Prem Rawat:
Hello, everyone; I hope you’re all well. Sleeping well, I hope, and resting well, taking care of yourselves, being safe, being healthy. And then, of course, health isn’t just about your muscles being good or your, you know, lungs being good or heart or kidney or liver or whatever—but there is this big thing that sits right on top and that needs to be well too.
It influences your whole body—and when it becomes scared, confused, (or it’s not, you know, in top shape), it can stress your whole body out. And a lot of people have been expressing that—not a lot; I mean, a very small amount—but comparatively to all the expressions that have been coming in, where people have been making just, some comments about how much they are enjoying this….
And I certainly hope you’re enjoying it—and that it’s bringing you some clarity to go on in your life day to day, to see some clarity. Because that’s what’s important in life.
In life, you know, we think we are an arbitrator between our existence and all of this whole world—“And so we have to negotiate this and we have to negotiate this and we have to negotiate this.”
But you really have to see the world from the eyes of the world. It’s not really interested in you. It’s interested in itself going on, perpetuating…. You’re just one step in this huge ladder—and you will just get stepped on, and that’s about it. And, you know, like so many before you, you will be forgotten too.
But when you look at it from your eyes, it’s a little different story. You want this to be a meaningful time. You want this to be a time in which you prosper, not only externally but internally—that you are happy, that you are fulfilled.
And, you know, again, happiness isn’t a bunch of little check-boxes—and at the bottom of it, says, “Yeah, if you marked, you know, more than five of those, you’re happy—by the way.” That’s not happiness.
Success is one thing—and feeling success is another thing. There are a lot of people who have reached the very apex of what one would consider “success,” but do they feel successful? People tell them that they are successful but do they feel, from inside—do they feel successful?
There are a lot of people, you know, who have finally got to a point where they have somebody that they love and everything else—but they just cannot make it work; they cannot make their marriage work; they cannot make it happen.
Because they are looking at it from the wrong set of eyes; they’re not looking at it from the eyes of that simplicity, that “here is another human being.” And all they’re looking at is their expectations of that human being, but they’re not looking at that human being.
So many questions that have come directly relate to that. People know what they want of themselves—but they do not know who they are, as they are. How they should be, they know. How they are, they don’t know. And that’s a big discrepancy. And so, how do we resolve this? How do we get rid of this?
So, you know, I have to begin from scratch—and this is what I say: “Relax. Take it easy. Understand one thing. Don’t be in this, you know, ‘rattling of the window’ mode of things. Relax; you have everything you need.
“Inside of you, there is an ocean of answers. Do you need questions for them? Not necessarily. Answers will do fine. Inside of you, you have a huge ocean of serenity. You have understanding; you have kindness; you have forgiveness; you have the power to go forward.
“So, relax! You’ve got everything, everything that you need to truly be successful, to truly be fulfilled, to truly be in peace, to truly be happy in this world as long as you are alive. So, take a deep breath—clear your head. Understand—everything you need, you have.
“All you have to do is feel it, recognize it—not believe it, but actually know it. You have that. You have felt that before in your life. Maybe it was for a fleeting moment—but that’s enough. That’s enough to say, ‘Yes, there is something there. Yes, there is something very powerful there.’”
Now, have I ever worked on inviting those things, evoking, (not provoking), evoking those things in my life? Anger is provoked. Uncertainty is provoked. Doubt is provoked. Clarity is evoked. Big difference between the two.
It’s not something you can do with force that will trigger this; it has to be in the very simple way that really comes from understanding—and that really comes from thirst, thirst for clarity in your life, thirst for understanding in your life, thirst for peace in your life.
You know, everybody wants to be a better person. But I will ask a question, “Why, why do you want to be better? For other people—or for you?” For other people or for you? Now, you have to answer that properly—and more dishonestly you answer that, the worse the whole thing is going to get.
You have to be honest. If it is—look, you know, again, just relax. Understand one thing. It is not about getting lost; it’s about getting found. So how many times should you get lost? It doesn’t matter; so far you get found, so far you come back to your track, good. If you don’t come back to the track and you keep getting lost, that’s the worst thing you can possibly do.
So, why do you want clarity in your life; why do you want understanding in your life; why do you want these things in your life? Because of you? Because you feel thirst in you for these things? Or do you feel your indoctrination kicking in? And how you have to deal with this world—“You have to do this; you have to do this; you have to do this….”
It’s just like, you know, so many times I stay at hotels. And so many times you come and the guy opens your door—and he says, “Good morning; welcome,” and you smile at him. Now, the amount of interaction you’re going to have with him is maybe, (if you’re lucky), ten seconds, five seconds, something like that, and you just say “Good morning” and you walk through.
Why are you doing it? Do you do that to somebody you love? In the morning when you wake up and you see your wife or you see your husband or you see your child, do you say “Good morning” to them? “How are you? Welcome?” No. It’s just like, “You’re this. You’re that.” Because all this is sitting heavily on your head.
Remember my example of the young man who had, you know, gotten all his education; he was walking back home and he was going to get a job and everything—and he went up to the old man and he said, “Do you know, I’m going to start life; I’m going to be doing all these things. Tell me, what is it like; what should I do?”
And the old man took that load and put it down—stood up straight. Then took the load back on his shoulders again, on his neck again and bent over and kept walking.
So, and here is a question for you. “All those things you do in your life, do you do it with a burden of all those things that are on top of your head, all those? That burden you begin with, early in the morning?”
You know the burden I’m talking about: “Oh my God, I’ve got to do this. Oh my God, I’ve got to do this—and I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to do this and I’ve got to do this.” And then, “I’ve got to do this too. And I’ve got to do this too, and this too and this too and this too. And I forgot about this and I’ve got to remember this and ah-dah-dah….”
So, you begin your day with a horrendous, horrendous deficit of clarity, with a horrendous deficit of understanding, of a horrendous deficit of just, lightness, just lightness, you know, when that huge weight is taken off and there is a lightness.
So, you’re beginning your day; you’re beginning everything—and then you go on all day long with that weight. And it pushes on you. It pushes on you and your vision, which should be like this, starts to get narrower and narrower and narrower and narrower—and why, because of fear. That’s what fear does.
So now you’re afraid of everything; you’re afraid of your future. You are actually afraid of your future, even though the future hasn’t come yet—because when the future comes, it comes as today. You have no idea what’s going on in today. “Now” means nothing to you. Yesterday? A bunch of memories.
And if this is the condition you are in, (already starting with a huge deficit, under pressure), then I am sure that those memories that I’m talking about are not pleasant.
So, you’ve got a nice pickle going on—no idea about today, bad memories of yesterday—and then, everything is banking on tomorrow—and tomorrow is never coming. So, this is wonderful. This is like, the perfect little setup. Everything is banking on tomorrow and tomorrow is never coming; today is all you get. Today is how it’s going to come.
Today, you have no idea what this is all about, what “now” is all about. And you’ve got some nasty little memories tucked away called, you know, “yesterday.” “This happened; this happened; this happened; this happened” and it can’t be good.
So, the only way you can get out of this is, shake it, shake it off! This is what I tell people; I say, “Just shake it off!” (It works, believe me; it works.) Just shake it off. Whatever the situation is, whatever this fear you’ve got, whatever this may—it may be very real. It may be all those things.
But you as a human being, you have to go on, regardless of what happens. And the only way you will be able to go on—is if you shake it off, start fresh, just like today did. Everything went dark, stayed dark, stayed dark—we call it “night.” Then in the dawn, a beautiful light came—and slowly that light became brighter and brighter and brighter.
And it began in such a humble way spreading across the horizon. And slowly, as that light came and became brighter and brighter and brighter, the whole world began to stir around that light. The birds started to chirp.
And then finally, the sun, the bringer of that light broke the line of the horizon and rose—and filled the world around you with the most magnificent light. And now you could see, and now you could feel the warmth of that sun.
There is a sun waiting for you to acknowledge it, for you to understand it, for you to welcome it in your life, so it can bring you that warmth, so that it can bring you that light, that beauty—so you can see; you can see that those obstacles that you’re so afraid of are not that big as you had made them out to be.
That there is a life, and this life can go on. That happiness, your heart will still desire it, regardless of your circumstances on the outside.
And people get just fast and furious with it, you know, it’s like, “Oh my God, this is terrible; this is terrible in my life; this is terrible in my life; this is terrible in my life.”
There are a lot of people, you know, it’s like, “My family—I don’t get along with my family.” Well, welcome to the world of family. A lot of people—you would not be the first one that doesn’t get along.
But you can make amends—and you can get along with your family. That’s what’s really nice about a family—nobody has to be your enemy. You can; you can talk to them; you can make amends. They can tell you what they don’t like; you can tell them what you don’t like; you can communicate.
You know, then there is this like, “Oh, my family is falling apart.” The husband needs to be understood and so does the wife. The husband comes; he’s been banging his head against the table all day long. It is not easy for him.
Nobody who has their job—I mean, okay, there are some people who love their job, fine. But they are an extreme minority, not majority.
So, a lot of people are there—there they are; they’re in an office situation or whatever. They’re working, working, working, working, working; they get a short break, a lunch break—and working, working, working, working; they come home—and here is the perfect storm.
So, you think this guy’s job is hard? You think it’s easy to stay home? It’s not like that the wife is staying home…. (Or, and sometimes it’s the husband), and the situation is crossed where the wife works and the husband stays home.
But he has to clean. He has to cook; he has to clean the laundry; he has to clean the house; he has to vacuum the house…. There is a lot to be done; the bills come; this happens; that happens. You think it’s easy? To make a household livable? It is an extremely difficult task. And it takes a lot.
So you’ve got two people—so in that first example, the husband comes home; the wife’s been brewing on this all day long, “Wait till he comes home. I’m going to let him have a piece of my mind”—or the other way around. Unfair. Unfair.
Both of you, both of you need a break. Both of you need to chill out. Both of you need to sit down, not talk about your problems, but talk about each other. “How was your day?” “Oh, it wasn’t so good. Glad to be home though.”
That’s exactly what you have to work on. The real—home isn’t a physical place. So, you know, when somebody says, “Okay, stay home and lockdown,” home isn’t a physical place; home is a place inside of you. That’s your true home.
This is your true home; this is the one you take when you go traveling. And when you can be here, when you can be comfortable with yourself, then, yeah, then you’re at home. Because there are people who are in that physical place but they don’t feel like they’re home. They don’t feel like, good about being there.
So, this is something to think about, anyways. And the reason why I’m saying these things is, in a way, getting ready for the PEP. So I already mentioned what PEP is, how many people have already taken it.
Now, here is what the whole thing is about. It’s really, really simple. When I look at the PEP, what astonishes me every time is how simple it is. Most trainings that I have gone to, most trainings that I have conducted have been very complex and very complicated.
One of the things about PEP is it is not complicated; it is very, very simple. It is the message, my message that I give. The only thing is, instead of just listening and maybe passing it through, you know, letting it come through one ear and passing it through the other, you have to pay attention.
Because then you write down what you got out of it—not your questions, but what you got out of it. And that paying the attention to that message makes all the difference in the world.
So, is it for everybody? No, you have to want to do this PEP Education, Peace Education Program. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. If you want to, that’s fine. But it is a serious thing. It’s not like…. And the reason why I say it’s serious is because you can get so much out of it. Everybody has been getting so much out of it and I know you can get so much out of it.
There have been people who have actually been released from the prison whilst they were in the middle of the Peace Education Program; they have approached the warden and said, “Can I stay an extra few days so I can finish the Peace Education Program?” And it wasn’t just one instance; it was many instances.
I mean, you have got the guerrillas from Colombia, to, you know, the Sri Lankan Tigers; everybody going, “If I knew this before, I would not be in the pickle that I am in today.”
Very powerful program—but who makes it powerful? You make it powerful; your desire, your want is what’s going to make it powerful. And it’s very simple; you just listen—and then after that, whatever you have listened, you reflect on it. You will send that reflection to me—and I will, somebody will collate that, all those reflections and then I will go through a few.
And by sharing that, we are taking care of what usually…. In an environment of five, ten people, they would share what they got—but we will share it with many, many, many thousands more.
So, it’s perfectly okay if you want to stand on the side and just watch what happens—or if you are willing to take a chance, take a chance and try the Peace Education Program.
It’s fun. You know, and look, this is all about fun. Why should you be fulfilled in this life—so you can have fun. Why do you need clarity—so you can have fun. Why should you be away from sadness, so you can have fun.
We want—all of us, we want to have fun. And you know, trying to have fun in the middle of this coronavirus thing, it’s not easy—but is it possible? And the answer to that is “Yes.” Yes, it is possible. So, thank you very much, and I am looking forward to, soon, do the PEP with you.
Thank you; take care of yourself. Be safe; be well. And most importantly, be.