some people have a problem, some Master has a problem, maybe in another country, but they accept Him in India. They never question Him, and when He comes back, they also don’t question. They don’t put Him in jail like in the other country. They don’t make trouble.
If you say you are a Saint and you are not, then it is your problem. You will have to answer to Heaven, because that’s also one of the worst sins you can commit, telling lies about your spiritual attainment, when you don’t have it. That’s also the worst thing you could do to yourself, and plus five, six, seven, nine generations with you, because if you fall, they fall too. Even though Mu Chien Lien, Maudgalyayana did not fall, his mother still fell. Only his mother; the rest nobody mentioned it, that means they were liberated. Only the mother, who was so wicked, that’s why.
So, do not think that if you are initiated by any Master, you can commit anything you want, you can say anything you want, or even go against the Master and the Master still will save you. Maybe, but that’s very risky. In this world of illusion, you must adhere to the rules and regulations in this world. Suppose you are even the president of a free country, but if you go to another restricted, politically sensitive country, you still cannot do anything against the rules of their country. Can you? (No.) OK.
