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Prem Rawat:
Hello, everyone; I hope you’re all well, feeling well and doing well.
So, I was reading a question that had come up to me from a very close friend of mine—and one of the things that he wanted to know is like, “What would be the most appropriate story that would relate to this coronavirus thing, these current circumstances?”
So I started thinking about that, and one of the things that became very obvious to me, at least, was that we can make a big thing out of this and—we do. We.... You know, it’s not like I’m trying to make this trivial; it’s, I’m not. It’s historic; it’s huge; it’s....
When you see some of the animations of how this spread and everything else, it’s just this race, you know; it’s like a train wreck—and you could see the train coming for a mile, you know.
But, nonetheless, you have to focus on what your needs are. And you have to understand what you are all about, because that hasn’t changed. The circumstances have changed; the external circumstances have changed, but who you are and what you need hasn’t changed by any stretch of the imagination.
And of course, it is our nature that when we are deprived of something, when something is taken away from us, we miss it more; we like it more; we want it more.
And so, you know, the fact that there are a lot of people I know that would rather sit in their living room and watch television—or, you know, play a video game or listen to music or read a book.... But now that you can’t go outside, it’s like we all want to go outside; we all want to be out on the beach; we all want to be doing these kinds of things. So, that’s very, very interesting.
So, coming back to it, the main thing hasn’t changed—which is your needs, your want, your day—to exist, to survive, to live. And that hasn’t changed.
So, what would be the most appropriate story? Well, after giving it quite a bit of thought, this is a—you know, and I had to pull this one out of the hat, pretty deep. But it’s a story that I used to tell a really long time ago. And I haven’t told this story in a long, long time.
But the story is very short; it’s very brief. And there was a king and one day he got drunk—and he got on top of his drunk elephant. And they were both going—wherever he wanted to go, wherever the elephant wanted to take him—and the elephant wanted to go wherever he wanted to go.
And they were in pretty bad shape; they were drunk and nobody was in control; nobody was really in charge, sort of to say; nobody knew what to do. And as they were going, the elephant tripped on something and the king, who was sitting on the back of the elephant, (on top of the elephant), fell from the elephant into a well.
And as he is falling, you know, for a moment he gets sober and he grabs this vine, this very strong vine—he grabs it—and he’s alive; he’s okay. And so, you know, in that moment, he definitely is thinking about “What’s going on here” and he’s getting—he’s getting sober real quick. And all of a sudden, he wants to assess his situation.
So he’s in the middle of this well; he holding on with this vine. And he looks up—and he sees two rats, (one is a black rat; one is a white rat), and they’re very busy cutting this vine. And so he looks down to see what’s there, and down below are all these snakes and scorpions hissing, deadly poisonous things—and it’s not a pretty picture.
So, here he is; he’s holding onto this vine; he is in this well. He looks up—and there are two rats that are just going at it, trying to cut the vine down, cut the vine off. He looks down, of where he’s obviously going to fall when the vine is cut, and it’s nothing but poisonous snakes and scorpions and dangerous things.
So, let’s just stop there for a minute—and pretty much, the story ends right there. Because this is something to get you to reflect on, for you to think about. So, you are the king, obviously; you are the king—and everything you ride on, your little world, is the elephant. And the elephant is drunk—and so are you.
What are you drunk on? Well, unconsciousness. You’re living—but you’re not in charge of anything. Except you have no problem complaining about things, looking at things, going “Oh, I wonder why this is like that,” blaming God, blaming this person, blaming that person. I mean, on and on and on and on and on it goes.
So, it’s very—it’s very metaphoric. The metaphor here really would be that, in this story, you’re the king. Unconsciousness is what you are inebriated on.
We live every day—and we want to make it the same, pretty much: “I go; I get up at this time....” I mean, you know, how many people in the United States do you think have got their alarm clocks set to a particular time and that’s where it stays? And the status is that on Saturday and Sunday, (if that’s the day that they have off), they just turn it off, the alarm—but then starting Monday, same routine.
Some people have their coffee set up with the timer—because they know they have to get up every single day, the same time.
So, here we are; we’re living in this pattern—and I’m not trying to be judgmental of whether that’s right or whether that’s wrong; I’m just presenting it parallel to the story—so, try to make some sense of it.
And then our little world that we have created—and that’s got a lot of unconsciousness. It’s not our decisions; the world presents us these pretty phones, these pretty things—and we look at those and we go, “Yeah, yeah, I want one of those; I want one of those; I want one of those.”
We’re driving along and we see, you know, a beautiful house on a billboard for sale or something like that—and it’s like, “Yeah, I want that too.” And we see a car and that’s just really, really nice and it’s like, “Yeah, I want that too....”
And so it’s like this whole world that’s just pushing us, pushing us, pushing us every day, “Want, want, want, want, want, you want this; you want this; you want this, want this.”
Though again, a tremendous amount of unconsciousness on our part. Because those people, you know, they sit down in board rooms—believe me, and they sit down and they work out “How can we crack the code, that people will go for this? That what we’re going to tell them...?”
I mean, they literally have to sit down and say, “Okay, we’re going to tell them that this is the greatest car.” It doesn’t matter if the car is good. Right? It doesn’t matter if “this soft drink that we’re going to advertise to them is good.” Even it could be harmful to them, but that’s not the point of it.
The point of it is, “How can we crack the code? How can we get inside their head”—brain diggers—“How can we get inside their head and plant this idea that they really want this?” Not need—“want this?”
So, again, a tremendous amount of unconsciousness on our part, that we accept this and we say, “Oh, yeah, right, that’s what I want.”
So, we’ve got the elephant that’s drunk; we’ve got the king that’s sitting on the back of the elephant that’s drunk. And nobody knows where they’re going, very inebriated in unconsciousness, both of them. The elephant couldn’t care less and the king could care less.
And the next thing you know, something happens, something takes place and the elephant trips; (coronavirus, COVID-19 happens) and the elephant trips. And all of a sudden, the king finds himself being de-seated from the elephant and going into the well, (the well of this world that we live in).
And hanging on. And there is a vine—and we hang onto that vine. We—he looks up and he sees two rats, (night and day; that’s the black and the white rat), they’re busy cutting that vine. What’s underneath on the floor of that well? Snakes, (consequences of our decisions that we have made).
It goes on and on and on and on. And there he is in limbo. If he does nothing, he’s going to fall because those two rats are definitely going to cut through that vine. If he does nothing, that is his fate; he is going to fall and he will succumb to the consequences, to the result of the consequences of his unconsciousness, his or her unconsciousness throughout their lives.
Because what’s at the bottom of the well isn’t one day’s consequences; it is the consequences of every single day of living this life unconsciously, unconsciously, unconsciously, unconsciously, unconsciously, unconsciously. Bizarre scene.
The only hope really is if somebody can throw a rope—and you can switch. Because the game is set. Those rats are busy; they could care less. Day and night, the time is passing, (that’s what the symbology there is). The symbology is of the time that is just nonstop, day and night....
You know, you buy a watch—you buy a watch to tell what? Well, to figure out “when I’m going to do this; when I’m going to do this; when I’m going to do this.” But you haven’t really sat down and looked at that watch and go, “Oh my God, this thing is telling me that I have this much less time to exist on the face of this earth.”
So now, it’s not a question of, you know, I’m painting a doomsday scenario. Because there is a possibility, at any given time, we realize that “Here I am; that I am so busy wanting to take care of not having the consequences that I have forgotten what it is that caused me to have these consequences in my life.”
And I think there is another question from a person who could be, (I don’t know), but who could be an inmate in prison. And basically what he’s saying is that “Look, I did what I did, but I’m suffering the consequences every single day.”
And what I would like to say to you is, “Right, you are suffering the consequences every day. But what is it that is making it so bad? Is it everybody else? Or is it you?”
How you perceive it? Because you can change that. You can look at this as another opportunity in your life to really make a transformation from deep within. So, not only do you take the best, wonderful advantage of that situation....
And see, this is the point—I deal with a lot of inmates and I go and I frequently visit prison. And prison is this thing—it’s a lockdown. You know, you—“You’re not going there; you’re not going there; you’re going to be in these confines and that’s it.”
Well, that’s what coronavirus is doing, you know, with all this lockdown; that’s what happening: “You can’t go here; can’t go there; can’t go do this; can’t do this.” Your liberties are being taken away.
And so, because of that.... You know, and yesterday I saw people who were protesting against the lockdown. And I realized that a lot of those people, (not all of them), but a lot of those people, they just don’t want to be told what to do. It’s not what it is that they do or don’t do—they just don’t want to be told what not to do.
And so somebody comes along and tells them, “Oh, you have to stay in this room”—they hate that. They don’t want to do that.
But in reality, to use a little bit of common sense and say, “Okay, according to the circumstances, it is really good not to give....” Until when? Well, you know, you hear a lot of things; you hear, “Oh, it might take two years to develop a vaccine; it might take twelve months to develop a vaccine.” They’re working on it.
They are working on it and let’s hope that they can come up with a vaccine or some kind of a medication. It’s not like people are sitting, you know, and doing absolutely nothing. There’s a tremendous amount of very good people working on finding a cure for this thing, or some kind of a relief from this thing. Because economically it’s a huge toll—but this is how it is.
So, getting back to the story, the only way out for this king really is for somebody to come along and rescue by providing another means of him being able to get out—and to understand the value of every single day that the king has.
And to understand that those consequences are going to be waiting for him unless he actually changes his ways—and one of the ways he has to change is not to become unconscious, not to become inebriated in the first place. And to make sure that his elephant also is not inebriated.
So, I think that I’m trying to put this thing together—and it is really all about how we are perceiving this. And what we need to see is the reality. The reality is simple—and the reality is beautiful. Because that’s the nature, that’s the nature of that reality.
It may seem like it’s cruel; it may seem like it’s odd; it may “seem like it, seem like it”—but in reality, it is beautiful. You are alive. The breath is coming into you. You exist. Listen to your needs. Your needs are to be fulfilled, to be in peace, very, very simple. And when you can be in sync with that, you will have a different life. And what I am talking about will make a lot more sense then.
Because, you know, what we consider to be normal—and yeah, just do all those things and waste our time. That’s the only thing we cannot afford to waste, is time. Because that is one commodity that’s not coming back. Girlfriends, you can get a new one. Wives, you can get a new one; children, well, you could try. But time, no way.
One job, two jobs, you could try this job; you could try that job. If this doesn’t work out, you could try that. But time, nothing you can do about it. No rewind button, no stop button.
So, anyway, I hope that it puts it in some context for you. And the most important thing is to have a sense of relief, have a sense of comfort: “You’re okay; you’re okay.” Go inside; understand who you are. See with your eyes yourself, not with the world’s eyes—but see from your eyes what this is all about. And I think you’ll find a pleasant surprise.
So, be safe; be well. Be. Thank you; I’ll talk to you later.
