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Discovery Not Creation
Radio Interview Excerpt

Umhlobo Wenene FM Radio
Johannesburg, South Africa

Zizo and KCi
Interview Prem Rawat

Zizo Tshwete:
I’d like to know, when you go around and you teach the principles of having peace, do you think it's important that the leaders of nations buy into the idea so that it filters through to the people, or do you speak more to individuals?

Prem Rawat:
Well, let me just clarify one thing: I don't teach and I don't preach, and that's absolutely out of the question for me. All I want to do at most is to say things to people that will cause them, that will evoke something in them to start thinking for themselves, to start understanding, “Yes, peace has always been inside of me.” If I don't feel that peace, it is because of the obstacles that I have created, not somebody else has created. I have created for myself.

You know, distraction. You have to be attracted to a distraction. Because a distraction might be doing something, but then you get attracted to that distraction and that attraction takes you away from where you want to be attracted to. 

To be fundamentally sound, a building is built on a foundation. You don't see the foundation. Nobody decorates a foundation because it's buried. But the integral structure of that building, actually the integrity of that building depends not on what you actually see, but what is the foundation.

So, what is the foundation of a human being? You know, do you want to be happy? I don't see anybody going to any church, any temple, any God, and saying, “God, I've had too much fun. I'm too happy. Please do something to reduce this happiness.” When we get sad, we do do that. We say, “This is too much sadness. I want to get rid of sadness.” What does that tell you? That tells you that we like to be content, that we like to be happy, that we like to be in peace. We like to be in joy. We like to be in clarity.

Zizo Tshwete:
Right.

Prem Rawat:
And we don't like confusion. We don't like anger. We don't like fear. We don't like these things, but they're both in us absolutely.

I mean, if I may, I can tell you a little story, if that's okay. Once upon a time, there was a settlement. And in the settlement a lot of people were living and there was a chief. And one day the chief was approached by a young kid and he said, “Chief, I have a question. I'm confused. I have a question.” And the chief said, “What?” He says, “Sometimes I see that people are good. And sometimes I see the same people who are good, they are bad. How can this be? I mean, either a person is good or a person is bad.”

But he says, “No. Sometimes people are good. And then sometimes they're bad.” And the chief said, “That's because there are two wolves in us, a good wolf and a bad wolf. And they're fighting each other.” So, the boy thinks about it and said, “Why do they fight?” So, the chief says, “So they can have control over you. They can have supremacy over you.” So, the boy thinks about it and he says, “So, chief, tell me, which wolf is going to win?” And the chief said, “The one you feed.”

Zizo Tshwete:
Mm. Hmm. 

Prem Rawat:
So we feed the bad wolf.

KCi August:
Wow.

Prem Rawat:
The bad wolf will get strong. And a lot of people think we should beat the bad wolf. Beating the bad wolf is not going to help the good wolf. The good wolf has to be fed. Doing things to the bad wolf is not going to help anything. And sometimes we just get caught up. And it's like, if we could just remove the darkness from the room, there will be light, right?

KCi August:
I know.

Prem Rawat:
No. You know, you cannot take a bucket and try to remove the darkness and then hope there'll be light. No. Bring in the light and the darkness will automatically go away.

KCi August:
So, how do I get there somehow? Obviously, there'll be sacrifices along the way.

Prem Rawat:
No, no sacrifices. Because you already have it. See, there's a huge difference in trying to create peace in your life and trying to discover peace in your life. And I'm talking about discovery, not creation. Anything that we have to create that means that is not in us already, but peace is in us already.

Zizo Tshwete:
Wow, this is deep.

KCi August:
It’s more like finding peace in something that is already there.

Prem Rawat:
Exactly. It's discovery. It's discovery, not creation.

So in this existence, there's going to be—in your life, there's going to be many battles. But there is only going to be one war.

I don't know why, but as human beings, we are obsessed with winning the battles, and we are so obsessed with winning the battles that we forget everything about the war.

What is the objective? What is the final war? The final war, my friends, is to be content. That's the war. The battles you fight are your formulas of how you can be content. "I have to have this in my life; I want this in my life; it has to be this way in my life; this person should be this way; this person should be this way; this person should be this way; I want that to be there; I want that to be there; I want this to be this way; I want this person to talk to me like this." I mean all of these are battles. They are. And you are obsessed with them because you want to win the battle, win the battle, win the battle. And I'm here to tell you: don't care about the battles. If you win a few, good. If you lose a few, fine. Don't even think twice.

How many of you have witnessed, somebody said something wrong to somebody and that somebody got very upset? And that could be mother-father, husband-wife, daughter-mother, son-mother, son-father. Right? And they are not talking to each other, and they are mad at each other, and they're upset with each other and you are obsessed to make it right.

And when you obsess with the battles, you lose track of winning the war. Every day of your life you have to understand that you must win the war. Nothing in this world ultimately should be able to take away your serenity. Nobody should be able to take away your clarity. Nobody should be able to take away your peace. Nobody should be able to take away your understanding. Nobody should be able to take away your joy.

Regardless of what happens, then you are the victor and you have won the war. And to have won a few battles does not make you a victor. The war still goes on. You are the warrior. Do you know that? Do you know you are a warrior? And do you know, you have to fight? You have to. Because you have to claim what is rightfully yours. Do you know what is rightfully yours?

Peace is rightfully yours. Rightfully. Tranquility is rightfully yours; truth is rightfully yours; light is rightfully yours. Rightfully. Rightfully! Belongs to you! Rightfully. You are the heir, but you must fight.

Prem Rawat

We don’t pay attention to what needs attention. We don’t pay attention to the need of the heart. Because the inspiration to be in peace comes when you listen to your heart. The inspiration to be content comes from your being. The inspiration to be clear comes from here—and you need to listen; you need to hear.

We don’t hear ourselves. We don’t hear the needs that we have. We don’t hear the want, the wish of this heart to be content—simple—to have simplicity in this life, to have joy, to feel the gratitude every single day—to be inspired by the magic of all magics, by the miracle of all miracles, the coming and going of this breath.

You are alive! Best news! If—if you are incapable of hearing this news, and it sounds to you like a foreign language, then I suggest you learn that language. And it is called “the language of the heart.” That’s what I teach. That’s what I go and present to people so that they can learn the language of the heart.

- Prem Rawat

Every human being is a seed.

I’m not a philosopher, because a philosopher would talk about... the philosopher would talk about the potential of the seed. I talk about the realization of that potential.

I am not a philosopher. I’m much closer to a gardener. Prepare the field of your understanding and then take this existence that you have and sow it in this field.

Give it the water of knowing—not believing, knowing. Give it the light of clarity and watch this seed bloom. This blooming is called peace.

- Prem Rawat

Helle Solvang:

So, Mr. Prem Rawat, I’m doing this language laboratory program in the Danish radio. It’s a weekly magazine where my main focus is to try and discover how language can change people and how we can change ourselves and our surroundings through language.

Prem Rawat:

Well, first of all, thank you very much for having me on this show. And what I have learned is, language, or whatever we use to communicate—we need to communicate; we have a need to communicate. And sometimes people don’t see the need—that they need to communicate.

I mean, in this world today, there are obviously those people who believe in peace and who want peace to be there. When you look at all these wars going on, it is the innocent victims who had nothing to do with making those decisions, who are getting punished. And if they could say something, what would that be?

And that, to me, would establish the need—but they don’t have a voice. And to me it’s like, no, there has to be the voice of need that needs to be the loudest for humanity, the need to be in peace, the need to prosper, the need to be content, the need to be fulfilled.

And just, the need to live a life that they feel is good, that they can be; they can practice their religion; they can practice their faith; they can practice their understanding and have a path that they can go on, that can allow them to better themselves. This is the need, and we need to help each other, not get in each others’ way.

So, taking away that greed and taking away differences and starting to see the similarity, that’s the vision of clarity; that is the voice of clarity, and that is the voice of peace.

Helle Solvang:

Concerning the “voice of peace,” and the “language of peace” that we’ve been weaving around here, you’ve been traveling through so many countries and visiting so many cultures—you’ve got them under your skin. Are there any languages or any cultures in the world that you would say have peace as their core foundation?

Prem Rawat:

I think all of them do. The idea of peace, the feeling of peace, the need for peace, the want for peace has been there with us all along. The better half of a human being is peace. And I think that all cultures do give rise to that—you know, do give credence to that.

“Shalom! Salaam!” Peace! To greet a person by saying, “Peace. May peace be with you.” And this is coming from some of the regions that have been fighting with each other for such a long time! And yet, the first word uttered to greet another human being is “peace.”

I think we want peace, you know? But that voice is so dim now, overshadowed by the noise of greed and arrogance and anger and fear... I mean, so many politicians, they use fear! Fear—“But you don’t do this, then this will happen. And, don’t you, you know, and”—fear!

Give people information; let people make up their mind. Give people information! Don’t manipulate their emotions. Give them information, because I think people are intelligent and will make the intelligent choice.

Helle Solvang:

When I listen to you, I also think sometimes that there’s a heavy load on each individual—the force or the need to change and transform into a better environmentalist, into a more peaceful person, and to be talking in a more peaceful language.

So, how much of the peace and prosperity and of our survival in this world is based on the individual changing and transforming—and how much on systems changing and performing?

Prem Rawat:

That’s a really, really good question. Because, when you were asking that, I was just thinking in my own head, “Is ‘being green’ normal, natural, real? Or is it something that we have to change for?”

So, being green, does that mean...? Is that a deviation? Or, is it coming back to the track where you should have been all along? Being kind, is that a deviation, or is that where you should have been all along?

So, when you start to look at, “That yes, this takes effort”—but it’s only because we have already deviated. And this exercise is not about deviating further, but it’s coming back to where you should be, being human. That’s being human.

And I think that having generosity, having clarity, having kindness, having good choices is normal. And where we are, where it’s anger, it’s fear, it’s, “Destroy nature, capture nature, arrest nature, tame nature,” I think that’s deviated. Because you can work with nature—and she will work with you. Or you can be saying, “I want to tame you”—and she will tame you.

That change that really needs to happen is about understanding who we are—not looking at our differences, but our similarities. And, that in fact, if we all came together—not everyone has to come together—enough of us have to come together—it is, you know, the mass.

Enough of the mass comes together where the greedy become a true minority. And those people who truly understand generosity, acceptance of a human being, acceptance of what we have on this earth—that’s generosity. And I think something amazing is going to happen, amazing is going to happen.

But those who need that voice don’t have it! Because they are like, “No, don’t say anything.” And I think everybody needs to come together and say, “No, say it. Say it.” Say you are alive; say you are here; say you want heaven here—and I think amazing things will happen.

Helle Solvang:
Thank you.

Prem Rawat:

It’s been a pleasure.

Prem Rawat: On this planet Earth, there are ten quintillion insects. I don’t know if you can imagine that but ten quintillion insects. There are 7.9, (it’s .89 but) 7.9 billion people on the face of this earth. And there’s so much that is going on that we get lost. We get agitated. We get tripped up every day.

Coming here, it was supposed to be twenty minutes. It was over forty-five minutes. Traffic! And you’re sitting in a car going, “I’m going to be late. I’m going to be late. I’m going to be late. I’m going to be late. Oh my God, what’s going to happen? What...?” It’s noise. It’s noise! We get so lost in this noise.

When do we acknowledge the silence of ourselves? Away from that noise is something amazing. Away from all that, there is a human being aspiring to live in peace. And everything else is getting in the way. “No, you’d better do this; no, you’d better look at this, and no, you do this, you, no, you do this.”

All right! I understand. But do you know what the ultimate conclusion is going to be? The ultimate conclusion, whether you consider yourself to be successful in this world or not...? It doesn’t matter if all you made was one quarter, just a quarter—or you made ten billion. The fate reserved for you is identical.

No privilege: “All those who made more than a quarter, use that door. All those who made less than the quarter, use that door,” no! You just, you will share the identical fate.

So now, the variance is not that. The variance is, the difference is what you accomplish, not in regards to anybody else, but to you! That you experience peace, that you experience joy, that you experience understanding. That you experience clarity in your life. Not confusion.