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So, people ask, “How do I practice peace? How...where do I find peace?” You have two eyes. What do the eyes do? They see the world. They see everybody’s face. What can’t they see? Your eyes cannot see your face.

Isn’t that true? They can see everybody’s face, but they cannot see your face. If you want to see your face, you need a mirror, and that mirror is knowledge of the self. Not knowledge of how to drive the car, but the knowledge of you!

Who are you? You are alive. The time is going. Cannot stop it, cannot rewind it—it’s going—and it’s gone! It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone!

Do you know the meaning of “now?” Now? “Now” doesn’t even represent now! As soon as you say “now,” it’s not now anymore. That’s how fast it’s all going.

Stop! Take account of being alive! Take account of who you are! And take account of what the Divine has given you—given you, without asking, without filling a form—given you, every day. Every day you are given this gift of breath. Do you understand what that means? Do you?

– Prem Rawat

In your life, you think of yourself as “me, the unique me,” right? “My unique problem, my unique challenge, my unique this, my....” You know, and on a bad day you go, “Oh God, why is this happening to me?” Right? You’ve all been through that. I have. That’s why I know.

And when that happens, I think about it. And what I sometimes end up saying to myself is, “You know what? How many countless people do you think there have been before you who had exactly the same problem and who said exactly the same thing, ‘Why me?’”

And it wasn’t just them. Join the club. You have now officially been invited to the club of “miserable,” because misery begets misery! But that’s not what life is about. To understand, to understand that I carry in me, in my heart, wherever I go, whatever I do, I carry that beauty that I always have been in love with. Love.

I carry a simplicity—that if I can flavor and savor and touch and feel that simplicity on that day when everything feels like a thorn, I will understand the tenderness, the reality of that day, not the thorniness of my problems. The contrast, the contrast. Without the contrast, the picture looks pretty flat. It’s the contrast that is needed.

– Prem Rawat

Many people in their lives, they see things not going their way; they start losing hope, and the next thing you know, calamity. But it takes courage to have hope; it takes courage to have clarity. And when there is that courage....

This is what’s beautiful. If you get angry, you know what you will be rewarded by? Anger. Just think about it, right? You get angry; you’ll be rewarded by anger. What is the reward of anger? Either you will get more angry.... Maybe, maybe you begin by being angry with your friend, and the next thing you know, you’re also angry with yourself—for being angry at your friend.

Anger rewards anger; anger begets anger. Fear rewards fear. You get afraid of being afraid—and that’s when it really sets in. It’s more than the boogeyman in the closet. Now, you’re afraid to be in the room; you’re afraid to be alive. “Oh my God....”

But...but what is the reward of hope? It brings you more hope. What is the reward of joy? It brings you more joy. What is the reward of happiness? It brings you more happiness. What is the reward of knowledge? It brings you more knowledge. What is the reward of being content? It brings you more contentment. What is the reward of knowing? It brings you more knowing.

This is how it is. This is how it’s always been.

– Prem Rawat

There is something constant. And all the days you’re going to be alive on the face of this earth—all the days—how many are there? Even if you live to be a hundred years old, how many days is that? Thirty-six thousand, five hundred. Take 365, put two zeros at the end, right?

I know I can see disbelief in some of your faces, like, “Whoa, whoa, what, you’re missing a zero. It has got to be three hundred and sixty-five thousand. Couldn’t just be thirty-six thousand, five hundred.”

But unfortunately, or fortunately, that’s all it is—and a big chunk of it is gone. And I only say this, not to scare you, but to provide the spice of urgency of how important it is for you to know yourself, so that the rest of the days that you exist are spent existing to your fullest potential. You have no other choice; you’ve got to live every single day to its fullest—and that’s not “party.” That’s the grand party, the party in which you are happy!

You’re not happy because you are with your friend, but yet, you are happy because you know yourself. You are happy because you have the courage to understand. You are happy because you have chosen, by your own choice, the fifty percent that’s good in you. And you have chosen to tame the fifty percent that’s bad in you.

That you have chosen, you have made a choice in your life to be real. That you have made a choice in your life to find the joy of being alive, to find the joy of existence, to find the joy of understanding, to find the joy of what it really feels like to have courage to know.

– Prem Rawat

When I first went to the West, I was only a teenager. In fact, it was my first year of being a teenager—thirteen. And all these people would come—much older than me, much more educated than me. And they would sit down, and they were very proud of the fact that they were searching for peace.

And I would say to them, “Why are you searching for peace? Why are you searching for peace when peace is inside of you?” Search not for peace, but search for the way to be able to get in touch with what is already inside of you.

And so the question becomes, “Well, you already have peace, right?” Do you? Or don’t you?

Because nothing is missing. There is nothing missing from the equation. You have in you—this is the way you are made—all that you need you have, and you have been made to take advantage of it.

Maybe you don’t have a temple for it. Maybe you don’t have a song for it. Maybe you don’t have a garland for it. Maybe you don’t have a light for it. Maybe you don’t have a location for it. But it is here, in you.

And if you are unaware, then you’re unaware of something fundamental. And this is ignorance. What is ignorance? It’s a play of words in English, but “ignorance”—where does ignorance come from?

Generally, when somebody does something bad—a little child or something—we say, “Oh, it’s okay. He was ignorant.” 'Ignorant' generally is considered to be an excuse to forgive the person, because “they were ignorant.”

But that’s not where the word comes from. The word actually comes from “ignore.” “Ignorance"—ignorant comes from the word “ignore,” which has to be done on purpose.

See, we say ignorant. "Oh, he’s ignorant; it’s okay.” But “ignorant” actually comes from the word “ignore,” which has to be on purpose—that you ignore something.

Ignorance in this world...we think, “Oh, people are ignorant.” No! If they are ignorant, that means they’re, on purpose, ignoring that which is real. Not a fluke! Not a fluke.

And people go, “But I don’t see it!” You’d talk about the Divine, “But I don’t see the Divine!” So, do you see gravity? Do you see the earth spinning? Does that mean it’s not?

You cannot, in this life, merely live in tangled beliefs. Yes, this is the first time I’m using this, “tangled beliefs.” Because beliefs will get tangled. It is their nature because they are so open to interpretation. But knowing is not open to interpretation.

The Divine, in the same way, is everywhere, and by “everywhere” meaning, also in you. To me, when I hear the word “everywhere”—when I hear the word “omnipresent,” it doesn’t mean just omnipresent. It means “in me as well.”

And if that reality is knocking in me, if that reality is residing in me, what am I doing in my life to feel it, to acknowledge it, to understand it? Because if you want peace in your life, that’s the only way you’re going to get it.

– Prem Rawat

Started ... when I was nine years old ... talking to people. And I hope ... I have made a difference ... in your perspective ... [From audience: Yes.] in your understanding: that you have the solution; that you ... need to be ... in heaven ... every day ... that you are alive.

That you have ... the most powerful ... the, the most powerful friend ... [Ind.f.: Mmm!] and that is inside of you, wherever you go. You don’t need ... fear. You need strength. And the strength ... that I am talking about is inside of you.

Knowledge ... of the self, of you!—so you can understand, so you can see, so you can feel, so you know! And not (lear’, le’,) learn to live in a world of beliefs—but to know. To welcome every single day ... like you will not get another one. And that’s when every day ... starts to become a gift.