विषय
We go to someplace very nice, quiet, beautiful—and I have heard it more than one time, “Oh, look how peaceful it is.” Is peace a look? Is peace a sound; is peace an environment? Or is peace a feeling that emanates from inside a human being? A state of being. Being. Not thinking, being.
And is that state of being, in itself, real? Or is it when all the problems have been taken away, does it manifest? Critical question!
Because what do we do? We think our happiness is not something in itself; our happiness is a result of removing our problems: “If we remove our problems, we’ll be happy.” So, all day long we chase “trying to remove our problems, trying to remove our problems.”
But, no, it doesn’t matter how many problems you remove; if the state of happiness, the state of joy, is something in itself, unless you have brought that in...? Because some things are absences; just, that’s what they are!
You don’t have to bring in darkness, do you? Do you have to invite it? Do you have to go, “Darkness, here, your darkness....” You don’t have to carry a match. And you don’t have to have a candle. All you have to do is, whatever the source of the light is, put it out. And, ta-dah! And there it is!
A long time ago I went and saw a solar eclipse with my family. It was in Mexico, a long, long time ago. And it was bizarre. It was just, it was really, really bizarre.
And it started—and it was in the middle of the afternoon. Just before that, the sun had been shining.... Birds were going about it; it was quite warm; everything was what it was—a typical Mexican day.
And then the eclipse began. And slowly it just got darker, and darker, and darker, and darker, and darker. And all of a sudden it went completely silent; all the birds stopped singing—just went dead silent. And it got darker. And it was like, “Oooh-whoa.” And then, all of a sudden the temperature just started plummeting. It started getting colder, and colder, and colder, and colder.
And then it started getting brighter, and brighter, and brighter, and brighter. And then, everything was fine. It went to normal; the birds came out, “Ah-yab-che, che-che-che!” They were—they were like, “Whoo-whoa, what happened?”
So, when—but there are certain things that, it’s just an absence. That, and nobody had to turn on the air conditioning. Nobody had to dial a dial to make it colder. No, as soon as the sun was eclipsed, all that started to happen. Darkness started to come in.
So, the question becomes, “Do”—you know that when there is light, there’s no darkness! So, “Is the light there because you removed the darkness? And that’s why there is light?”
Now, be careful how you answer this. Because on the face of it, it’s a very simple question—“Is the light there because you removed all the darkness? Or is the light there because you turned on some source of light and the darkness automatically disappeared?” You know this!
So, surely you, if you know this, you must never get sad. You must never be un-, yeah, unhappy...? But on the contrary, even knowing this....
There are certain things, we act a certain way. And we act a certain way, not because of our wisdom, but because of our sheep behavior. Because, this is how we were told to act. This is what we have learnt—from the generations of our parents, of our friends, of our teachers, of our neighbors. There it is: “Get rid of your problems and you will be happy.”
People pay, (hah-hah), really, really good money to go sit down in these training sessions, where some guy gives you a whole schmiel for four days, five days, of how to get rid of your problems. The question is, “If you could remove the darkness by any means, what makes you think that guarantees there will be light?”
Removing the problems becomes a problem for the human being. Oh, by the way, this is nothing new. This is not a 2018 fad.
So many variables in life, but one constant, and that’s enough. Knowing that is futile to remove darkness; it cannot be—it is easy to bring in the light. It is futile to remove all your problems, because you won’t be—they just—because, you see, problems have always been there. And they are the same ones.
They’re the same ones, and they just hover, looking for a victim. Before you, they were plaguing your parents; before them, they were plaguing their parents; before them, they were plaguing their parents; before them, they were plaguing their parents—and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on.
Same problems attacking people the same way. Before there were airplanes, people were missing their ships. Before the ships, they were missing their buses; before buses they were missing their stagecoaches. Before stagecoaches, they were in a sorry state of affairs when their horse ran away.
For me, I want enough grace in my life to hang onto the wisdom—enough grace in my life to hang onto what I know is right. But grace doesn’t come without effort. You create your future. Remember that—I’ve just told you your future, hundred percent! “You create your future.” Be conscious, be real, whatever you do.
Go forward with a heart full of gratitude every day. Understand—I know it’s difficult. Everything is difficult because of our concepts, of our ideas: “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, what’ll happen to me; what’ll happen to me; what’ll happen to me; what’ll happen? What I’ll...?” But, that’s what fear does.
What has happened to you? You probably wondered that: “What will happen to me,” the first day you were put in the school, in the kindergarten, isolated from your parents. And you wondered that, “What’s going to happen to me?” After that, so many days you have wondered, “What is going to happen to me?”
But you’re here. You’re still here! Now you look back at it, of course, and go, “Heh! That was nothing!” Well, now you can say it, “it was nothing.” But that was everything to you when it was happening, wasn’t it? It’s like, the biggest mountain. That’s how we are!
Don’t live in fear—but with the courage, wisdom! You have to garner these if you want stupidity to go away. Because if there is no wisdom, guess what it’ll be replaced by—that there’s a space for it...? And there are two things that can occupy that same space: either it’s wisdom or stupidity, that....
And stupidity, in dimensions, is identical to wisdom. And it fits like a glove, into that same space as wisdom. So if you don’t have wisdom sitting there, guess what’s going to be sitting there? Stupidity. It doesn’t need any other shape. It’s like a coin. One side is one thing; one side is the other thing. It doesn’t need to be a different shape.
Externally, maybe it looks different on the stamp side, but.... And if you cut it? If you take a coin that has two sides and cut off one side, how many sides have you got left? “Yeah, two minus one is one, right?” No! It’ll still have two sides of it.
So, in life, darkness on one side light on the other. That’s wisdom. To just think it’s only darkness on both sides is stupidity. Wisdom is, “Okay, this is stupidity—and on the other side, has to be light.”
And in that light, you thrive—you thrive! Up till the last day that you are on this earth, you thrive.
- Prem Rawat
Do I feel so fragile in my world that I feel that without the concepts, my house is weak? Is that why I need them?
Or can I be free? That word, "freedom"—freedom from what? Ask yourself, "Freedom from what?"
Now, you think.... When I talk about the inmates, obviously they see bars all day long. Goodness, the entire time I was in prison visiting them, that’s what I saw too—bars here, and bars there, and bars there and bars there, and bars there and bars there. It all kind of....
The only place where there weren’t bars was the front door—which only brought you to a little reception room, which was a waiting room. To go past that towards the prison, there were bars. And not one—two.
You came through one when they let you. Then you went to the security room, which was in the middle. And only when you had cleared security, that first door closed; second door opened, and you could go through. And then that’ll lead you to a hallway where they handed you your credentials, the one, the pass that you had to wear. This is the same in every prison.
Then you go somewhere else, and they have to open the gate—and they have to open, and a, “Who is it? Who is it?” And, “Who, what?” And, “You have to show your”—“It’s okay; I just was....” “Okay, okay, you can go.”
But one bar after another, after another, after another, after another, after another—well, you don’t live like that, do you? Do you? You don’t have any bars in your life, do you? Nothing that holds you back, right?!
So what’s the difference? You’re locked up too. You don’t think so, but you’re locked up too! And so far you’re locked up, there’s no difference between you and the inmates. The only difference is, they wear orange; you don’t. Unless somebody’s wearing orange here. That’s pretty much the color.
But when all that is gone, and when clarity settles in, heart becomes full, human beings are full of gratitude, then joy dances with you, and you dance with the joy! That elation wells from within—and it’s not conceptual. Not conceptual, not an idea, not a thought, but something very real, that you can begin to rejoice that you’re alive, that you breathe.
- Prem Rawat
Jessica Zweig:
You just came out with this new book, Peace Is Possible: Thoughts on Happiness, Success, and Relationships for a Deeper Understanding of Life—such a beautiful title. What was the inspiration of this book, if I may ask?
Prem Rawat:
Well, again, you know, it’s just taking a very, very simple message—and, you know, the message that has been around for a long, long time that always gets shared by people, even before there were books—was verbally, the stories.
And so, it is taking these little stories that have been around for a really long time, and then tying this message of knowing yourself to those stories of the intricacy of everyday existence to the simplicity of those stories—and how the simplicity of those stories brings on a message that touches the heart.
That it’s not about.... I mean, something that happened at a book fair—these two gentlemen who had just come from prison, who had just been released from prison, came to the book fair. And they were walking around and they were like, “Ahhh.” They came over to the stall where the Peace Is Possible book was and they were like, “What’s that? What’s, what’s that all about?”
And somebody said, “Well, here it is; read it.” And the person started reading it, and he just, tears started coming from his eyes. And his friend said to him, says, “Why are you crying? Why are you crying?” And he said, “You read, read this book; read this book.”
And it touched them. And it touched them so sweetly and so gently. Because the message is there. There is a message that touches your heart. Everything that we do touches our mind, but there’s a message that touches your heart.
And I have tried to take this book, Peace Is Possible, and give that message that touches your heart a space—in this very, very busy world, in this incredibly frantic world, giving that message that touches your heart a space, a little page, a little, you know, period, a comma, an exclamation mark. And that’s what this book, Peace Is Possible, is all about.
Jessica Zweig:
And it’s beautiful.
You have a lot of quotes in the world, as an author and a speaker and a thought leader. And I, I’m a huge quote fan. I love them; I put them in all my presentations; I share a lot of my own quotes on Instagram; I quote people all the time; it’s my thing.
And I was, of course, looking at some of your quotes. Because you have been listed as one of the top one hundred most spiritually influential people alive today, along with Eckhart Tolle and Tony Robbins and Gabby Bernstein, Bruce Lipton. It’s pretty incredible. Just, thank you so much for, by the way, being on my show.
And there was one quote that you have said that really struck me, which is, “Living your life consciously is the most fun a human being can have.”
And fun, for me, is a core value for life: “If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?” I think that it’s the true measure of success—is how much fun we are having.
Can you talk about what that—what that means to you, to live a conscious life, to find that fun as a human being?
Prem Rawat:
Imagine being in a beautiful park—I mean, just gorgeous—the flowers are beautiful; the ponds are beautiful; the trees are beautiful. And all of a sudden you hear a noise. You don’t know what it is. You’re not aware of this noise and all of a sudden you’re frightened, and it jostles you.
Versus you’re taking the same walk and you go, “Oh! That’s a little bird! Oh, that’s, that noise is coming from that little frog that’s moving around.”
One, you don’t know what it is versus know what it is. And when you know what it is, it is so much fun! I mean, it is so much fun because now you don’t have to be in fear of where you are and what is happening. You are enjoying every step, every day.
The outcome of today is certain because you know what it is all about—rather than uncertain and “I’m going to try to keep my fingers crossed and make good things happen.” Well, good things are happening all the time.
You know, people say I’m spiritual—so, a lot of—involved with spiritualism, but I’m not. To me, what I try to tell people is, “You have to know. You have to know; you have to be aware. Not believe.” And believing is okay; it has its place. But at some point in time, you have to come out of the field of believing and go into the field of knowing.
And I am all for knowing. And knowing and understanding, being conscious on this road of life, now you know what that is that’s making that noise and you can enjoy it! And it’s like, “Ahh! I know what that is. That’s just a little froggie! It’s okay! Here I go!”
Cecilia Valenzuela:
Success. For some, success is the happiness of family, fulfillment in their career. Others believe that success is, to make a lot of money. What is success for you?
Prem Rawat:
For me, the question comes that people have pre-defined what success means to them. And day and night we pursue this. And sometimes we get so caught up in pursuing that we don't ask ourselves the fundamental question, "Today, am I happy? Am I happy today?" Because for most people the answer is, "Oh, I will be happy when I am successful." And my point is, of course you should be happy when you have succeeded, but you should be happy every single day pursuing your success.
So, when I say “we,” when I say to you, “you can make a difference,” do you believe me? Why? Shouldn't I prove it to you? Should I prove it to you? I can prove it to you. I can. You want me to prove it to you? Yes? Come on, yes or no? There you go. See, in the world of absence, you can just go “Uhm….” And in the world of presence, you go, “Yeah, prove it to me!” So, there is a fundamental rule. This is my proof. There's a fundamental rule of nature. Bring…. Take two candles. One candle is a lit candle, and one candle is an unlit candle. Two candles. Okay? Unlit. Lit. Bring them together. What will happen? Huh? When is unlit and one is lit. And when you bring the two candles together, what will happen? Aha. You see, the world of presence, and the world of absence. What will happen? The lit candle, the lit candle will light the unlit candle. Not the unlit candle will extinguish the lit candle. Do you agree? This is how you, how you have a chulha at home. You know what a chulha is? That's how your stove works. Your gas, your cooking gas, you light a match. It's unlit. You go “Ech!” and “Boomf!” Sometimes too much “boomf” and that's how it works.
So, that is the proof that you make a difference if you are a lit candle. You have this incredible, incredible, incredible power to light an unlit candle. Now, how big do you have to be? How big does the unlit candle have to be to get lit? And how big does the lit candle have to be, even if it is right down to almost nothing, but it's lit. It's good. It can light an unlit candle. Doesn't have to be this big. It doesn't have to be this big. It doesn't have to be decorated. It doesn't have to be green. It doesn't have to be purple. It doesn't have to be yellow. It doesn't have to be any of those things. All it has to be is lit.
You carry this power. If you're a lit candle, you can light an unlit candle. And how many times can you do that? Is there a limit? Till your lit, you can keep lighting. It's no, it's not like, Oh, I'm too old. I can't light anything. No. If you’re lit, that's all it takes. Keep lighting. Keep lighting. Keep lighting. Keep lighting. This law, by the way, is 4.5 billion years old. It was there. Not 200,000 or 6,000 years old—4.5 billion years old.
And this is the possibility. This is the possibility. In your life, goodness awaits. The Divine for you awaits to be discovered. Joy, treasured.
Hey, listen, you have no limit for joy. Pain, you do. After a little while, it's too much. “Ahhh, I want out.” Joy? No limit. You can be joyful every day for the rest of your life, not a problem. Not a problem, not a problem. Sadness every day? You will find a big cliff somewhere. That's what people do. A lot of people think they're insignificant. Right? “I’m nothing.”
Ahh, but this is where the Divine lives. This is where the light lives. This is where the goodness lives. This is where compassion lives. This is where kindness lives. What are you talking about, insignificant? The only reason why you would want to pretend to be insignificant is so you can offload your responsibilities. “I'm not good…I can't do anything.” You know when you go to bureaucracy, go to office, you're getting something, you want something done and the person doesn't want to do it. “Oh no, no. I'm just junior. You have to go see the senior.” But you say, “Okay, 10 rupees?” “Okay, okay, I can do it.” So why are you abdicating your responsibility in life? But you don't need to do that. Why? Why are you not understanding what this possibility is, called life?
- Prem Rawat
One woman said to me when I was in the South Africa—I was in Soweto; we're doing an event. She says to me from the prison, she wrote me a question. “I killed my children. I killed my children. Is there hope for me?” She was in prison for killing her children. “Is there hope for me?” So you know what I said to myself? I can give an answer. It would be pointless. Nobody would believe me. I said, “Why don't I talk to the audience? Why don't I have them give the answer?” So I said, “Okay, here's the question, ladies and gentlemen. Here is the question from this lady who is in prison. She killed her children and she is wondering if there is hope for her.” And I said, “What do you say?” That's what they said. That's what they said. Somebody said, "No!" I heard that. Still have good hearing. Somebody said, "No!" You would be right, my friend, if you said, "No." The day that rule changes where a lit candle does not light an unlit candle. Of course there is a hope; otherwise, we are done! The amount of unconsciousness we live with in our life, if there is no hope for us, it's pointless. It doesn't matter. This is what I tell people because I know it is true. I know. I don't believe it's true; I know it is true because of that law.
Whatever has happened in your life, move forward. That's what...this is what this life tells you every day. Move forward, not backwards. Forward. What is forgiveness? Oh, you should hear my definition of forgiveness. It's very different, very different. Forgiveness is not forgiving other people's actions; that cannot happen. You know what forgiveness actually is? It’s actually to cut that cord that is still tying you to that situation and saying, “No more will I be the slave of that situation. Bye-bye.” That's what forgiveness is.
Because you need to move forward. Understand in your life, the possibility. Bring! I want all of you to be happy even though you don't know why. I want you still to be happy. I want you to be in peace because peace is already inside of you. It's there now. It is there now. Your light goes with you wherever you go; you cannot go any— so far as this breath is coming into you, you cannot go anywhere without your light. Let it shine. That's the difference. That's where that peace is. Let it shine.
Not only you, I wish this peace, I wish this happiness, I wish this joy—and I have means to make it possible—for all the citizens of Sri Lanka, and India, and Nepal, and Tibet, and the whole world. And because I'm a great knower—and I remind you I didn't say believer—great knower of that law of the candles, while this candle is still lit, I'm going to go try to light as many candles as I can. And for every candle that I light, I better my chances—mathematically you can figure it out by how much—but I better my chances for the whole world one day to be lit—for every candle to be lit. The world doesn't need peace. You do. So that's peace is possible. That's my definition of why peace is possible. And as much as I can, the time will permit—because my intent when I came here 14 years ago was the same. I wanted to light the candles. I'm still lighting the candles. And I hope and I pray, I keep lighting the candles. And for every candle that I light—another one, another one, another one, another one, another one, another one—well, we're getting better at those chances of lighting all the candles in this world.
- Prem Rawat