How the Seed Survives

What’s going to cause the divorce between the husband and wife? Expectations. What’s going to cause you to become angry with your own child? Expectations. And you have expectations of everything in this world.

I’m not saying that’s good or bad; that’s up to you. Certainly I have expectations too. I even have expectations of my dogs. Sometimes—and they’re two little Pomeranians, and theydon’t like anybody coming into the courtyard. Like, they’re, it’s theirs.

And sometimes I’ll sneak in, and they don’t know it’s me, and they’ll start barking. And then I’ll say, “What? What?” And then they get very, very embarrassed.

So, it’s not like, one way or the other way, “Should you have expectations; shouldn’t....” That’s not the point. But there is a state of being in which you are free, in which you are happy with yourself without the approval or disapproval of other people, where you recognize truly who you are is not this desert, but the seeds that lie buried in thatdesert.

My friends, the story is not about the desert. It’s going to look like the desert—the desert is going to look like the desert for a lot longer period than the blooming; the blooming is only going to last a few days. Understood, right? It only does—it just lasts a few days and then, ptchk! gone.

How does that seed survive in the desert? It had to work on it. It made an investment. It could be somewhere else where it rains a lot. But it didn’t; it went for the desert, in its uniqueness. This is the possibility; this is your strength! This is what can happen—only if you are willing to invest in it.

- Prem Rawat