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There’s a lot of businesspeople here, they want to make money. I don’t blame you. Money is a nice thing to have, it can get you into a lot of trouble. So far you’re making it, it’s fine. So far you stop making it, you are in a lot of trouble. You become nobody. So far you keep making money you’re somebody, you stop making money, you’re a nobody.

And yet you realize that you’re not going to be able to take a cent of it with you. Money belongs to no one. What you say is yours…That house you live in has your name on the front. One day it’ll have somebody else’s name in the front. That’s the nature of things. Not good, not bad, not right, not wrong. That’s just the nature of things.

Yes, people need food. But people also need compassion. Yes, people need money but they still need compassion. And compassion is not pity.

What is empathy? What is empathy? Look it up. What is empathy? It is: to understand, to see the similarity between you and the others. It is not to take pity. And I’m not talking about taking pity. That’s not what this kindness is about. This kindness is about helping people. First of all, realize in themselves, their potential, their understanding. This is what the world needs.

- Prem Rawat

We’re going to be talking about seeds. One thing to understand: you work every day. At first, you worked on playing. For this, you needed toys. Hopefully your parents got you toys; maybe you had more toys than you wanted, that you could have a better time with, but at first you wanted to play.

Then you started going to school, and you invested in your education. Your parents invested, but you did too; you had to go every day, carry your homework, do all the things. So you invested in your education.

After that, you came out and you invested in getting a job. And now you invest, every day, in your financial welfare by having a job—by having a job, by taking care of that investment. You come home; you bring the money; you try to invest that—whatever! But you are, one way or the other way, invested.

And your life is how it is. But you know that you need that job to keep that money going. So you invest every day: get up in the morning, go to your job, take care of it, try to do as well as you can, so on and so forth.

So the issue here is that you know you have to invest—in your job, in your friends—well, same thing with your friends,the time you spend on your phone answering all your friends. Your investment—it’s your investment, whether it is energy you invest, whether it is time that you invest, time and energy that you invest—you invest!

Oh, yeah, by the way, we are here to talk about peace. We are here to talk about the possibility of this desert blooming. Aren’t we? How invested are you in peace? You want peace, no? How invested are you? What investment do you make? Every day?

You want clarity in your life? How invested are you in clarity? You want joy in your life? How invested are you in joy? You want understanding in your life. How invested are you in understanding in your life? You want to know yourself. Well, how have you invested into knowing yourself?

How do you invest? What have you done to bring a little peace in your life, bring a little joy, a true joy?

Not that that kind of joy where you go with your friends for a few minutes—and you have your, you know, wine and beer—and whatever they show; they have advertisements of this. And then they have their beer, saying, “It doesn’t get any better than that,” and then everybody wakes up with a hangover.

Not that kind of joy; I’m talking about a joy that emanates from your heart, as a human being—as a human being—where you get to a point in your life where you just start enjoying life, not what’s happening in your life.

You see the difference between the two? Where you actually just start enjoying life itself—the coming and going of this breath, you being on this earth, you being alive, you being able to see, you being able to feel—not what you feel, but enjoying feeling; not loving somebody, but enjoying the love; not enjoying listening to a record, but enjoy listening. Enjoy listening….

I’m not talking about enjoying a particular thing. I’m talking about enjoying being alive.

- Prem Rawat

What is important for you as a human being? One, “Know thyself.” Absolutely. You cannot afford to be a stranger to you. You can afford to be a stranger to other people who do not know you, but you cannot afford to be a stranger to you: “Know thyself.”

Secondly, you need to have a heart full of gratitude. Be thankful—thankful for what? For very simple things, very simple things—like being alive. So, could you begin by being thankful for being alive? Could you—in your moments of frustration could you be thankful for this breath? It’s still coming. Do you know that when you are angry, the root of your anger is fear? To remove the anger, you have to remove the fear and to remove the fear, you have to have courage. So, courage is what will get rid of the anger!

So, can you have gratitude? Only those people who have that courage, who have that strength can have gratitude—“Thank you. Thank you.”

People—I say to people; I said, “Be thankful,” and they go “to whom?” Then you don’t know how to be thankful. Just be thankful. Not to whom.

When you look at a beautiful rose, do you go up to it and say, “Are you beautiful for me?” No. That rose is beautiful even if nobody’s looking at it. And that rose is beautiful if it’s a criminal looking at it. And the rose is beautiful if a saint is looking at it. And the rose is beautiful if you’re looking at it.

Gratitude: number two. Number three? Noise. So, have you heard this saying? It goes, “You don’t need wings to fly. You don’t need wings to fly. All you need to do is cut the ropes that hold you back.” Have you heard this? So, where are the ropes? The ropes that hold me back are in my head.

And what do they look like? They look like noise. What is the noise? “You should do this; you should do that.” Words that are not yours—other people’s words that echo in your head... . “Oh, yeah, but if you do this, you will go to hell!” “Oh, but you want to go to heaven... . You want to go to heaven... .” Do you know what heaven looks like? If you didn’t recognize the heaven here? How will you know you are in heaven when you are in heaven?

The question isn’t, you are flying, my friends—the question isn’t, you are flying—the question is, are you on the right airplane? So, do you know what heaven feels like? Because heaven is here. And if you don’t recognize it here, you’re not going to recognize it anywhere else.

So far you are here, your heaven is here; your hell is here. What is heaven? Heaven is the place where you are fulfilled. What is hell? When you are not in heaven. Simple! What does heaven feel like? It feels heavenly. It’s in you; it’s in you; it’s in you; it’s in you.

Fourth thing. The last thing. You can fail, but don’t accept failure. So, you’re going, “What does that mean?” Right? When you were a baby, and you were learning how to walk, did you fail? Every time you fell you failed. Right? But did you accept failure?

You never—you failed, but you never accepted failure; you got right back up. “Ha-ha-ha-ha.” Right? Till one day you learned how to walk—that’s how you learned how to walk. You failed, but you did not accept failure. Now, look at you. A little failure, “Huh...”

So, you can fail, but don’t accept failure. Do those four things in your life, please. Do those four things: “Know yourself”—you want to know yourself? I can help you. I can help you. “Be thankful for this life; be thankful for the breath.” And then, “Cut the ropes of noise.” "Fail, no problem. But don't accept failure." Do those things and you will see a big difference in your life.

- Prem Rawat

Whenever there was prosperity without peace, that prosperity didn’t last very long. You want prosperity? I know everybody wants prosperity. But true prosperity will never come without true peace.

And that’s why peace is important for all of us on this planet, not just in Colombia. On this planet, we are killing each other. We’re destroying each other. And we need to understand the value of human life, not the value of some ideas, some philosophies, but the idea of what truly a human being is.

– Prem Rawat

I see what’s happening in this world and it’s not good. It’s time we change it. But the change—the change can only begin with us. And right now, what we want is the change to begin with other people, not us. Because we don’t know who we are. We’re just like them. We’re just like them. Knowing yourself has a lot of value, believe me, a lot of value.

So, this is the possibility. Your desert too, however “desert-y” it may look, does have the seeds. It is going to rain. It is. And when it does, your desert can bloom as well.

Beautiful, beautiful things in the “Store of the Divine.” Don’t be shocked if all you get is a bunch of seeds. Don’t be shocked because that’s the way they come.

Are you ready to invest a little bit in those seeds? Are you ready to take all that knowledge and give it a little wisdom—and use it wisely? Because if you do, even if you think your life has changed, it can still transform so much more than you could ever imagine. There is no limit; there is no limit.

So, how beautiful, this opportunity. How beautiful, this chance. And how beautiful when the desert blooms. Please let your desert bloom. That’s what it’s all about.

- Prem Rawat

Those seeds lying in the desert know one thing: rain will come. This they know. This is not a guess! Rain will come. When? They don’t know.

So, instead of looking at a calendar—like we do—they have adopted a beautiful strategy, beautiful! And it is based on one thing: rain will come.

Stop looking at the calendar. Seeds don’t look at the calendar. They just know the rain will come. And when it does, “Be ready!” So, no guesswork, no speculation. Absolutely everything known, known, known: rain will come. Be ready! And that’s what they do.

That’s how the desert blooms. You look at a desert, and it looks, “nothing,” like nothing. One color. Hiding underneath are these incredible little seeds. “Rain will come. Be ready.” And then, rain does come. And when it does, they bloom!

And when the desert blooms, it’s not monotonous anymore. It has got the most exquisite colors everywhere, the gentle hues of pink and blues and yellows and reds and green. You can’t even see the sand. It will happen.

You too can look at your life, look at the monotony of your life. But remember, in your heart there are some seeds. We’re going to talk about seeds here today quite a bit. There are some seeds. Rain will come. And the desert will bloom.

It’s happened, not once. Not once—again and again and again, and these seeds that lie dormant are the seeds of the success story from the last blooming. Those flowers that bloomed, they left these seeds behind. And this is their proof, “It does rain—and be ready to bloom.”

And, if in my life, instead of facing all the chaos that I face, all the challenges that I have created for my own self, and I start to really understand life as this incredible journey that I have, this incredible gift that I have, this incredible opportunity that I have.

- Prem Rawat