Have you made your choices? You are on this journey—if you want to call it “journey” or whatever—but you’re in this ring now. You’re born—obviously—and so life is afoot. Have you made your choices, by the way?
Have you made your choices? Or are you ad hoc? You get up in the morning—“Nah, I don’t feel good. I don’t like that guy; I don’t like this; I don’t like that; I don’t, and this is not right; I don’t want to go there; I don’t want any of it; I, duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh-duh….” Or have you made your choices? Have you made your choices?!
It’s a very, very interesting question: “Have you made your choices?” Are you going to be living—that’s what the ring is—are you going to live this life without making any choices? Or, are you going to live this life with a very particular set of choices? But how can you make the choices if you don’t know what you have? So, let me shed some light on what you have.
You have in you, ignorance—fifty percent. And you have in you, knowledge—fifty percent. You have in you, darkness—fifty percent. You have in you, light—fifty percent. Don’t give yourself too much credit—it’s fifty percent. Don’t go “forty-nine/fifty-one”—no. No, it’s just not true. It’s exactly fifty percent.
And by the way, the fifty percent that you have is more than enough for you to live a life incredibly. Or…or that bad fifty percent is more than sufficient to destroy you— totally. And you have both. You have both.
You have in you, fear—and you have in you, courage. Fifty percent. But if you truly know this, then you can make a choice. You can make a choice: “I want in my life, I want to choose courage, not fear.”
In your pain, in your suffering, in your confusion, do you know you still have a choice? Do you? That you have a choice—you always have a choice. And you can choose not to choose. You even have that choice.
And most of the time, have you not chosen not to choose to be in peace? A lot of people think peace is some thing—and you get hold of it, like yeast, or bread, or peas. That’s not peace.
When the choices have been made, and the choices are good…! A lot of people ask me, “Are you in peace all the time?” So, as soon as I hear that question, “Ding!” No idea what peace is. Never felt it—can barely spell it. And that’s how close a person has come to it.
No. When the choices have been made and from those choices comes the gratitude, because one witnesses the value and the amazing existence of this being on the face of this earth….when the eyes are open…when the heart is full, when there are no dualities, when the questions have become answers, when there is a sweetness and a serenity that dances in one’s life—then peace manifests itself. And when that peace is felt, the heart overflows with gratitude.
– Prem Rawat