विषय
Do you know the self? Because if you know the self, then you will know what you need to do to get back to being who you truly are.
The journey to become you is a journey back. It is undoing! Learning is very little new information. Undoing what you think you know takes most of the time.
Same thing with the self; same thing with the Knowledge, the “Knowledge of the self.” Need I say more? It’s everything.
Not, “Oh, you’ve had it longer than me; I have it longer than you; you received it in ’72; you received in ’94....” Kchch! Then you don’t know yourself. If you do that, you don’t know yourself. Excuse me, you don’t know yourself.
Because, remember what I was saying? Knowing yourself isn’t comparing to the next person: “I am not that,” or, “I am that plus that.” No, you are you. This is your time, your choices, your understanding, your life—your life. You have been given what you have been given.
– Prem Rawat
You have this treasure trove in you. Everyone, everyone does. Everyone does. But we’re not in touch with it; we’re in touch with everything else. And the world helps us. Very few of us actually get an opportunity to say, “Look, search for it.” You know?
We ask our parents, “Dad, where’s God?” And he points up! You know? And, God forbid he’s from Australia, because then we’re all pointing in the wrong direction.
And so, there are all these “can’t answers,” and nobody actually understands them. But it’s, “Oh, yeah, this is this way; this is this way.”
But noble is the father who looks at his child and says, “Son, find out. And if you find out before me, tell me. If I find out before you, I’ll tell you.”
– Prem Rawat
In your life, you think of yourself as “me, the unique me,” right? “My unique problem, my unique challenge, my unique this, my....” You know, and on a bad day you go, “Oh God, why is this happening to me?” Right? You’ve all been through that. I have. That’s why I know.
And when that happens, I think about it. And what I sometimes end up saying to myself is, “You know what? How many countless people do you think there have been before you who had exactly the same problem and who said exactly the same thing, ‘Why me?’”
And it wasn’t just them. Join the club. You have now officially been invited to the club of “miserable,” because misery begets misery! But that’s not what life is about. To understand, to understand that I carry in me, in my heart, wherever I go, whatever I do, I carry that beauty that I always have been in love with. Love.
I carry a simplicity—that if I can flavor and savor and touch and feel that simplicity on that day when everything feels like a thorn, I will understand the tenderness, the reality of that day, not the thorniness of my problems. The contrast, the contrast. Without the contrast, the picture looks pretty flat. It’s the contrast that is needed.
– Prem Rawat
Even when you’re confused, just know the clarity is right there! It’s right there! Not—you don’t have to go get it from anywhere. It’s right there with you. You’re in darkness? Not a problem! Light is right around the corner! And always remember that ... always remember that.
When everything gets dark in your life, know the light is right there. All you need to do is go “Oh! Okay.” It’s there.
This is who you are. This is who you are. This is a human being.
-Prem Rawat
What is an obstacle? We think somebody else puts an obstacle there. But understand that it is… Everything that you do—everything that you do, everything!—is going to have positive and negative consequences. Everything.
You buy a car? You don’t think so, because you’re excited, getting a new car. And you see a need: “I need a car; I’m getting a new car. So exciting.” You don’t see the negative consequences of that car—you don’t!
You get married? Everything you do. Everything you do.
So, human beings dream, and they have their plan, and their plan is, “Yeah, we’re going to get married, and we’re going to grow old together,” and ta, da-da, da-da, da-da. Sometimes it doesn’t work like that.
Every one of these consequences is pre-charged in your actions. They may happen; they may not happen. But the fact that they can happen, you have just triggered it by doing what you are doing. I mean, everything has a consequence.
And we call these “obstacles, problems.” And you know… And so you get married; you have a child; you’re all excited about your child. And the child comes, and “Oh, it’s so cute, and….” And you have to realize what you’re in for. You think that child has brought you a lot of joy, but that child can break your heart!
You don’t think so…and you know, nobody brought it up to you, but absolutely. Every single possibility is now in that path; every obstacle…everything that can go wrong exists—and it can hit you.
And you have to have clarity. Without that clarity, you become weird. You become angry; you become frustrated; you become confused. You lose all sense.
First, before you do anything—I mean, you go anywhere, do anything, talk to anyone— “Am I clear?” And you have to have kindness. You have to have understanding. Then you function normally. And when you function normally, you feel good! You actually….
Well, what a consequence. I mean, geez! So, when you’re clear, you actually feel good. That’s what clarity does for you.
– Prem Rawat
It’s about you—it’s about your story. Fulfillment is a feeling, not the quantity of food. It is not about how many glasses of water you drank, but is your thirst quenched or not? It is not whether you were in bed for twelve hours or not, but how much sleep did you get? You’ll understand that one, right?
It is not about the lectures that tell you, “You are free; you are free; you are free,” that will set you free. How free do you feel?
And this is what I say to the inmates: “It’s up to you! It’s up to you!” Everybody is behind some wall; everybody is behind some bar. The only difference is the color of the bars, the shape of the bars, and the material that they are made out of.
Some are made out of metal; some are made out of concepts, ideas, right here. But they’re bars—and they hold you back. They will not let you be free.
Do you want to be free? Good question—“Do you want to be free?” [Individual, male.: Yes!] First understand. Before you set off on a journey to be free, understand what’s holding you back! Why are you not free? All these ideas you have about things that are not yours—that were just, cct, ppbt! Poukh, chu-chu-chu, boomf! And you went, “Thank you.”
Somebody came, opened the head, poured it in, “Dah, dah, you’re good.”
Some apes, they look at themselves—they can’t recognize. So, dogs are like that too! They look at themselves in the mirror and they go, “What’s that!? Arrrrrrrgh!”
You have the ability to go, “Ah! That’s, that’s me!” And the scientists say, that is one of the human attributes! Why stop there? Know the self! This is what Socrates was talking about, “Know the self!” If that’s you, looking in the mirror, you can say, “That is me,” then knowing yourself, that is the human attribute that makes you who you are.
– Prem Rawat