Prem Rawat:
All stories begin with “Once upon a time.” The story that I really want to tell you also begins like this, but there is a small difference—and the difference is, “Once upon this time there lives you.”
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Once upon this time there lives You.
ONE 2 ONE
WITH PREM RAWAT
NO. 18
Prem Rawat:
Hello, everyone; Prem Rawat here. I want to take this chance that we have—and I want to talk about something. And I hope that it maybe clarifies something for you.
Now, what I want to talk about is, you have heard this many, many times, “Think outside the box. Oh, so-and-so did really well; he’s, he really likes to think outside the box. Oh, those people have really succeeded because they think outside the box.”
So, we hear this quite a bit—and you know, “And so-and-so is very successful today because he really thinks outside the box.” So what is this box? And if we were to think outside this box, there is a tremendous amount of success; there is a lot to be gained.
So, one of the problems, I think, for a lot of people—is that they live inside this box. But they don’t identify that this is a box. But it is a box. And so, bear with me but you’re going to have to take a little journey with me—and the journey is, “Let’s both go outside this box. And then, let’s take a look at how things really are outside the box. Let’s just think outside the box.”
So, what is this box? Well, this box is composed of so many ideas that we didn’t participate in; we didn’t say, “Oh, yeah, you know, that’s a really good idea; I’d like to—I’d like to remember that; I’d like to keep that.” But they’re ideas that come from other people—and we have simply accepted it.
Now, how far does this run? Well, it really runs a huge gamut. It runs from people, to countries, to cultures, to civilizations—and indeed, even to the divine.
“What’s going to happen to you? What are you all about? Where does the divine actually live? What is the divine really like? What are the reasons why your life has so many difficulties? What is auspicious; what is not auspicious? What is it that you should eat; what is it that you should not eat? If you eat this—and this is not any good. If you eat this, this is not any good.”
I mean, virtually, every facet! “How should your child be? How should they be behaving?” And, you know, I’ve been through that. I’ve been through that, “Oh, this person should behave, this child should behave like this; this person should behave like this. This is what’s important; this is not what’s important.”
Everything that happens during a day, I am dictating these things—because there is a tape recorder that is playing that is already dictating, “This is how this should be; this is how this should be; this is mine; that’s yours; this is this; this is that.” And it goes on, not only during the day—but it goes on for weeks, for months—and indeed a lifetime.
And what is it like when we can step outside that box? What is it like? Not trying to make a “designer me.” Because, you know, we like to copy things. And look at the jeans, for instance, the jeans.
Now, the invention of jeans happened because they were utilitarian trousers; people who worked really hard needed clothes that could take the beating. And people wore those jeans.
But there was a distinct difference between people who would wear—oh, this is not now; this is a long time ago—there was a distinct difference between people who wore jeans, who didn’t wear jeans.
And then slowly and slowly and slowly and slowly, those jeans became part of a fashion statement. “You’re cool. You’re okay. You’re this; you’re that.” And everybody is trying to make a statement.
It’s almost like if you could look at a dollhouse—and it has these little squares or rectangles. And each rectangle is that box that a person is in—and then there is the person inside, a little person. And they’re saying “I am this and I am this, and this is what I believe in, and this is how things should be, and this is how this….” And but it’s—and if you could hear everybody, it’d be too much!
And everybody has something to say. It’s like, you look at the pandemic and yeah, you know, it’s like all the people, they want to go to the bar. They want to socialize. They want to—they want to have a drink. And then they want to sit there and talk about things—that obviously, in that noisy environment, are not going to be worth really talking about too much.
What about you as a human being? Where do you fit into this? Where does this box allow you to be? What exactly is the reason for this box? And for a lot of people, this box offers a tremendous amount of security. But those are the people who just want to be “normal.” “Normal” is it. “Normal” is in fashion: “I want to be like that other person.”
So, all of a sudden, you’ve got all sorts of people wearing jeans. And not only that—but then comes in fashion, torn jeans. And they are wearing those torn jeans like they work really hard—like an ironsmith might, you know, taking a big hammer every day and banging, banging, banging. And they may not have ever even lifted a hammer like that.
But once it becomes a fashion statement, this is how it’s going to be. There are people—and I have known a lot of people like that since a very long time, you know, and it’s like, they’ve got to wear their saffron.
In fact, there was a guy—and this is a long time ago, in India—and he would always wear saffron, have long hair. And I, one day, just turned to him and I said, “Who are you? Because, you know, in the organization, we don’t have people like that wearing saffron anymore.”
And he just said, “Well, I’m just a normal bloke. But wearing saffron and having long hair and wearing these garlands and carrying this stuff, it allows me to travel on the train free.” So, I just, I just—I mean, I think that was hilarious.
Because everything starts to become this box, and box, and box—and so now, the guard who is supposed to check peoples’ tickets sees this person—and he immediately draws a box around him, saying, “Oh, he is some spiritual guru or something like that. And therefore, I won’t charge him the money to travel.”
For this person, he realizes that if he does this, he’ll get a free ticket. Not that he has to be disseminating any knowledge or any depth of anything to anyone! Not changing anyone’s life.
And all the topics that people talk about: “Oh, this is happening and that’s happening and you shouldn’t do this, and if you did this, this will happen….” Come on. You know, this is not what human beings need!
What human beings need is freedom. We all like that word “freedom.” And I really like that quote that says, you know, “We don’t need wings to fly. All we need is for those ropes that tie us down to be cut—and we will automatically fly.”
People are very concerned about “Who’s going to save us?” Well, guess what? We have to be our saviors. We have to save ourselves. And who best at saving ourselves except us, because we are the ones who keep putting ourselves in trouble, in peril, in confusion, in doubt, in agony.
I mean, you know, all those problems around the world—that you pick up a newspaper; you pick up, (nowadays it’s not a newspaper; it’s an app)—and very quickly, you can go around the world.
And all the problems? “There are floods happening there; there are people drowning there; there are people killing themselves there. The soldiers are doing this, and somebody said ‘This is this way,’ and somebody said, ‘This is fake news….’”
Where does that come from? You know, is it mice? Is it guinea pigs going around in a little wheel, creating electricity—and there is one guinea pig sitting behind a keyboard going, “Okay, boys, go faster, I’ve got to—I’ve got to get this information out. I’ve got to get this stuff out; I’ve got to create this confusion in this world”—no!
It’s not the guinea pigs, (cute little things). It’s human beings—that are creating this incredible confusion. I was listening to this debate and this one guy kept saying, you know, “Black lives matter.” And the other guy kept saying, “All lives matter.” And they both wouldn’t say what the other one wanted them to say—and it was very obvious!
And it’s also very obvious that “Yes, all lives matter”—but in all lives mattering, black lives haven’t mattered. So, “Black lives matter.” And all lives matter.
And there has been such an injustice that has been done. I mean, you know, our society is all about “justice, justice, justice, justice!” But it’s actually unbelievable, the tyranny that people have caused on the face of this earth—all because of that box! That box says “You are this,” and you buy it. You buy it.
And this is how it goes. You cannot buy it. You cannot be in this box. There’s something inside of you that doesn’t want to submit to this box—that wants to be free, that wants to embrace the true joy, that wants to embrace the true wisdom. Not somebody’s belief—but true knowing, true understanding.
That’s the difference between somebody who is free and who is not free—that those people who are not free, they have to keep repeating the same thing again and again and again and again, and believing in somebody else’s beliefs.
And those who are free, they experience. They don’t pass on beliefs. They’re not talking about, “Oh yeah, we should believe this; we should believe this,” but they’re talking about “No, you should know this.”
How exquisite is that—to invite a person to know! To “Know thyself.” To know yourself. Not to believe who you are—but to know!
You know, I come from a culture that very much believes in past lifetimes: “You were this, or you were this, or you were this.” And one time I was talking to this person—and they were from the East. And they said, “Oh, in your last lifetime, you were an emperor.”
And when I heard that, you know, it—listen, it stroked my ego, absolutely! It’s like, “Whoa! I was an emperor; that’s cool!” And he says, “Yeah, I can see that through your ears—with the way your ears are formed, you were an emperor.” And I’m like, “Wow!”
So, after the stroking of the ego subsided a little bit—and I was like, “What does that mean? I mean, what does that mean? Should I go to my bank and say, ‘Hey! I am so rich. Because I used to be an emperor!’ Well, and well, what?!”
You know, and it’s not like I could just turn to my wife and say, “Now, you’ve got to obey everything I say because I used to be an emperor.” Can’t do that.
But somebody said it—somebody could hear it—and take it and put it in their box. This box is full of all these little things. And I called it “little things.” I didn’t call it “wisdom.” I wish everybody’s box was full of wisdom, full of clarity. But it isn’t.
It’s the same thing that those people, they believed what they believed—it didn’t see them through. But somehow people feel that something has changed and “Somehow it’ll go through; somehow it’ll be all okay.” It won’t!
You know, that’s what silliness is. “To keep doing the same thing—and expect a different result.” And we keep doing the same thing. In this “doing the same thing,” we have become very good at hating—when, in us, compassion also exists.
The question is, “What are you doing; why, why isn’t the good in you more prevalent? Why is it that you have latched onto all those things that do not help you in life?”
You know, some people are like, “Oh, yeah, I wish I was a millionaire!” Then, what? Would you—would it be acceptable to you to be a millionaire and be really sad—and I know there are people sitting there going “Yeah. Yeah-yeah-yeah. I don’t care about the sadness. I just want to be a millionaire.”
There are people who become millionaires; they win a lottery and then the next thing you know, they’ve got nothing left. And they end up even killing themselves. Is that what you want? There are people who become so sad—and they take their own life.
To me, that’s pointless. Everybody has to go one day—everybody has to go one day. But what can you do before you go? Could you fill your life with something that’s beautiful—that matters to you, that matters to you!
Not to other people. When, when are you going to stop living your life for other people?—and begin with yourself? And people will say, “Well, that’s very selfish.” It’s not! It’s not! It’s not selfish.
When the flower blooms, it does not bloom for somebody else; it blooms for itself, but everybody else takes advantage of it. The bee comes to it, gets honey from it. People come and they take a look at it and they’ll just go, “How beautiful this flower is.” And people smell that flower, and they look at it and they admire. And all? And why is the flower doing what it’s doing? For itself.
That’s what light does. When the light is lit, anybody who comes along will benefit from that light. Because your heart is full, you will then know truly how to give. Because you have wisdom, what you will share with other people, what you will give to them will be the most exquisite gift of wisdom.
What is wisdom? It doesn’t have to be this huge preface and, you know, “I learnt this and I learnt….” No, just “Be careful. That is sharp.” That’s it, you—to me, that’s incredibly wise.
You know that when the tsunami happened in Japan—and I was going through the different articles, there was this one article where it said that a long time ago, somebody took a little stone and wrote on that stone, “Do not build below this point.”
That’s what they wrote. And in that, there was so much wisdom. And there was so much compassion. And indeed, I could say that there was so much love, not specifically to one person, but love for all those who would come after this person: “Do not build below this point.”
You in your life, wanting, searching—but what are you searching for? Do you want to be free? This box may pretend to give you security. But it robs so much of who you are. It’s, it stymies your potential for growth, for understanding—for freedom, to express yourself.
And it is true—that those who think outside the box succeed. They’re clever. They’re wise. And knowing that, why do we keep submitting to that box again and again and again and again? Fashionable things become, “Oh, yeah, we should, you know, we should be like this! And we should be like this, and we should be like this.”
All the good that is in you should be given the opportunity to flourish, to express itself. There is anger in you—but there is compassion in you. If you have more compassion than the anger, you’re good! You’re good. You’re good.
I saw that. I saw that with my granddaughter. And, you know, she’s getting to the point of teething. And so, this—obviously, she’s, everything has to be just right. And actually, most of the time, she’s incredibly pacified, incredibly calm, cool and collected.
But when that pain begins, it agitates her. She’s both. So, she is pacified, content. She loves to smile at people—and she has this agitation too. Both are in her. And she exercises more of the compassion, of the acceptance, of the smile. She’s very young—but she knows that. She feels that. She is true to herself.
These things, being true to yourself, what does that mean, “True to yourself”? Be real. Be real! Not like, “Oh, but what will other people think of me? I want other people to think I’m really cool!”
Disease—because that’s exactly what they are thinking too, “I want everybody to think I am cool.” So, again, that dollhouse with little rectangle bits and little people in them, all going, “I’m cool; I’m cool; I’m cool; look at me; look at me; look at me; look at me; I’m cool; I’m cool; I’m cool; I’m cool; I’m cool.”
And isn’t about being cool or uncool. It is about you being you. You are a human being! To understand your potential, your goodness. To understand what you embody in you—it’s, it’s so beautiful. It’s the process of coming out of that box.
And experience what’s good, what’s real. Because one day, all this will pack up. It won’t be here.
But whilst it is, whilst the show goes on, whilst this is happening, you can take full advantage of this thing called life, this thing called the heart, this thing called the breath, this thing called the knowledge, this thing called the self, this thing called the divine that is in you—take full advantage whilst you can.
That’s all it takes. To come out of that box and take that journey to the self. Because you can’t reach the self, so far the box is there—it just won’t let you. It’s like glass. Every time you try to reach…? You know, it’s, you see that in that, they have those in the zoos. And they have thick, thick glass, and the animal tries to reach but can’t reach because of the glass.
And it’s the same thing—this barrier. And you need to be free to understand that there is a lot to be said when one talks about thinking outside the box. I hope you think outside the box—and that it brings you wonderful benefits.
Be healthy; take care of yourself; I’ll talk to you soon.
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