विषय
The main thing you know really is, that it’s an irony where we have made our lives so difficult. And it’s not that somebody else has made our lives difficult. We have made our lives difficult. We have taken and gotten ourselves completely lost in explanations and we want everything explained to us. Because we have lost the ability to just observe something and understand it or accept it.
This is how it is. Water is wet. We want to know why is water wet. Water is cold, but we want to know why is water cold. It’s cold because it’s cold.
And to me, really what I do in my reinterpretation of so many things about life and about the problems of life is to put it in a very simple way so that people can just understand it. Because if we can understand the issues that we really have, we can go forward.
We can actually have a pleasant life, we can actually have a meaningful day, every single day in which we feel in touch with what we are all about. It doesn’t need to be this whole frantic stuff that we always … the drama, the trauma that it all gets involved in.
- Prem Rawat
If I am traveling in a train or in a bus—some public transportation system—in an airplane—and I have a bag in one hand, right? And in my pocket, in my pocket I have a 40-carat diamond, pure, beautiful—one of the most expensive diamonds. It’s in this pocket right here. And I am traveling on this bus.
And then, in this bag is like, nothing—just some tissue paper; that’s all. And all of a sudden somebody comes and snatches this bag away from me. What do you think I’m going to do instinctively? This is what I’m going to do. This hand—not this hand—this hand is going to go, “Did I still have this?” This is gone!
All right, I—granted, I am allowed, "eahhh!"—for a moment. But then I’m going to do this. And so far I’ve got this, I am all smiles! Right?
Why? Why? Why? Why? Have you—or have I…? Just now, have I not been robbed? Of course I have been robbed. I’ve been robbed. Somebody took my bag of tissues. And maybe it was tissues that I needed to get rid of, but I couldn’t find a paper recycling bin. So I thought, maybe on my way I’ll find a paper recycling bin and I’ll dump this in there, and, you know, it’ll be done.
So now this guy has just done me a favor; he’s taken it. He’s going to dump it somewhere. But I have no question about the preciousness of what I have in this pocket.
Your problems are just like that. And, "eaahh!" Yes, you’re allowed that; "eahh-ah!" Yes, you’re definitely allowed that; it’s a shocking thing; somebody takes this thing from your hand. But then, you know. And you’re not going to say, “Hey, you forgot this!” No, you’re not! You’re going to go like, "Good riddance." This, you know the value of.
Do you know the value of kindness in your life? Do you know the value of clarity in your life? Do you know the value of joy in your life?
So, that "someone" who loves you has given you these to use as you wish, as much as you wish. You think there is a limit to kindness? You think you will ever run out of kindness—ever? Can you technically run out of kindness; is it possible for you to run out of kindness? No! Is it possible for you to run out of joy? No!
In our lives, we look at the outside spectrum because this is what we’re told: "Look at that; be successful!" What is "successful"? "Well, when you have a big bank account." How big should that bank account be?
Every year it has to grow. The cost of living keeps going, "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick!" So, what you could have when you were back in the forties will not sustain you in 2017.
So, many, many before you only looked at the outside, strived for success, strived for the gains, strived for whatever the world told them, and then they are gone now. Now, the question becomes, "Is that what life is? Or is there something more?"
Is there a world of yours that you are unfamiliar with? Your inner world—in which you don't strive for success, but for happiness; in which you don’t strive for fame, but peace; in which you don’t strive for diplomas, but clarity; in which you don't weigh and measure the accomplishments, but measure your existence by the gifts you have been already given.
- Prem Rawat
People have dreamed of possessing something of value that replenishes itself whenever it is used. That possibility exists. We hold within us a wealth of resources that never diminishes.
It was a Greek philosopher who said once, “You are never happy if you get what you don’t want.” Tricky words. If you get what you don’t want, you’re not happy. And even if you get what you do want, you still won’t be happy because you won’t be able to keep it. That’s the problem.
So many families, finally they get everything going and the husband dies. “Oh, terrible, what’s going to happen now?” Children grow up too fast; they start bossing you around. You’ve been bossing them around? Wait! You will get a taste of your own medicine. They will boss you around. They will start telling you things.
You had the child because you wanted a child—because you thought all these beautiful, lovely thoughts about having a child, “How sweet the child will be.” And now you are going to be on your bed without a second of sleep, thinking, “Where are they? Why are they not home? It’s already past midnight. What are they doing?” You can’t keep it! Can’t keep it!
You finally got your promotion; you finally got your promotion that you had been waiting for, waiting for, waiting for. And after you have got your promotion, you realize that there are twenty other people wanting the same chair. The one before, there were only five wanting that chair. This one, twenty more....
And if you go to the next one, it’ll be forty more, and if you go to the next one it’ll be a hundred more. And now it’s a matter of, you make one mistake—one mistake—and your chair is gone; promotion is gone. Because you can’t keep it! You can’t keep it; you can’t keep it; you can’t keep it.
Because there is a change afoot, and you don’t like changes. You don’t want changes; you don’t want anything to change. You, even though you want your son who is three years old to grow up, you don’t! You want that child to just stay that way. And you want your wife who’s so pretty to stay that way. And you want your husband who is young to stay just that way.
But everything is changing, changing, changing, changing, changing—and so are you. But you don’t know. Why don’t you know? Because you don’t know yourself. You know your friends; you know your neighbors; you know other people, but you don’t know you.
That’s what Socrates says, “Know thyself.” Knowledge of the self! “All knowledges are good; knowledge of the self is the supreme.” When you know yourself, now you know who you are.
– Prem Rawat
If I have to come and create a need for peace, then I’m not doing justice to peace, because the need for peace is within you. And you have to feel and understand that need.
What does feeling good do to you? Do you know? Do you know what feeling good does to you? Have you any idea what feeling good does to you?
And I will try and go there—I’ll try to explain what feeling good does to you. And before I go on to that tangent, I just want to say that, of all the things that I can feel that are good, peace is on the top. And so, of the things that make me feel good, peace is on the top, but what happens when I feel good? What happens when I feel good? I transform. I transform. I become forgiving.
– Prem Rawat