I don’t care for all this nonsense. Antiques, it’s enough that you walk into an antique shop and look all around. Why do you have to buy them for your house? You cannot buy all of them, anyhow. The antique shops, they offer all the antiquities that you can see. If one shop’s not enough, you walk to the next door. And you see everything. Whenever you want to see them, you just go to the shop and look at them. And if it’s not enough, you go to the auctions where they sell more rarities. And you can see everything. Antiques. And every antique piece he bought, he treasured, and he looked at them and watched them, and then put them where his eyes will be. It’s alright to have some pieces of them for decoration, but not at a personal sacrifice.
He had a room, smaller room in the city just because he couldn’t afford a bigger room, because he wanted to buy antiques. And all other things. And also, he had a lot of money to buy other things. Like, for example, before we got engaged, before that, we just knew each other and he seemed to like me very much, or love or whatever you say, I don’t know. He showed me big boxes, wooden and metal boxes, antique boxes, antique as well, antique. And inside, when he opened them, all the jewelry were antique, antique jewelry – beautiful, finely carved, belonged to his mother before. And he said, “This is all Yours.” It costs a lot of money, but it’s not all that beautiful. My taste is different.
Some of them are black because of the time. And some of them are beautifully carved, but it’s too complicated, and it looks too antique for me. And I don’t like it that somebody already wore it thousands of times over. I don’t know how many people wore them already because it’s antique. I don’t know who’s the person who wore them, (Yes.) what kind of person she was, and what did she do to earn all this. I don’t want to hang them on my body. I wasn’t tempted at all.
I was never tempted by jewelry, even when I was a child. I feel burdened wearing them. That’s why I don’t even have a watch. And I have earholes, but I never wear anything. I do sometimes, only for half an hour or two hours, then I come home and immediately tear them off, throw them out. These earholes, because when I was young, everybody “pierced” their ears. So they gave me an instrument to pierce them, and I was so stupid to do the same. And I did not know that I’d have a mark for all my life. But never mind. It shows that I’m feminine, at least. So, just to remind you that I have not changed my sex after enlightenment. OK? Don’t have illusions again.
Now, what else do we want to say? What else with the antique things? So, I was never for jewelry and things like that. I love beautiful things, clean and nice, just enough, no need for all these things. When I was young, we were at war. You know that. The war, and the Americans were there, and everything was at war. So my mother used to worry – my parents used to worry – that in case we got lost, separated from the parents, and I’d always have something to live on for a while. So she furnished me with earrings and some finger rings, and neck rings – everything, a lot of things, very thick gold and all that. And besides that, she showed me where our gold was. And she said, “This is a gold box, inside’s full of gold.” In case something happened to the parents, I should know.
And also, on my body, should be a lot of gold and all that, in case if something happened that we couldn’t find our parents, because I used to have to go out and study far away from home. My parents were in the central, but I was sent to the capital to study, therefore… and other places where there were better schools. So, she always equipped me with all kinds of “furniture,” body furniture, which were very shiny and heavy. And you know what I did with them? I always sold them and invited friends for dinner. So whenever I came back home again, because it was a long time until I got to go home to see my parents – sometimes on vacation, maybe twice a year, not often, – so I forgot that she would ask me. I didn’t think of the consequence, that she would notice there’s nothing on me. I forgot about it.
A present living person. So, I sold them all and I invited all the friends for dinner or coffee and things like that. I was very generous all the time. I’m used to generosity, even though it’s not on my own money. On my mother’s expense, I forgot that. When I was young, I could not know much. I was very easy with the money because I didn’t have much. You know, children. I’m not a child anymore. At that time I was about over ten years, teenager. So, that’s the thing I did. And after I went home sometimes, and I realized it now, what shall I tell her? Because she would ask. And she asked and I immediately said, “Well, it’s no longer there. It must be gone somewhere.” Gone somewhere!
And so, when she saw that, of course out of mother’s love, she would give me again. Furnish me again with all the “furniture.” And now I’m all shining, glittering and wealthy, run off again with my Honda motorcycle. And then after a few months, when some friends came along, classmates, and things like that, they have a party or they want to eat something and they don’t have the means and all that, and then it would be gone again. And my generous mother would refurnish them again. So, I was kind of spoilt when I was a child. But even then, I was spoilt, but I was diligent, somehow by nature. I would try to work and help with the family things, family chores and things like that. And I washed my own clothes and ironed my own clothes, even though we had servants in the house, everywhere we went. So that’s what it is. Probably, I guess, the personality. A matter of personality. Personality. It’s not always the education.
My mother was a good example for me. She worked very hard. And she was very frugal. I remember she was selling materials for clothes, but she herself wore some patched clothes. She was a very simple woman, worked hard for the family, but not for her own comfort. She worked so hard, but she sacrificed everything for us. Now I appreciate it more. I guess that’s where I learned. She never had a holiday, except when she had to go to see her children somewhere else, married off or studying somewhere. Then she’d take a few days or ten days off. But she worked so hard, day and night. She was her own salesperson and accountant, bookkeeper, lawyer, and manager, everything. She does everything alone, a one-man business.
My father earns money, but he spends more than he earns. So you know. On friends. I learned generosity from my father and hardworking from my mother. Yeah. That’s what it is. Now I think about it. He was always over-generous. Our house was always full of friends from him. Tea, coffee and dinner, lunch and these kinds of things. And he always helped his friends and tried to please them, even playing cards with them to please them, at my mother’s expense. And my mother, sometimes she cried because she didn’t like that. It’s OK to give them lunch, but not to play cards. She didn’t like it. And some of the beautiful women friends sometimes didn’t want to leave. And that’s what hurt my mother also. It’s not because of the generosity. It’s the sharing of invisible property that she worried about.
So I think she’s a beautiful woman, fantastic. No wonder she had such good experiences. Before she even knew that I am a so-called Living Buddha, she already had inner experiences, just by thinking of me. She saw one time I came home at night in her dream, and the house was full of Light. My body was full of Light too. So, in the morning she woke up, she called the whole house, and said, “Oh, She must have become Buddha, because I saw Her last night full of Light, coming home here and blessed me, and all this, and I feel so wonderful this morning,” and blah, blah, blah. So, everybody bowed to the chair that I used to sit in. That was before she even knew where I am.
I hardly communicated. I didn’t know how to write this kind of family letter. What can you write? “How are you?” I cannot say “I miss you” because it’s gone now. I mean, I got over the missing period. I used to miss them when I was first separated from them, but after sometime you get used to it. And I could not say I miss you anymore. It’s a lie. And what shall I say? “I love you”? Well, that we know. Why do we have to talk about the things that we know? They both knew. But what else could I say? “I study here, I work here, I earn money,” and that you can only say in one letter, but you cannot always say it in many letters. So, I didn’t know how to write letters. So, I hardly communicated. They do write sometimes now and again, but not that often. So in the late period when I was in the Himalayas and that, they didn’t know where I was. And that I became famous as a meditation teacher, they did not know. No one of my relatives knew. And how she saw me coming home, that’s from her own virtues. Not from me.
That’s why only recently, last year, that my relatives here in America got to know about me. And not from me, it’s from their friends. And then they telephoned me and said, “Oh, sister, You have become Buddha, really? Why didn’t You tell us?” Yes, things like that. Our cousins, they only knew last year. And my niece and nephew just saw me yesterday, after 25 years. And all of them hadn’t seen me for 25 years. And I haven’t seen my parents also for as long. So it’s not because I told them about me that she saw me. It was because of her virtues.
My mother was a virtuous person. She’s very faithful to my father. Even though my father was a little bit glamorous. I knew her, she would never stray. She was always very virtuous, very faithful, and sacrificed for the family all her life. I guess that’s what earns her the vision, that she has seen in her dream. And now, she sees me every day, she said in her letter. And she wrote poetry to me. And I couldn’t believe this was my mother because she never wrote poetry before. And it’s so beautiful.
