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Prem Rawat: There’s a saying about tradition. (I love it. Really like this saying.) It goes like this: “Tradition, what is tradition? Tradition is peer pressure from the dead.” They’re dead; they’re gone! But the pressure is still there.

And there they are, “It should be this way; it should be this way; it should be this way,” and this is the tape that plays in your head, and this is how you make your selections.

Whatever happens. So much of it is not being driven by our selection as we would like to think it is. It is not being done that way; it is the tape that plays. I call it “noise.” What do you call it?

It’s noise. “This has to be this way; this has to be this way; this has to be this way; this has to be this way; this.... You have to sit on the right; you have to sit on the left; you have to do this and you have to do that and you....” Noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, noise, and this whole life becomes full of noise.

And in the midst of this noise, we want sanity?! In the midst of this noise, we want clarity?! In the midst of this noise, we want to be happy?! You really are asking a lot! You’re really asking a lot. Because that’s not going to happen.

The way we have structured our life, we have made it so difficult, so incredibly difficult, that the path to peace indeed has become incredibly, incredibly difficult.

When the desire for peace is simple, the path going back home.... That’s the only way. That’s the only way you’re going to experience peace in your life, is when you go back home—home here, in you. Not here! But here, in you. That’s the only way you’re going to experience peace.

You’re only going to experience peace the day you get in touch with you! And that process of getting in touch with you is incredibly difficult because we have wandered so far away from our selves.

Now—here is the problem. Here is the real problem. Now, we don’t recognize home. Now, we don’t recognize home. And when you don’t recognize home, you could be standing in front of it, and you will go, “What, that’s my home?”

You already have a preconceived idea of what your home looks like. Absolutely. And when your concepts don’t meet up with it, you go, “That’s my home? That’s not the home I want.”

But “home” isn’t about that; home is home. Home is that place you come to—and you close that door. And you are in your world. That’s what home is. Everything, everything is familiar.

MC and host: [Sara Powell]
I just want to get straight stuck in if I may. Something that we’ve had a couple of questions about, and something that really spoke to me from what you said, was “the noise”—that chatter that is constantly there. And I wondered, “What’s the best strategy for coping with it? How do we quieten it down, the noise?”

Prem Rawat:
Well, these are the questions you have sent—I mean, over 200 questions came in—and some of you who have, probably, cell phones that are from different countries, probably are still coming in through, you know, because they go round robin, yeah....

MC:
Yeah, you’ll be getting them till Wednesday, yeah!

Prem Rawat:
And, yeah, exactly. So, the question is, where does this noise come from? I mean, who is the perpetuator of this noise; who is the generator of this noise, and where is the stage that it ultimately plays out on?

So, the stage where it ultimately plays out on is you! But where does it come from? Well, it is something that started a long, long time ago, right from your parents.

Because, whose voices are there? They are included too, and the friends are included, and the boss, and the friends, and the friends of the friends, and the, everybody who has two-cents-worth of advice, and it just gets recorded,

But then the question becomes, “Why did it get recorded? Who had the record button pushed in?” Right? And we allow this to happen. We don’t think we have a choice. Because we don’t live our lives by that tactile feel.

I was watching a show where they were showing this person who was challenged with the sight. And as he moved around the room, he had to feel everything—and where it was and how it was—and there were no assumptions.

And we, the ones who have eyes, are most likely to have that chair pulled out from underneath us or even miss the chair. But not this man, because he knows he has to have that feel. Every step that he takes in his life is taken deliberately. Not just, “Uh, let me see what’s over there.” Do we live our lives like that?

You know, and maybe the noise is a consequence of living a very unconscious life. That if there was a conscious life, then you would say, “Okay! Since I have a tape recorder....” Don’t fault the tape recorder, by the way. That’s really good that you have a tape recorder. It’s the content of the tape recorder that’s bad.

“So, can I put in nice stuff? If I’m going to have noise, let me have some really lovely noise, something that inspires me, something that gives me courage....” Because we all need courage. That’s why courage is there—hmm—because we need it!

Because in life, the mountains that you have to sometimes cross, that we have created for ourselves, are no ordinary hills. Mind you, they are indeed mountains of extraordinary proportions, and it requires nothing shy of courage to even take on the challenge to do so.

So, you know, this is, in a way, what I do. Because, you look at the Peace Education Program—and when it goes to the prisons, their voice, their tape recorder is going, “I am here, and it’s the fault of that person, and that person, and that person, and that person.”

And they go through the Peace Education Program, and they start to realize, “Hey, look at yourself.” And when they do, then they realize that they are standing at a threshold where they can change.

And it is no mistake or an accident that people who go through the Peace Education Program—at least, the inmates who go through the Peace Education Program—have the lowest rate of return back into the prisons.

So, we’re not inmates, are we? I mean, we’re not in a prison system, are we? The prison system you are currently in.... The other prison system, they’ll get out after two years, three years, four years, five years. The prison system you are in, you don’t get to get out till you die—sorry. Huh! You’re in for life.

Folks, it’s really time to start creating your heaven, because there are no options here. The wall is there—and there are no options! And getting rid of that noise and putting the nice noise on is up to you. It truly is—because you’re the one who is doing it: who’s buying into this noise and keeps: “Ah, push play again, please.” And, you know, and has it on “repeat,” so it just keeps repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating.

Life has the possibility of creating your own playlist—your playlist that you like. Do you want to accept that challenge? You know, the issue isn’t just the noise. We can replace it with something beautiful, something wonderful, something you like. Not what I like—you like! Because I want to create my playlist of something I like. You create your playlist, something you like.

- Prem Rawat

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

Jessica Zweig:

You are clearly very inspirational, Prem. You literally travel the world and inspire people for a living. I’m interested to know, who inspires you?

Prem Rawat:

Well, I am inspired by everybody that I inspire. And when I see people being inspired by a message, my question always is, "Why? What did I say that is so unique, so incredible?"

And yet I see that all of a sudden, they thought where they were, versus where they now see that they are, that they are not without the tools in their life; they’re not alone; they’re not abandoned; they’re not in these dire straits. They’re actually doing pretty good.

And to acknowledge that in their lives—and a beautiful light comes shining through them. And that’s what inspires me. That’s really what inspires me.

Jessica Zweig:

Yeah, me too. Watching people wake up to their own power and joy is....

Prem Rawat:

Yeah, that, absolutely, it’s the most, most stunning thing to see, to observe.

Jessica Zweig:

Absolutely. I really want, you know, those listening to look at themselves with that ability. It’s such a core central theme of my work. I help people find their message and help them to build their platforms and to create awareness of those platforms, that they can impact more people and impact their careers and impact their lives.

I think a lot of people have self-limiting beliefs that they are worthy of being that person. They’ll look at someone like you—or maybe even me, people who have platforms—and say to themselves, “I, I couldn’t do that. I’m not worthy of doing that; I don’t know how to do that.” What advice do you have for those people?

Prem Rawat:

Let me tell you a little story—and I gave this example. And somebody asked me a question a long time ago. They were actually wondering, you know—they were talking about, “Is this good; is this good; is this good?” And I said, “The value of all these things that you have described to me is zero—and you are a ‘one.’”

So, when they heard that, they were really very angry with me. And in fact, they walked out. Because they were like, “And how could you say what I am talking about has to be zero?”

And I said, “But”—I continued with my analogy, and my analogy was, “Everything you’re talking about is zero—and you are a ‘one.’ Place zero in front of a one and what do you have? One!—and a zero. No value, nothing. Nothing changes.

“Put that zero after a one and it’s a ten; it’s a hundred; it’s a thousand; it’s a hundred thousand; it’s a million; it’s....” All these things, placed after you, after you are worth a lot. Placed before you? And they mean nothing, absolutely nothing. That’s math; that’s math. Yeah, I mean, anybody can do that math.

And to me, that’s the way I see it. You know, it’s just, “First, find yourself; then take all these things that you want to do and put them after you.” And they will be ten, a hundred, thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, ten million, a billion, trillion, whatever.

But keep placing them before you? They mean nothing! Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Jessica Zweig:

I love that. “Be your own ‘one.’” Be the “one.” Brilliant, brilliant!

Where can people find you, more about you?

Prem Rawat:

Well, I am reachable through PremRawat.com. PremRawat.com, yeah.

Jessica Zweig: [simult.]

It’s a beautiful site. Beautiful.

I have one final question for you, Prem. You’ve given us such beautiful wisdom today. I would love to know—as I ask every guest—what do the words “simply be” mean to you?

Prem Rawat:

To be that “one”—without the zeros in front, with all the zeros after. And now you’ve got everything. Simply be. Simply, simply, simply, simply, simply-simply-simply. Not thinking about this; not getting into—but just simply be.

Look at a child; look at a baby. That baby knows how to simply be. You are still that baby. Well, you were once a baby—and you’re still that baby. That baby never died; that baby never went away.

Tap into that resource that you have to be that baby, and you will simply be. Because simply being is it—is it, is the it.

Jessica Zweig:

I’m crying; I’m smiling; I’m nodding; I’m tearing up at the same time. That was so beautifully stated. Thank you so much for explaining it that way. It touched my heart. And this is something I speak about all the time. And to hear you say it in that way was just really meaningful.

Thank you so, so much for being on my show. It is just such an honor to speak to you and to learn from you. And thank you for the reminder—to simply be. Because I needed it today, especially.

Prem Rawat:

Thank you; thank you so much for letting me be on your show and—great, wonderful; thank you. Thank you.

Jessica Zweig:

You have been speaking to audiences since you were four years old, and you’ve been spreading this message of peace for a very long time.

And I think, today, more than ever before—and I wasn’t around fifty years ago—but there is just so much more to consume ourselves with. And I think it’s harder and harder to get in touch with that dreamer. And we don’t give ourselves the permission to do that.

You know, most of us wake up, check our phones, eat breakfast while we’re checking our phones, rush to work on our phones, get to our office and—and are, you know, inundated all day long. And then we come home and by the end of the day, we’re just exhausted.

And there’s—it’s just so hard, especially in modern society in America—in the West, at least, where finding this space to know the dreamer has just become harder. I would imagine, since the time you’ve started your career, you’ve seen so much more happening in the world. And how do we mitigate against that? How do we technically do that?

Prem Rawat:

Well, the thing is, there are problems that have arisen in society. And the problems that have arisen in society are that people are not understanding not only themselves, but they’re not understanding other people.

To me, you know, when people talk about the problems that are happening in.... The fire season is on in California, by the way. And I don’t know if, on the East Coast, they’re listening to the news that, you know, “This part of California’s on fire; that part of California’s on fire.”

And imagine, on one hand, you have California on fire. On the other hand, you have a bunch of refugees who are traveling from their country towards central Europe—and they are in dire straits.

And there is a person in California whose house is in fire and they’re in dire straits. And there is a tornado in the panhandle of Florida that has just demolished this person’s house. And they are emotionally distraught and they’re—everything that they worked for is just, this little tornado came and destroyed it.

Is there a similarity? Is there a similarity between that guy watching his house being burned down, another one in the panhandle who’s just watching his house being disintegrated, and a person who is of a totally different religion, totally different faith, on a boat, taking on the waves and in dire straits because, are they going to make it? And when they make it, are they going to be let in? I mean, they have no choice to go back. It’s a horrible situation.

Then you’ve got all these refugees who are not being allowed, being shoved further and further south of even, you know, Mexico and Honduras and so many other countries, and it’s like, “Go away; go away; go away.” Is there a similarity?

And is there a similarity in all the oceans being riddled with plastic? And is there a problem with the Amazon forests being destroyed, every square inch of them being potentially on the list of being absolutely destroyed?

And I say, “Yes, there is; there is a common thread. And the common thread is the human being. The pain and sorrow that is being caused, is being caused by human beings and is being suffered by human beings.”

And so, human beings are the common denominator in all these problems. And yet, what is the problem with the human being? I mean, isn’t it wonderful that we can do all these things that we have done? I mean, after all, human beings have done some pretty incredible things.

Mind you, we have wiped out a bunch of diseases that existed; we have gone to the moon; I mean, my God, we can communicate; we have done a lot of wonderful things.

But by the same token, have we done something that is wrong? And the answer to that is, “Absolutely!” And we continue to do it, because we don’t see it. We don’t see. What we don’t see, we cannot correct.

And what we don’t see in our lives so much is, “My life is limited. My life on this planet Earth is limited.” I mean, if you were to take.... Even if you were to live a hundred years, how long is that in days? Thirty-six thousand five hundred. Now, thirty-six thousand five hundred is not a very long time at all!

When you think about it—I mean, it’s like, “And wait a minute; maybe, maybe I misplaced a zero, right? Three hundred and sixty-five?” No! It’s actually thirty-six thousand five hundred. And that’s if you get to live for a hundred years—a hundred years.

My God, that’s still, you know—anybody who crosses the hundred-year boundary—at least, in Japan—gets a, you know, recognition from the government.

So, it is still a novelty, and yet it is such a short time on the face of this earth. Well, who are you? What are you all about? Are you about all your problems? Are you the creator of all your problems in your life and that’s it? Or are you something more? Can you offer yourself some help?

And what I’m saying is that “Of course you can—and you are your salvation.” You are your salvation. You don’t need an angel to come down from the heavens to take care of your problems. You are the ones who are going to take care of your problems.

And the way you’re going to do it, it’s by starting to look around; it’s by starting to see—not close your eyes, but by looking around.

Your life, your understanding, every single day, saying, “Who am I? What am I about? What is my relationship with everything that I live in? In my house, my children, my husband, my boyfriend, my person who I work with, what is my relationship with these people?”

And to really bring it home that you are here—and you can make a difference and you’re going to make a difference. But the difference you’re going to make is from the simplest little things in your life. And that’s where you’re going to begin.

Jessica Zweig:

Yes, so true. It’s beautifully said. I’m just so aligned. Because I literally just recorded an episode myself of my show about the power and the responsibility that we all have to impact the world, ourselves—that we actually have the ability to do that.

And, you know, my show is about personal branding and giving people the tools to help them put themselves out on a stage, whatever that stage might be, with a positive message that comes from their hearts.

But what I love about what you’re saying so much, Prem, is that finding peace within yourself isn’t a passive act, actually; it’s a very empowered decision. And that taking true responsibility for yourself is your biggest job.

I can speak to a retreat that I took, a women’s retreat I went on a few years ago, and I was in total victim mentality, thinking that everything was happening to me. It was my husband’s fault; it was my job’s fault; it was the weather’s fault; it was the time of the year’s fault—it was everyone else’s fault but mine.

And I was probably the most depressed I had been in a long time. And in just a matter of a few days in this retreat, I worked with, you know, all of these amazing women coaches who kind of woke me up—that it’s no one’s, no one’s fault but mine to let myself be and feel this way. And that taking total, unapologetic, radical responsibility for your life is the path to peace.

Would you agree with that?

Prem Rawat:

I would like to add something to it. I mean, once you have defined that something is wrong—and then you say, “Okay, I’m going to correct it,” that’s not peace. Peace is much more fundamental than that.

Because these situations—for instance, you know, if your relationship with your husband is really bad and you go, “Okay, if I fix my relationship with my husband, everything will be fine.” But there was a time you weren’t married. And you still needed peace. And how will you get peace if you’re not even married and you can’t fix that problem because you don’t have a husband?

But peace goes beyond that threshold. And peace gets to the very fundamental of life itself. What is life itself? What is your definition of life itself?

When you wake up in the morning, you think about all the things you’re going to do. Do you think about all the things that you have to do—and that one fundamental thing that you have to do, just to breathe? And if you were just to stop breathing, you would be dead?

I mean, do you understand your existence, that you are alive? That this is a gift that you are being given? It has taken the whole universe to collude so that you can be alive today.

That you can be alive today! You were in the making for millions and billions and billions and billions and billions of years. Do you accept that as a gift? Do you even see that as a gift?

Or do you see your problems going away as a gift? Because, if you see your problems going away as a gift, you’re missing on life. You’re not missing on your, you know, what’s happening because you are alive, but you’re missing out on what life itself is.

And I want to always bring it home—to “we need to know what life itself is,” not “what you can accomplish because you are alive.”

There is a driver, and the driver has to pay attention to what the car is doing. There may be other passengers who can roll down their window and say, “Look over there; oh my God, oh my God,” but not that driver. The driver has to enjoy what he can enjoy whilst he is paying one hundred percent attention to his driving.

Because if he starts to lose that focus, an accident is imminent. And that accident that is imminent is the way I see the problems in our lives today. We’re having mini-accidents. Because we are not taking into account what is really, really important. And that thing is paying attention to who we really are.

Jessica Zweig:

I think it’s also gotten a lot more difficult to get in touch with who we truly are because of the sheer noise of life—technology, opportunity. The desire to know oneself is sort of trendy today. And I think that, in and of itself is overwhelming for people.

So, how do you tap in? What would be the first step?

Prem Rawat:

You’re absolutely right! People are so caught up in everything else that they have forgotten who they are. And so our journey must begin with first establishing base with ourselves—not with other things, not with other solutions, but with us, with us, just as an individual, just as who you are.

Continuing onscreen text:

SimplyBe. Podcast

Jessica Zweig, Host of The SimplyBe Podcast.

Interviews Prem Rawat, Author & Global Peace Ambassador

The SimplyBe. Podcast is a collection of conversations about building a business by knowing WHO YOU ARE at your core, and showing up as your true, unapologetic, authentic self.

Jessica interviews thought leaders, CEOs, and some of the most magnetic personal brands of today.

A Common Thread

Jessica Zweig:

Welcome to my show Prem; thank you so much for being with me today.

Prem Rawat:

It’s a great pleasure to be with you and with your audience and to share some insights. I’ve been doing this for quite a long time, and it’s just wonderful to help people all around the world who need help, who want to take some help.

Jessica Zweig:

I could not agree more. And it is; the honor and privilege is mine. I know you have a prolific career, over fifty years traveling the globe, speaking in over 250 cities, probably more, on this topic of peace and the universal desire that we all have for it. And I’d love for you to speak to that—why, why peace, Prem?

Prem Rawat:

Well, but, you know, so much of the education that we receive.... Because everything that we think we know is really something that has been added to us; this is not fundamentally what we knew when we were born.

We knew one thing when we were born, which is, "Give a cry if you need something, and if you are happy, go to sleep." And that’s how our lives actually started. And then it’s like, "Oh, I have to do this; I have to accomplish this; I have to succeed in this." All this was learnt later on.

And what does it mean when we learn all these things? Do we make a separation between these things and who we are? We don't! We think, "This is my idea; this is what I have to do." [Jessica: Umm.] And on we go!

And then, before you know it, we find ourselves in a very complicated situation. And the situation might be that we even have a job that’s bringing home the bread and butter, but we hate it; we hate it. And we hate going to our work every single day.

And there we are, caught in this paradox of “What do I do now?” Because I know that I have to get bread and butter home; maybe there are other people in my household who are relying on me to bring that bread and butter home, but something in me doesn’t want to do it. I don’t enjoy what I’m doing; I don’t enjoy being who I am; I don’t enjoy—"This is too much pressure; this is too much...."

And a lot of people, they go, "Okay, ahh...." All of a sudden one day, they find themselves walking on a road. And they find that a shoe that they’re wearing is full of a very sharp rock.

And instead of taking the time to remove the rock from the shoe and comfortably go on walking, they are like, "Well, give me an aspirin; give me something that’ll take away my pain; give me a band-aid; give me something because this is horrible."

And somebody comes along and says, "Well, you know, why are you taking all this medication? Why are you doing all this? Do you know why you’re doing this, because you don’t have to. All you have to do is take away that rock that’s in your shoe, and you will be comfortable again."

And sometimes it sounds so simple when you say it, but it's so complicated. With all the challenges that we have in our life, we find ourselves nailed against the wall sometimes. And we’re looking for a solution out of this misery. And yet it's just like, the more solutions we look to, the more complex those solutions are.

You know, it’s like, "Okay, sit down in a room—and don’t think about anything." And it’s like, "Control your thoughts."

And I remember, when I first came—I was a teenager when I first came to America; I was thirteen years old. And people much older than me and much more educated than me would sit down and go, "Okay, how do I control my thoughts?"

I said, "Well, why do you want to control your thoughts? I mean, what do you think you’re going to gain by controlling your thoughts? Don’t you understand that the desire to control your thought is a thought in itself?" [Jessica: Right.]

You’re still attached to the thought, and you’re going to be sitting there in some room, going, "Am I controlling my thoughts? Have I controlled my thoughts? Have my thoughts gone away?" And you’re going to be thinking about your thoughts going away. And so, how have you become thoughtless? You’re not thoughtless; you're still thinking.

And that just goes to the quintessential essence of it. Because we need to understand who we are as a human being. And if we understand who we are as a human being, we can understand our limitations, and we can also understand our strengths.

And this is what we don't know; we don’t know our strengths, but we finally have learnt our limitations. [Jessica: Yeah.] And the world is frustrated because of that.

Jessica Zweig:

Right. Well, I think it's also gotten a lot more difficult to get in touch with who we truly are because of the sheer noise of life—technology, opportunity. The desire to know oneself is sort of trendy today. And there are all of these different ways in which we can explore that. And I think that, in and of itself is overwhelming for people.

So, how do you tap in? What would be the first step? Because I agree with you; it's really, really simple—but it's still so hard for people.

Prem Rawat:

Yeah. And you know, it's like, in a way, exactly what you said and it's very true. But at the same time, it's like, "Well, I can't smell myself. I can smell the flowers and I can smell the bees and I can smell everything else, but I can't smell me."

And it's like, "Well, but excuse me. You don't know who you are? I mean, you are in you—and you are attached to you. And yet you are so alienated from you. How can that be?" Wait, what's going on here? What mirror are you looking at? Who are you looking at, if you cannot find yourself amidst this huge ocean?

And yet you are absolutely right. People are so caught up in everything else that they have forgotten who they are. And so, our journey must begin with first, establishing base with ourselves. Not with other things, not with other solutions, but with us, with us, just as an individual, just as who you are. Not how you should be—but who you are. [Jessica: Right.]

And begin with that—and that is the very first step.