What would it be like for you if somebody said “I’ll give you a gift and with this gift, you can do anything you want—anything!” What would that mean to you?

What if somebody came to you and said, “I am going to give you a gift and it’s priceless, it’spriceless. And I will not only give it to you once, but I’ll give it to you, again and again, and again, and again, and again.”

What if somebody came up to you and said, “I’m going to give you the possibility.” If somebody handed you a magic wand and said, “Here, here’s the possibility. I give you this magic wand. This can make it possible for you to be fulfilled.” What would that mean to you? What would that mean to you?

“That I give you a gift and with this gift just like Aladdin’s lamp, with this gift you don’t have to suffer any more.” What would that…what…what would that mean to you? I mean, if somebody did that—I mean, it’s like, if somebody just said all those things to you, I mean, what would that mean to you?

Wouldn’t it be like, “Wow”? “Yeah, oh, man! That would be incredible. That I could just wave away all my problems? Just, whssst, gone? That I could accept a gift, be given a gift that is priceless, again and again and again?” Yes, yes, yes!

But you know, that’s exactly what has happened. That’s what life means. Life isn’t this dreary thing that you have turned it into. It isn’t. It actually means receiving the most priceless gift again and again and again and again and again. And never, ever have to say, “That’s enough.” Keep accepting, keep accepting, and it’s being given, and it’s being given, and it’s being given, and it’s being given.

That you have the possibility to do anything. Anything you want. You can do something hideous, or you can do something incredible. Now the thing is, when it would come to one of those things – hideous or incredible – you would go, “I will do something incredible.” And the definition of incredible would be that “people would admire me.” Because it’s just our habit. Because we don’t do things for ourselves. We do things for ourselves that other people will look at and go, “What a nice guy!”

And it’s a bad habit.

People have come up with excuses that are just grand. I mean they’re just incredibly good, but dumb. I mean it’s like, “… but isn’t that selfish?” All right. Just go that route.

So, you…maybe 40 years old, 50 years old, 60 years old, 70 years old, 80 years old. Still healthy, or decently healthy, or marginally healthy.

So go to the hospital and find somebody who’s dying. And give them four days of your life—four days here, four days there, two days there, two days there. Do it! I mean, that would be incredibly unselfish thing to do, right?! But you can’t do it—even if you want to. The time you have is only yours. You can’t give it to somebody. If we could give time away—our time, this existence, away—there would be no poor people in this world. (You understand that, right?) There would be no poverty. Because all the poor people could then sell their time to the rich people.

And every time you’d, like, you know, had too many parties, and kind of running out of money, you sell one more day. And eventually, you know, it would get to be like, “Okay, one hour. I’ll…I’ll…million bucks? One hour.” Just But you can’t do it!

You can’t do it. Because what is yours is yours! This is the rule! You come. You are alive. And one day you go. And you’re not enamored by life! Here’s the problem. You celebrate your birthday once a year.

And you think about death just about every day. How can this be? So, let’s put to rest the “selfish” bit and get on with the business of accepting this life that has been—and you can say—“given to us” if you want. It doesn’t matter if you don’t say—“It wasn’t given. It was plopped here; it was dumped here” or….it doesn’t matter—you have it!

And how do you begin to accept this, to really understand the value of the gift that you’ve been given?

Prem Rawat