Please raise your hand. How many of you got polio as a kid or an adult? Polio is when your leg shrivels up. Anyone get polio? No. Why?
The reason you didn't get polio is because when you were a little kid you got a vaccination, a little sugar cube or they shot you in the arm or whatever it was, and you were vaccinated, you could never get polio in your whole life. There was one man in the 1950's, he spent lots of time in a laboratory, trying to cure polio. Hours and hours, weeks and weeks, he spent trying to cure polio, trying to find a vaccine. He did it. His name was Dr. Salk. Have any of you felt gratitude towards Dr. Salk? And have you ever felt thankful that he spent those hours, days, weeks and months in a laboratory to discover something that saves you having a shriveled up leg?
Most people on the whole planet never feel thankfulness to Dr. Salk. Most people never think one little bit when they drink their pasteurized milk. Why is it nice and safe to drink? Why is it called pasteurized? Because Louis and Marie Pasteur discovered how to do it. Ever felt thankfulness to them? For spending hours and hours, days, weeks whatever it was to discover that pasteurizing milk saved lives?
What do we do here? Hours and hours, days and days trying to develop inside, trying to purify inside. Where would you people be if Rosemary and I hadn't spent hours and hours, days and days doing our practice? You and six thousand other people on the planet from over 60 different countries have benefited because me and Rosemary did lots and lots of work on ourselves. We were able to develop, though, that's the main thing. Because we were able to develop and then able to express it in ways to help others, many people benefited. So I am very fortunate to have these teachings. I am very fortunate that the Buddha did what he did for many years, and according to the scriptures for many lifetimes. I am very fortunate and I know I am very fortunate, but in the same way I am not just hanging out by myself enjoying it all. I am sharing it with other people.
The knowing of the fact that most of the people in the world don't have this is not going to stop me being joyful that I do have it. In that joy, I get more contentment, I get more energy so that I can give, give, give, so that more people hopefully will get the same.
Those of you who are not native English speakers, why is it that you people even speak English? Because your teachers at school taught you. Somebody else learned English or was a native English speaker and they gave their time in school, granted they got paid, and granted Dr. Salk got paid, too. But these people dedicated themselves to helping somebody else to learn what they have already achieved.
This is part of your practice here, your practice isn't just for you to bliss out and feel joyful and sit in a corner and go, "I am better off than everybody else." Your practice is to work hard to grow and develop, so that you can be the most possible benefit in this world. But you've got to do it yourself! You really do, you have to work on yourself, right, lots and lots and lots and lots. Rosemary and I did, it was 15 years before we taught at Wat Kow Tahm, lots and lots and lots of practice on ourselves. In that sense it's not wrong to seek your lofty state of happiness and liberation, when you have the compassionate wish to help others along the way as well.
I might even clarify that I said help others along as well. Even if you don't help others as you are going that way, if you get there and are able to help at that time then that is still worthy, too, isn't it?