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This is it—this is my day! How many of you know about tomorrow and believe in tomorrow? Not one? Gee, how are you going to make your flight back home? No, no, we’re all believers in tomorrow. But look at it. You can wait for tomorrow all day long. And just when you will be the closest to tomorrow, at 23:59:59...
That’ll be as close as you can get to tomorrow, 23:59:59, twenty-three, (or, eleven ... fifty-nine ... fifty-nine.) You know what it’ll become? Today. So you’re actually stuck in one long “today.”
And the most disgusting thing is, you have a strategy for tomorrow, but you have no strategy for today. So you’re reading the wrong map. You’re in Australia. You’re…you’re in Australia near Peak’s Crossing, looking at a map to go to the Brisbane International Airport ... and the map you have is of Los Angeles.
And you cannot find Brisbane International Airport. YBBN doesn’t show up on your map! And so now you question, “Is there actually a country called Australia? Is there really an airport called Brisbane? If it is, why don’t I see it?” This is what people ask me. “If there is peace, then how come I don’t already know? If it is in me, how come I don’t really already know?”
But that’s how it is. What you’re looking for is inside of you. But in your map, that’s not the map you’re looking for. So you find it’s not inside of you. So now, the whole thing of “believe” and disbelief begins. “Is there a God? Is there a heaven? Is there a hell?”
Yes, there is a heaven, but it’s here. It’s here, in your being. And yes, there is a hell! If you’re not in heaven, then guess where you are. There are no neutral territories.
So, what’s your strategy? How are you going to tackle this? You know, I… to me, it’s not a question that - “Should you be happy? Should you be sad? Should you be this, should you be that?” No. You should achieve your fullest potential. Fullest potential. And in that potential, you will realize that that requires for you to have peace. Without peace, a human being cannot achieve their potential.
And there is a desire, just like there was that desire, that thirst, the want to…to get up and to walk. It’s the same thirst to be fulfilled. But you cannot be fulfilled if you don’t have peace. Prosperity requires that you have peace.
- Prem Rawat
How many of you have heard of Leonardo da Vinci? Mona Lisa—he painted that. A man who asked questions, not very well educated, but very well-learned. Big difference—there are people who are very well-educated, but they’re not very well-learned. And there are people who are not that well-educated, but very well-learned—they go far. And he was very well-learned.
He asked the questions. “Why is the water the way it is? Why do the mountains at a distance seem bluish and hazy all the time?” He also painted The Last Supper.
One of the notes that he wrote down—this is how he signed the bottom of the page: “Leonardo da Vinci, the disciple of experience.”
You see, when I heard that I just froze. “Oh, disciple of so-and-so. Disciple of that guru; disciple of that that thing, or disciple of that thing....” And here he writes—a brilliant man writes, “disciple of experience.”
So I ask you, “Are you the disciple of experience?” How many times have you said, “I love you,” but didn’t feel it? And how many times have you heard, “I love you,” but didn’t feel it? Never? Never!?
“Good morning.” Love is a little complicated; you may be sitting next to your husband, and I perfectly understand, you cannot take that chance. “Good morning”—so I’ll make it easier, “Good morning.” And you said it ritually, and you didn’t mean it; you didn’t experience it.
Disciple of experience. Uttered the word, “God,” but didn’t feel God. Disciple of experience. “Thank you”—uttered the word “thank you,” but didn’t feel gratitude. Disciple of experience.
Are you the disciple of experience in your life? Do you welcome each day like you should, like the day deserves - not because of your piddly problems - but because of this grand opportunity you have to be alive on the face of this earth?
– Prem Rawat
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