Abortion, entities, killing karma and spiritual practice
(excerpt from: Supreme Master Ching Hai October 30, 1995 Hsihu, Formosa (Originally In English) )
Q: I have a practical problem due to previous yoga work which I did; I have problems that's with regard to entities, to spiritual beings that are attached to me, and that causes me a great deal of trouble. These creatures are not human; they are animal-related creatures, and I have some of the appetites that these creatures have. What I am hoping to find out is whether there is a way that I can rid myself, be cleaned of these creatures, and progress in this spiritual practice?
A: That's the problem with the killing karma. That's why we try not to kill, or the souls will attach to us. Even people who have abortions, they don't know, the children's souls are attached to them all the time. ...
There was a book written about people who have abortions. All the children stick to them, and they grow with them. They grow just as normal children, because they don't have anywhere else to go. They are supposed to be a child of yours, so their soul sticks around. Because they are a different kind of entity than we are, their vibrations are more negative than positive. So they will influence our life in a very negative way.
They will make us sometimes sick, make some things go wrong, or we get a headache or stomachache; and we don't know why. Because we can't see these entities, these children hanging around us after the abortion.
Many people, they think it's pro-choice but it's pro-life. It's a life, it's not a choice. Then it's also a life of misery you make for yourself if you have an abortion. You have a lot of trouble, headache and sorrow; and you don't know where it's from and why. Because of all these children hanging around, all the Yin entities, not Yang entities. We belong to the Yang. The children who are aborted belong to the Yin, the negative side of life, the death side of life. Then they hang around us, they make our lives very negative, very dark; they belong to the shadows of life, not the real things.
So they influence us and make our lives not real, not bright, not always on the positive, but half-negative, half-positive. It similar with killing animals and other people, murdering and all that.
That's why you ask me about choice. Thus we make all these entities, or we make friends with them or we make trouble with them. No, we don't make trouble. There is no choice anymore now. There was a choice before. Free will to be good or to be evil, to use the positive inside us or to use the negative inside us, to kill or to spare lives, to kill or to do charity. We do sometimes make the wrong choice. Therefore, we suffer the consequences in this life, the life after or continuously until we pay the debt, clear and clean. Should we make more of such choices or more of such karma, then of course we continue to suffer again, maybe worse than this. That's why we have the precepts. Don't do it again.
So whatever you did in the past, you suffer for, but in a limited way and then after this you are finished. But if you continue without the precepts, without a vegetarian diet, you will not know when to stop and you have no fence, no regulations and no limit for the negative use of your power. The precepts and the vegetarian diet are the way to help you to always continue to go in the positive.
So whatever you did negative in the past, of course, you suffer the consequences now. And the Master helps you to a certain extent only, otherwise you can't develop. If the parents give the children -- bad and good -- the same candies, the same treatment all the time, then the bad continue to do bad, and the good also imitate the bad ones and do bad things. They say, "Well, he has more fun, and he still gets the same love, the same treatment, so why don't we have fun with him, and also our parents don't say anything." The same love, the same treatment, the same reward, for bad and good. Then it's no good! No good for the children, they cannot learn to distinguish between bad and good.
Therefore, there is hell, there's a distinct punishment for each individual. Not because God is not merciful, but we humans, we deserve it. There is a film called "Lost Horizon." Have you seen it? If you haven't, you should. There was a funny sentence that was very correct. He said: "Well, this is a very beautiful place here, if everybody could come here it would be beautiful, would be nice." And the other person said: "If everybody comes here, it won't be beautiful anymore." (Laughter) It's true, too. You know that very well.