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Tom Price: (host)

And here’s—this is my question. And then we’ll get to yours in a sec; don’t worry. Great indulgence for me to be able to ask Prem a question.

I love the analogy of opening a gift; I love this idea of a gift. But the thing I kept thinking when I was listening to you is, “Once you have opened that gift, how do you stop the gift from rewrapping itself up?”

Prem Rawat:

Well, that’s a valid question—except, all that time, you realize that the gift never opened itself; it took you to open it. So it will take you to rewrap it and close it. And, of course, you can always do that. So, a gift is a gift; and unless you accept it, it’s not a gift.

There is a story—I mean, this analogy is a little bit backwards, but I think it’ll make the point—where one time Buddha was walking with one of his disciples. And everybody in town was criticizing Buddha, saying, you know, “You’re no good; you don’t do this; you don’t do that....”

And so the disciple said, “Buddha, doesn’t that bother you, all these people saying all these nasty things about you, criticizing you?”

So when Buddha got back, he took his bowl—and his disciple was sitting there—and he took the bowl and he moved it. And he goes, “Whose bowl is it?” And the disciple said, “It’s your bowl.” So he moved it a little closer to the disciple and says, “Well, whose bowl is it?” He goes, “Yeah, it’s still your bowl.”

He kept doing that and asking him, “Whose bowl is it; whose bowl is it?” And the disciple kept saying, “It’s your bowl; it’s your bowl.” And then finally he took the bowl and he put it in the disciple’s lap and he said, “Now, whose bowl is it?” He goes, “It’s still your bowl.”

He says, “Exactly right! If I don’t accept this criticism, it’s not mine!”

And it’s the same thing—that if we don’t accept this gift, it’s not ours. And it just lies there dormant.

And we come into this world and then one day we have to go. And then we wonder—and this happens to way too many people—at the last minute, they’re going, “What, what did I do?” you know? And yet, that’s just not enough time to sort it elegantly out, the way you would like to have it done.

But now is the time—and now you are alive and you can do things—and you can waste your life. And the thing is, what’s amazing is that the life isn’t going to come back to you and say, “You’re wasting me.” It would be nice if it did: “Khow, pow, khow,” you know? But it doesn’t!

And the other beauty of it is that, whenever you decide to accept this gift, instantly it’ll become yours. So, it’s never too late! It doesn’t matter, you know, if you’re saying to yourself, “Well, yeah, well, I’m eighty-four. It’s too late for me.” And no, it’s not! Or it’s, or, somebody’s saying, “Oh, well, I’m too young.”

No! And, you can’t be too young; you can’t be too late with it; the day you accept it, it’s yours.

You as a human being, you have a choice. And you can choose. You can choose to gain victory over yourself or you can choose to try to pursue for the rest of your life trying to gain victory over your problems. In one, you will never win, in one you've got a fair shot.

Nobody, nobody has won over their problems. And now there are many people who think they have. Many people would like to, many people would imagine they would. But nobody has yet conquered their problems. And it is only when you begin to understand that that is the nature of problems. They're not to be conquered. If they get conquered, they're no more problems. That is their nature. They will morph to something else, to something else, to something else. Just when you get everything settled, your cat will run away. Just when you find your cat, your dog will run away. Just as you find your dog, your wife will run away. Just as you find your wife, you will run away. No, no, it's never one thing.

Because you build your house, you like your house and the longer you live in your house, the more leaks it's going to have. The more maintenance it's going to require. That's just the nature of it. The nature.

But we are not set up to be victorious over ourselves. We're not set up for that because the world tells us, "No, conquer your problems, conquer your problems, conquer your problems, conquer your problems." Even if you asked the world, "Okay, I would love to conquer my problems, would you tell me who has won? Give me one name. One. Just one. Just one."

I mean you can imagine a family starts off in some country somewhere—oh I have a dream, and I have this imagination, I'm going to work really hard. I'm going to become successful—and they make it to America. Well, their problems have just begun. And that's what happened. And when will it go away?

- Prem Rawat

You have to choose. And do you know that at every intersection of my life I had a choice? This is hindsight; it's 20-20. Believe me, I can't explain it. This feeling came over me that every intersection, every inch, every mile that I have traveled on this road of life, I had a choice.

Onscreen text:

Choice

Prem Rawat:

Yes, things came my way, but I had a choice. I accepted them. Good things, bad things came and I chose even those things that brought the consequence that was. And of course I can plead ignorance; I didn't know. But I chose. Should I have chosen without knowing? No.Hindsight's 20-20. But I chose.

Those of you who want that peace inside, you have to make that choice. In your life, doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result is not going to work. And people who do, little rocky to say the least.

In the same grind, hoping that one day everything will change. How? You have to make a choice. If you want that change, you have to make that choice. Do you want peace in your life? You have to make a choice. People will say to me, "Is it that easy? No searching, no going to the top of the Himalayas, no surrendering everything, burying your head in the snow for eight years? I mean, none of that stuff? Just have to make a choice?" Of course.

You have looked outside; maybe it is time to look inside. You have believed in many things; maybe the time has come to know. You have made many excuses; maybe the time has come to make the choice. Make a choice. Most importantly, make the connection.

It is not about lamenting the past. I made the wrong choices or the right choices. It is—wow, I get to choose? Tomorrow I get to choose? Yeah! And the day after that you get to choose. You want to be happy or you want to be sad? You want to be fulfilled or you want to be empty? Choose.

- Prem Rawat

How many of you worry? I’ll raise my hand too—just, it makes it easier for you. Now, please explain to me how worrying is going to take away your problem?

And here’s a good one—look up “worrying” or “worry” in the dictionary—and it’s really funny. It says, “Something that makes you unhappy.” Something that makes you unhappy...?

My goodness! I like to worry. I like to worry! But I never asked the question, “Why am I worrying? Is this actually going to solve the problem?” No! Because, where action will solve the problem, thinking about a possible solution will solve the problem, worrying will never solve the problem—but I like to worry.

And worrying will make me unhappy—that’s according to the dictionary—and I can vouch for that. And yet every time I am faced with a problem, I worry.

And then one day when I was really into worrying—and feeling quite unhappy—and this may come as a surprise to you—I said to myself, “Why do you want to feel unhappy?”

“Yeah, but it, you know, it’s not in my control. I didn’t do it. This is happening to me; it’s other peoples’ fault; it’s, yeah, da-da, the other people are the....”

I said, “No, no, no.” And this is me, having a conversation with myself, silently, by the way. And I’m saying to myself, “No, it’s you. That even in this moment, you have a possibility not to be unhappy.”

And it is taking a more proactive and a positive approach, which is to find the solution to the problem—and if you don’t know it, find somebody who does.

- Prem Rawat

There was a man. He had saved up some money, and one day he came across a piece of land, and the piece of land had been totally abandoned. So he went to the owner and he said, “You know, you have this land. Could you sell me this land?”

And the owner realized he wasn’t using it; it was abandoned. So whatever little money he could get would be welcome. So he made a deal and sold the land pretty cheap. Well, the man got the land. He went in; he started to clean the land. Picked the rocks, put ‘em aside; started to plow. He took care of the land. He plowed the field.

And before you know, he had a beautiful crop. And more he took care of the land, the better his crops were. And he started to get one crop, and then second crop, and third crop, and he just was taking four crops. And soon he saved the money and he became rich.

He got married; he had children, built himself a beautiful house—saved, saved, saved, and he bought gold with the money he saved. He took all the gold, which was substantial, that he had saved and he put it in a box. And he took the box and he buried it in the field. But he didn’t tell his children.

When the time came for him to die, he called all his family and called his children, and he said, “I am going to give you one piece of advice. And if you follow my advice, you will never be poor. And my advice to you is, ‘plow the field.’ That’s all.” He died.

The children were not into plowing the field. They wanted to live in the city; they wanted to have parties; they wanted to have everything else happening. They were not interested in being a farmer.

So, the land fell in disrepair. Weeds started to grow; people started to throw garbage on the land. Years passed by. One day a man came to them and said, “You know, you have this land—it’s completely abandoned. Sell it to me. This is all the money I have.” He had a little bit of money. He said, “Sell it to me.”

The children looked at each other and said, “Yeah, we’re not using it. At least we’ll get a little bit of money from it; that’s good.” And they always kept wondering, “Why did father say, ‘Plow the land and you will never be poor’?” So, the question in the back of their mind...but, they were happy to sell the land and get rid it.

The man who bought the land, he went in, and he plucked the weeds; he threw away the garbage, started to take care of the land. And one day he plowed the field. And when he did, guess what he found? He found the box with the gold.

You are the field, and in this field there is a box. And in this box there is a wealth, and this wealth is more expensive than gold. It’s more expensive than diamonds. There is a wealth—a wealth that, more you share it, the more it grows. There’s no wealth like that in this world except this inner wealth that you have. More you share it, the more it grows. What a wealth.

Some people say, “Oh, destiny! It’s just destiny.” And I say, “Choice.”

– Prem Rawat