Universal Message given to Humanity

Despite the existence of various religions and philosophical teachings in our world, each with its own interpretation of our origin, lifestyle, and future, did the teachers of these traditions truly teach the same thing, or something different?

Lets take a look at some of them and their real teachings in the words of Guo Pu(276–324 CE), a scholar of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, is widely considered the "Father of Feng Shui." He is credited with writing the Zang Shui (The Book of Burial), the earliest, most authoritative source of Feng Shui doctrine that first defined the practice. 

THE TEACHERS' TABLE

Imagine for a moment something that has never happened. A table, four chairs and in each one a man who changed the destiny of humanity. In the first sits Lao Tzé, the old man who wrote the truth in just 5000 words and disappeared into the mountains.

In the second, Siddhartha Gautama, Buddha, the prince who abandoned everything to discover that peace was already within him.

In the third, Jesus the Nazarene, the carpenter who spoke of love in a world who only understood strength. And in the fourth, Bodhidharma, the monk who crossed seas to teach that the truth does not fit in any book, Ch'an or Zen Buddhism. Four men, four paths, four traditions that the world has separated for centuries. But tell me, traveler, what if they were never separated? What if upon sitting together we discovered that all four of them said exactly the same thing?, just in different languages. And if wars, divisions and hatred were born not from their words, but from those who interpreted them later.

What you are going to read today has not been said like this before. At this table you will hear each teacher speak in their own voice. You will discover what they really taught, not what others said they taught. And at the end you will take away a truth so simple that it fits in a single breath, but so powerful that it can free your heart from all spiritual confusion.

WHAT WERE THEIR TEACHINGS

Masters, the world separated you into different religions, gave you different labels, temples, rituals and sacred books. But I want to start with the essentials. What was the heart of your message? If you have to say it in a few words, what did you really come to teach?Lao Tzé: I never wanted to teach anything, I just observed. I looked at the water and learned that the soft conquers the hard. I looked at the sky and understood that emptiness contains everything. My message was very simple. Stop fighting the current of life and flow. The Tao Te Ching is neither a God nor a religion. It is the invisible order that sustains every leaf, every river and every beat of your heart. You don't need to worship it, you just need to stop resisting it. The Tao as a natural flow, not as a doctrine.Buddha: I was a man who saw suffering and suffered and who wanted to understand why. That's all. I didn't come down from any heaven. I was born a prince, but wealth did not give me peace. I searched the answer in extreme asceticism and I didn't find it either. I found it in the middle path, neither excess nor lack. My teaching fits in one sentence: Suffering is born from attachment. Let go and you will be free. I did not ask that you worship me, I asked that each one light his own lamp and walk. Light your own lamp, do not follow someone else's.Jesus of Nazareth: I only spoke about one thing, about love. Love for yourself, love for your neighbor and love even for those who hurt you, because hate chains you and only the forgiveness sets you free. And I said something that many did not want to hear, that the kingdom of The Heavens are not in any stone temple, but here inside, in your heart, right now. I did not come to found any institution. I came to remind you that you carry a light interior that no one, absolutely no one, can turn off.Bodhidharma: You crossed the sea from India to China.What did you bring with you? Nothing. That was precisely the message. An emperor asked me what was the sacred essence of my teaching. I responded, an immense emptiness and nothing sacred. He got angry, he didn't understand. The truth is not in the texts, nor in the rituals, nor in the words of any teacher.  The truth is in the silence that appears when you stop looking outside what already lives inside you. What you call flow, I called letting go. The water does not suffer because it does not cling to the rock. Human suffering arises from clinging. We are saying the same thing with different images. That's how it is. The river does not fight against the mountain, it simply surrounds it. That is letting go and that is flow. They are the same thing. Body Dharma, your emptiness and my inner kingdom, are they not the same place? A space within the human being where something lives that words cannot catch. Exactly. You said that the kingdom is within and I only add one thing. Stop searching for it with words, sit down, be silent and you will find it. Traveler, do you hear what just happened? Four men from four eras different people speaking in four different languages and the message is exactly the same. Don't look outside. The answer is within you. The Tao calls it flow, Buddha calls it awakening, Jesus calls it the inner realm, and Bodhidharma calls it silence. Four different words for one true. Why did they create religions in their name?

Teachers, now I must ask you an uncomfortable question. After each of you, men built institutions, wrote dogmas, created hierarchies and even declared wars in your name. How is it possible that a message of peace became a reason for division? I said (Jesus), "Love your enemy and crusades were organized in my name." I said, "Do not judge and in my name courts were raised. The problem never was the message, the problem was fear. When men are afraid, They need to control and to control they need rules, walls and punishments. My message was freedom, but freedom scares those who need to be right. I wrote (Lao Tzé) that the Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. It is to say that in the first line of my text I already warned that words are not enough to contain the truth. But men took those same words and turned them into doctrine, made the river a pond and locked up what can't be locked up. Lao Tzé, you warned in your first line that words are not enough and I said it otherwise. The spirit gives life, but the letter kills. And still, the men clung to the lyrics. I noticed the same thing. I said that my teachings were like a raft to cross the river and that once you reach the other shore, you leave the raft. You don't carry it on your shoulders for the rest of your life. But the men did exactly that, they loaded the raft and forgot to walk. They turned the finger that pointed to the moon into an object of worship and left to look at the moon. That's why I said that if you meet Buddha on the road, kill him. Not because of violence, but because the truth is not a person, nor a book, nor a statue. It is a direct experience. The day you stop worshiping the teacher and start listening to the silence of your own heart, that day you truly awaken. Traveler, listen carefully to what they are saying. None of them asked to be adored. None asked for golden temples. No one asked for armies defending his name. What they asked for was much simpler and at the same time much more difficult, for you to look inside yourself.

Did they talk about God? Now we come to the point that most divides the world, the word that has caused more wars than any other, God. Teachers, do you speak of a God? Is there that superior force that so many defend and so many deny? Lao Tzu: I never used the word God. I spoke of the Tao. And the Tao is not a person sitting on a throne. It is the silent intelligence that makes the seed know how to become a tree. Makes the heart know how to beat without anyone giving it the order. Let the seasons follow one another without an instruction manual. Is that a God? Call it what you want. The name doesn't matter. What matters is that there is a deep order that harmonizes everything and that you are part of it. I preferred the silence before that question and not because there was no answer, but because the question itself is a trap. When you define that force, you limit it. When You name it, you lock it up. What I taught was to experience it directly.Sit quietly, breathe and what remains when every thought stops, that's what some call God. Jesus: I used the word father, but I didn't talk about an old man in the clouds. I said that the Father and I are one and that the same is true for every human being. The divine spark is not separate from you, it is in you, it is you. When I said, "Pray." I didn't ask you to beg a distant being. I asked to connect with that loving intelligence that beats within each heart. The words are unnecessary. The moon doesn't need you to call it a moon to shine. The river does not need you to name it river to flow. That force that sustains the universe does not need your definition. What it needs is your silence, because only in the silence you can feel it. The Tao that can be named is not the true Tao. The four of us are saying that the name is the trap. Traveler, do you understand what just happened at this table? No one denied that universal intelligence, but no one enclosed it in a name, nor in a temple, not even in a book. Lao Tzé called it Tao. Buddha called it the ultimate reality. Jesus called it his father and Bodhi Dharma called it silence. Four fingers pointing at the same moon and men for centuries have fought over the fingers without ever looking up at the moon.

What hurts you about what they did with their message? Teachers, if you could see the world today, what would hurt you more than it has done with their words? That love is used as an excuse to judge, that's what hurts me the most. Let them say in my name, you are wrong, you sin, you will burn. I ate with those society despised, I washed the feet of my disciples and defended a woman whom they wanted to stone. My message was clear. Don't judge. And yet, the Judgment became the favorite sport of those who claim to follow me. That hurts me, not for me, but for all the hearts that closed, believing that God rejected them. It hurts me that they turned detachment into indifference. I taught you to let go of suffering, not to stop feeling. Compassion is the center of everything. feel the pain of the other as one's own and act to alleviate it. But some took my words and sat meditating while the world It burned around him. Spirituality without compassion is an empty shell. Jesus, they have used you to judge and me to justify the indifference. They have betrayed us in different ways, but the root is the same. The human ego It distorts everything it touches.That's how it is. They turned your detachment into coldness and my love into guilt. But neither you taught indifference, nor did I teach punishment. What hurts me is that they transformed simplicity into superstition. The Tao is observing nature and living in harmony with it. You don't need incense, or complicated rituals, or teachers who charge for reveal to you what you already know. It hurts me that something so simple has become in merchandise. It hurts me that they repeated my words like parrots, without understanding none. I filled temples with monks who recited sutras by heart, but whose heart was still asleep. Enlightenment is not an exam that you pass by repeating correct answers. It's a lightning bolt that goes through you when you stop hide behind words. Traveler, right now you may feel a knot in your chest. Maybe you recognize some of this in your own life. Maybe you have judged believing it was love or you have felt guilt [music] where there should be peace or you have looked outside for what was always inside. It's not your fault, that's how we were taught. But today at this table the teachers are telling you something different. They are giving you back the key that was always yours. 

DEVIL'S ADVOCATE 

Teachers, allow me now to be the advocate for why I know that many Listeners will be thinking things like this. Isn't it too simplistic to say that everyone says the same thing? The traditions are different, the rituals are different, the cultures are different. There is no disrespect to them by mixing them like this. The forms are different and no one says otherwise. The rituals, the practices, the cultures, all of that is different. But the essence, the root, that is what we share. Confusing form with essence is like saying that Spanish and Japanese are the same language just because they both serve to say I love you. And there is another important objection. What happens to those who follow a single tradition with sincere faith? Are you wrong? Do you need to read the tao or sit in a sen temple to be illuminated? If someone prays every night with an open heart and that gives them peace, that is sacred and does not need anything else. Every sincere path is valid. What is not valid is using your path as a wall to despise another's path. The danger is not in following a single path. The danger is in believing that the yours is the only one. The river does not argue with the rain about who carries the best water to the sea. And there is an even more subtle trap, turning this understanding into a new ego. Say, I know they are all the same. And looking down on those who don't see it is exactly the same arrogance that divided the world in the first place. The True understanding does not judge, it embraces. And I add one last warning. Know Just because all the teachers said the same thing doesn't transform your life. What transforms is to practice just one of his teachings with all your heart. A single act of True love is worth 1000 speeches on spiritual unity. 

FINAL MESSAGE 

Masters, if you had to leave a single message for humanity, one that represent all four equally, what would be the message? Wake up. Everything you are looking for you already have. Stop suffering for what is not real. Love without conditions, without fear and without borders, because love is the only force that transforms everything. Shut up. In silence you will find everything that words cannot give you. Trust in life, don't fight against it. It just flows. Flow, wake up, love and be silent. Four words and one truth. You don't need to choose between them or abandon one to embrace another. There are four doors that go to the same room, four rivers that flow into the same sea. And if you let of wondering what the correct religion is and you will begin to wonder which one It is the right life. And if instead of arguing about names, temples and books, you simply live what all the teachers taught, flow with life, awaken to the truth interior, love without conditions and find in silence the peace that no one can take away from you. It is not necessary to leave your faith or abandon your path. You just need to open your eyes and see that your neighbor's path also leads to the same light.Traveler, the table has fallen silent, but the words that were said here continue to vibrate. Today you heard something that the world needed to hear, that the truth has no owner, that love has no flag and that peace does not belong to no religion, but the human heart that dares to awaken. I don't ask you abandon your faith, I ask you to deepen it, because when you really You listen to what your teacher taught, you discover that he was never at war with the others. We invented war. Flow as Lao Tsé taught, wake up like Buddha taught, love like Jesus taught and be silent like he taught Bodhi Dharma. And always remember that four rivers may have different names, but they all flow into the same infinite sea. The next time someone asks you what you believe, remember what was said at this table. I believe in the same thing that all the teachers believed. I believe in love, I believe in peace and I believe in you.