Q&A Session at the Vi-Kien Center with Master Luong Si Hang – Vi Kien, 15 May 1986

We must use our center of energy to direct our thoughts to God and the Buddhas. This is the real way, and we will not be abused.

Question: When our relatives pass away and we perform the traditional funeral rituals to ease the departure of the deceased souls, such as prayers, meal offerings, or when we worship them on the anniversary of their death, can the souls of the deceased enjoy any of these offerings?

Answer: When we worship them at home with a sincere heart, the souls with light sins can come back, but those with heavy sins have great difficulty to come back.

But we must be absolutely sincere in order for the World Above to grant them the return. When they are allowed to return, you can feel the difference in your home.

For example, if tomorrow is the worship day and we have a sincere heart, then we can feel a very light atmosphere in the home since the night before already. The home is happy as if our deceased relative has come back. We can feel that way. We can feel the big difference. The souls have really come back as they are only light sinners. We cannot see with our eyes, but we can feel it that way. 

Therefore, we must have a worshipping ceremony, and the best way is to offer vegetarian dishes. We should no longer kill animals. We offer a vegetarian meal, and we invite the deceased souls to use the offerings, and we speak with them with joy as if they are still living with the family. A soul does not die. Therefore, if the souls are light, when their children and grandchildren pray for their return with sincerity, they are all allowed to come back.

Therefore, I have created the Vô-Vi mirror, so that we may all practice with the greatest sincerity. Every day, in the morning, we send some of our energy by bowing in front of the Vô-Vi mirror, and we do the same in the evening. Why so? With our respectful heart, we build a Vô -Vi altar, which is our truthful and righteous flux of energy. When our truthful and righteous flux of energy resides in the mirror, we can pray for our ancestors to come back on the anniversary of their death. Our prayer will be accepted, since they know us, so they will return. They will come back with joy, and evil spirits dare not accept the invitation to return.

With the Vô-Vi mirror, the spirits cannot accept the invitation carelessly. Only those spirits who are sincere and possess an energy in harmony with the energy of the home owner are allowed to return. Therefore, every morning, everyone should stand in front of the Vô-Vi mirror and silently invoke Nam-Mo-A-Di-Da-Phat, then bow 3 times before going to work. When coming back from work, one also has to bow 3 times. We send our energy into the mirror. After many days, it will become a respectful force. The World Above will send us their blessings, and the dishonest and evil spirits cannot invade us. We are a force, a force built upon our sincere heart and our respectful behavior. Therefore, evil spirits must stay away.

Therefore, only our true relatives are allowed to come back. Only the ancestors who are truly related to us are allowed to come back to participate in the meal offerings. In contrast, I see many people who worship all kinds of things in a careless and filthy manner, and only wandering ghosts are feasting there loudly and disorderly. But these people do not see it. They wrongly believe that their great ancestors are coming back, but in reality, the ghosts are eating. They don’t know, which is such a pity, since they do not understand.

Therefore, many people do not understand and say: “I practice Vô-Vi, so I must do it in secret, so no one can see me.” They leave their house in darkness, and sit in meditation until a ghost enters their body. We must keep the area bright and clear. The Buddha sits in the open during his spiritual practice, and no evil spirit dares entering his body. Do you see it? In contrast, you are covering yourself in darkness. The worst is to set up an altar in your bedroom. It is most dangerous, as evil spirits will enter most easily.

Many Vietnamese people do not understand. They think: “I set up an altar in a closed room, so that I can go there to worship my ancestors.” But instead, the ghost is entering there.   The place of worship for all must be the house salon, where the main entrance door is located. Whatever we worship must be placed in a central location. The evil ghosts do not dare to enter. If we put the altar in a closed room, they will enter there, they will live there, then, they will make up stories. They will claim to be our ancestors, they also know the names of our parents and ancestors, so they will cite them all. When people hear these names, they would prostrate themselves repeatedly, but in fact, they are revering a ghost only. This is the truth. Therefore, I advise against using a picture to revere the ancestors.

We should remove the picture, and only hang it on a wall to look at it leisurely. You can set up an altar and burn incense, but you should not place a picture on the altar, because the true image of our parents and ancestors do not correspond to that image, so we should not worship an image! It is sufficient to utilize our sincere and respectful heart. When we venerate a picture, a ghost will inhabit it and it will talk through the picture. It will sit there and request all kinds of things to eat, it will make up all kinds of stories. It will also cause you to become ill. Therefore, many people wonder why they venerate Buddha very conscientiously, but everyone in the family is ill. They wrongly blame the Buddha. Our consciousness does not want to work positively, we do not want to direct our thoughts to the World Above, we do not know what spiritual energy is.

Today, you have understood the meaning of spiritual energy. We must venerate the World Above with our center of spiritual energy. We should not use our dirty profane heart to worship. We must use our center of energy (on top of our head) to direct our thoughts to God and the Buddhas. This is the real way, and we will not be abused.