Maharaji: Long Beach Link-up December 13, 1986

April 1987 Information from Elan Vital

LONG BEACH LINK-UP December 13, 1986

Really what it's all about is human beings, as we are, trying to understand and trying to realise, cope with, understand, what this life is as it is presented to us. Not the way it is, but as somebody comes along and says, "By the way, guys, this is the way everything is." And one assumes that that's a lot of hard work that you have to come up with before you can start feeling good about what you have. And I suppose fundamentally, Knowledge really disagrees with that. That's what we need to begin with, what we need to start with …

And one morning, in fact, the morning that this International Organisers' Conference started, I was down oh, around five-forty-five in my office in the morning getting my materials together, when all of a sudden a quote hit me and so I went ahead and put it down, and another one came and another one came. And one of the quotes that I came up with that morning, and I've been thinking about it it's a little bit of a snapper, so you have to think about it - and it says, "Be thankful for what you have and grateful for what you don't and work for what you need."

And you know, when you say, "grateful for what you don't have," all of a sudden everyone scratches their head and says "How can that be? How can I be grateful for what I don't have?" But believe me, if you had all that and all the troubles that you end with it, you really would be grateful for all the things you don't have. That life in itself is complete. It doesn't need to be augmented, nothing needs to be done to it. It is perfect by design. It is perfect in nature, it is perfect in design. It is perfect in its quality and it's perfect in its experience. What seems to be missing again and again is where it's aimed for … what we do with it. Because in its perfection, one of the qualities that we have been given is that the steering wheel has been handed to us and said, "Well, take it wherever you want to go."

And sometimes we try to make our lives no different than the Titanic's. See, to me, the Titanic represents something. And what it represents is that we all want to one day be able to come home and say, "Well, everything is perfect now. Nothing can ever happen to me again. That's the way I want everything to be." And so the concept is, perhaps, not that far away from what you and I sometimes start thinking about. And what was that Titanic? This incredible, immaculate ship that had everything. In fact, so tolerant to the nature, so tolerant to the hazards that it could plow and go right through all of them. And somehow I see a lot of people all of their lives trying to build the Titanic. And it took a long time. And the amazing thing was, like you know about the Titanic, here it went on its journey … And one of the thoughts that never crossed anybody's mind was, "Something bad may happen." Because the concept, the design, of Titanic was that it was supposed to be disaster-proof. And that, which so many engineers took so long to develop … And even the concept to try to make it a reality that something like that can happen, took one iceberg. Just one, which happened to be, I suppose, strategically placed that night, and off it went.

And so to me, I see a lot of people who are taking the most beautiful thing … And it's like having a candlelight dinner. And you've got your candles and you light your candles up and they look beautiful. And you want everyone to see your candles that are lit up. So you get some heavy duty lights and you turn them on so you can see your candles lit up. Pretty soon, pretty soon, the candles start to melt and all of a sudden you realise you really can't see the flame on top of the candle at all. And it becomes self-defeating. Completely self-defeating.

To me, what has been really surprising, travelling from place to place is that question, "What do you touch in people? What do you show?" Because there's so many people who can come up with the ideas of how we "ought to be", the "ideal society," the "ideal human being'. And there are plenty of people who can go out there and say, "By the way guys, this is how we ought to be." No shortage of it. And all I do is I carry a little mirror with me and anytime somebody says, "Well, how should I be? What should my goals be?" I just try to whip out that little mirror and say, "Look, do you even know what you have? Do you even know what it is? What it is like?" And then when people can take a simple look, a simple look at a very simple life, at a very simple concept of being alive - it's very, very simple, it is so simple and sweet and kind - of just being here.

Because it's only human beings, you see, that can take a coconut and say, "My God, I wonder what the purpose of the coconut is?" While everybody else on the beach, everybody else, is enjoying themselves by drinking the milk from the coconut, enjoying the middle part, there is this one being who is starving, starving. And all they have got is this huge coconut and saying, "I just wonder what the purpose of this coconut could possibly be?" Then one coconut falls on the head and somebody writes down, "The purpose of the coconut is to hit you on the head." Then one falls on the foot, so somebody says, "No, no, no, no. We're all very mistaken. I can prove it scientifically that the purpose of the coconut is to fall on the foot, not on the head." And then somebody comes up with the shoulder and somebody comes up with "The ideal usage of the coconut is to throw it at your enemies when they're coming too close." And somebody has to realise that all along, all through this, the purpose is that enjoyment that life is offering, offering every day.

Being able to be thankful is an art, it's such an art. By the way, guys, it's not so easy as we think. It really isn't. Oh, just "Gee whiz, just go out there and be thankful." It really isn't. Life is immaculate and so has to be its appreciation. Immaculate. You have to have the eye, which you all do, to be able to see what it is all about. The problems we are caught in are so trivial, so trivial, that maybe it takes an intense moment in our lives for us to even realise, "My goodness, that was really trivial." And all along a simple purpose…

Oh, people are looking for the big, great purpose. But do you realise how long people have been looking for this purpose? You know? I suppose since the caveman first came out and lit his little fire and sat down next to it and warmed himself up. And the dinosaurs were asleep and so he had a moment or so to think and he said, "Gee whiz, wonder what I'm doing here?" And like wildfire, it's caught on. "What are we doing here? What are we doing here?" Nobody's saying, "By the way, I'm here." But, "What am I doing here? What is what to me?"

And then, all of a sudden, the game … Oh, I saw a comedy two nights ago, it just cracked me up. There was this lady and her job was to teach people in her class how to be able to say "No." And she'd realised that these people she was teaching needed self-esteem. So she would throw in little tests in there and she would say, "Oh, could you please come up and erase the board?" And somebody would say, "No." And it went on for a while and it's like, "Yeah, right." That makes a lot of sense, right? At the end of the whole session which was over, the lady, of course, couldn't drive her car, she took a bus. The instructor had taken a bus and when she was flipping through her purse she realised she didn't have enough money for the bus fare. So she went back to her students and she said,"Can I please have some bus fare?" And they said, "No." And she said, "But I'm serious. I really need this." "No." And they would all smile at her and say, "Aren't we doing good? Isn't this wonderful?" And I just got such a laugh out of it, you know?

'Cause it's very much like that. Nobody is saying, "Gee whiz, I've got a coconut in my hand. There it is, me, as an individual. On this earth. And I have a capacity to think, I have a capacity to admire. I have a capacity to understand, to comprehend, to move and to be moved. To be moved. And I can appreciate that I have a quality to be able to appreciate and that's a quality. I have a quality to complain, too, and that's a quality as well. Don't throw it away. You know, when you start chucking off your baby clothes, don't chuck the baby with the clothes. You go to let the baby grow up and make sure the baby isn't in the clothes. And sometimes we do that. Very much so.

And to me, how wonderful and beautiful then it becomes, just to go place to place. And people come. Boy, do people come. They want to hear and some people come for a big philosophical discussion. Some people come to see what it's all about. And all I have to say is maybe so utterly simple, utterly simple. I'm saying, look, of all the science that you see and of all the places you can be and all the places you could go and all the things you could be, there you are. And you are what you are. Realise in that what that Creator, what that Maker has accomplished by creating you. Because something has been accomplished. And the rest is an open book.

Few days ago, in fact till December 9th, I was in a conference, the International Organisers' Conference, I.O.C., and … on the 9th I was completely under this impression that I was going to be thirty years old. And I was thinking to myself, you know, "My God, that's a big, that's a big event, thirty years. I mean, thirty years in this world." And I'm not the person who says, "Well then, now what are you going to do for the next thirty?" But like, "This is it. Thirty years. I'm going to be thirty years old. And it's been good, it's been fun. A lot of changes, a lot of ideas, a lot of growing up …" And you realise you grow up more in the next thirty than in the first thirty. And then you know that you grow up in the last thirty more than you grow up in the first thirty or the second thirty, all put together … And what does thirty years mean? Well, it meant to me, well, when I was one year old I had no idea I was one year old. Didn't mean anything. In fact, in India they don't really have this ritual of cake and candles and anything. But I was, I remember, something like eleven or ten years old the first time I even had a cake. So it's your birthday? It so happens you were born on that day, that's the event, that's it, no special celebration, no special nothing.

So here comes thirty years. Thirty years I have been. And you look back at each and every year, "What I have been doing?" And then all of a sudden I said to myself, "No, no, no. Not what I've been doing, but something that has been happening for thirty years." Discount the first few because I didn't have the awareness to remember what happened. And it was kind of like, "My goodness, thirty of them have gone. "One," you know, "less to go …" And I was thinking about all these things and then, of course, I had to go finish up the conference, so I stopped thinking about it. And then all of a sudden that evening, it hit me. I was told, "You're only 29." And I was - I didn't know what to think of that. I mean, all of a sudden you've gained a year. One whole year, just like that. `Cause I was convinced I was thirty. And now I have a whole other year to live and think about what it's going to be like when I get to thirty. I mean, I was almost there.

But do you realise that's each one of our sagas everyday? "Another day to go. Another year to live. Another six months. Another this, another that. I've got to do this, I've got to do that." But let's stop for a moment. Step back. Think. Organise. And then proceed. Proceed on to those goals which we establish. Which we set. Which we have been given. To use those tools. To experience what we have been given to experience. A simplicity. A joy. Joy that nobody could ever think could be so joyous. A life.

It's amazing. You know, we do all the things … we have our friends and we have our good deeds and bad deeds and this went right and that went wrong, and all our decisions. And you get one day when everything will be very clear to you. One day. You know exactly that day who's your friend, who's not your friend, if everything you did was right, if everything you did was wrong - one day. You will know, absolutely. Guaranteed. That's the day you go. So it's like a game. Before that, it's all speculative. One day you will finally find out, but after that you can't do anything about it. Nothing.

And to me, that is just the way it should be. Yes. We always like our life to be on the table, every card flipped. A little suspense is what we can't stand. The ultimate turmoil of "Am I happy?" Or, "Could I be happier?" is the rock and the hard place. You're caught in it. And that's where the only tools you have are the faith, the belief, and to know. To know. By yourself. By you. And that is what's so beautiful about what we're talking about. About what that experience allows to bring us. That Knowledge that allows us to open those doors for ourselves. Walk through and see what we want to see and feel what we want to feel and realise what we want to realise and enjoy what we want to enjoy. Not somebody telling us what we need to enjoy. For too long people have set the table. For too long everybody else in our lives comes together and says "That's the definition of happiness, by the way." Everybody else, "I'm looking for happiness." Same people standing under the coconut tree, wondering what the purpose is. Again and again and again and again.

A beautiful moment for all of us, we can be here. And, of course, this is being linked to something like 21 or 22 cities within the U.S. We have people here from 48 countries who were in the International Organisers' Conference where 48 countries were represented. It's amazing to see everything coming together. Slowly but surely everything having its purpose, its definition. And nobody's defining it. Slowly and slowly, step by step, for the first time in a long, long, long time, 48 countries came. And what did we talk about? We talked about how everything can be done so much better. Where everybody can benefit so much more from my visits, from what they have been given around the world. So everybody can participate in this festival of life around the world. Nobody excluded and no reason ever to exclude anybody.

I also today have some statistics which I just finished compiling. You may be wondering what has happened. I mean, really, our push came in '85. In '85, "Okay, let's get it together." You know, there were too many people standing outside the place going, "Am I supposed to enjoy this celebration of life or not?" Sitting there wondering "Should I? Shouldn't I?"

And sometimes it reminds me of a really old story I used to tell. There was this guy and he went to a fair. And he came across this booth and this guy on the booth was saying, "Look, I have this fantastic powder and all you have to do is brush your teeth with it and it will take all the stains away. Once. All you have to do is just brush with it once and all the stains will be gone." And he would call people from the audience and he would say, "Try this powder. Try this powder." And people would and sure enough their teeth would be shining bright. And this guy had come from the village and his teeth were definitely in bad shape and he said, "Hmmm, I definitely need to buy this." So he stood there with twenty cents in his hands, you know, a dime and a dime, and he would go with his hand, "Should I buy it? Shouldn't I buy it? Should I buy it? Shouldn't I buy it?" Finally there was a big crowd and everybody bought theirs and everybody left. And there he was, "Should I buy it? Shouldn't I buy it? Should I buy it? Shouldn't I buy it?" There was one bottle left of this medicine. And the guy finally decided, "Well, I should." 'Cause the guy standing in the booth said, "Well, make up your mind. You want it or not? Because I've got to shut down the booth now." And he said, "Oh, okay. Well, why not, I'll buy it." And he threw the two dimes on the table, the guy picked them up and said. "They're no good. You rubbed them clean off. There's nothing left of these. You don't have any money to buy this anymore."

Sometimes we think we've got all the time in the world. "Should I do it? Shouldn't I do it? Should I do it? Shouldn't I do it?" And then one day you make up your mind and the hands kind of go like this and everything is, "What's going on?" And then you say, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I should have done it. Okay, I'm ready." And somebody comes knocking on the door and says, "Well, let's go. It's time to go." You know?

Another story I heard, which is very much representative of what this life is all about, is there was this young man and he wanted to know what this life was all about. So he saw this really old man walking with a big bundle, a load, and he was all bent down and taking one step at a time and he was walking. And so the young man said, "Well, this old man must know a lot. I'll go up to him and I'll ask him." So the old man took the big bundle, the load of wood he had on his back and he put it aside and he stood up straight, looked at him, put the bundle back on his back, bent down and started walking again. And the young man said, "So, you didn't answer me." He said, "I did. We carry this huge load all our lives on our backs all bent down. We know when we put the load aside we can stand up and it feels good. And then - this is the killer - then we put the load right back on our backs, bend down, and start walking again."

If feeling good in a moment, that's what it's all about, in celebration of this life, then certainly with some pride I can say that in eighty five-eighty six 959,121 people have experienced something, which is quite an accomplishment. Total miles travelled 245,784. And sometimes you may wonder what that means. I don't know how many of you are familiar with that Camel commercial? "Walk a mile for a Camel?" Well, I have walked or travelled 3.90 miles for every one of those 959,121 people around this earth. And the Camel mileage is not included in this!

We have so much more to do, to approach so many more countries. So far only 36 countries were visited and yet we know that 48 countries were represented. I have been offered invitations to go to many more countries in which there are a lot of people, a lot of people. In fact, the interest is so amazing. One of the instructors who was in Africa asked me if she could stop off in Senegal and I said, "Why don't you and just check out the scene. See what's going on there." She did. On the day that the program was going to be she put an ad in the newspaper. And ninety people came. And from all religions, all walks of life. And never before had a program been done there. And after that she left a phone number and people just kept calling and calling and calling and calling.

And to me it becomes, again, very obvious that we have to make a sincere effort to reach those people who are not represented in these 36 countries, quote unquote. Because there is amazing, amazing potential. However, I'm glad to say that there are people that have Knowledge in at least 48 of those countries that were represented. They include anywhere from Egypt to Zambia on to Mauritius. You know, if you're ever drawing a map of that area, all you have to do is just put a dot, and that's big enough, and then there's India, Nepal - all over the world, everywhere. I'm trying to reach everyone. There were 209 events and 94 cities were covered. There's about 320 Instructors as of right now. There were a little more, but as of right now, there's 320 Instructors around the world. Approximately 21,000 people, a little over 21,000 people, received this Knowledge this year alone. Just this year to date. It isn't a very stunning figure, but it's with quality. And finally it is with quality, not "Let's go," you know, "the more the merrier," but with a lot of quality. Next year I'm looking forward to first doing a lot of Instructor Conferences. One is already scheduled in South America. Need to do them in Europe, need to do them in Africa. Need to do these Instructor Conferences in North and South Pacific, in the India region, everywhere.. .

And of course I think it's looking good for one in the United States. We need more Instructors. We need to go more places. You see once you have touched 959,121 people, you've got to go say "hello" to them again. So all over again, plus more that have to be reached.

It's growing. It's not growing because there is an ambition for it to grow amongst all the people but it's growing because those people who hear about it want it to grow as well.

It's always amazing whenever I go to Ecuador. The hall there, they just let anybody come whether the people have Knowledge or don't have Knowledge or whatever, they come and … that one day I was there I said, "Okay anybody who wants to be an Instructor please show up the next morning." And a whole bunch of people showed up and they didn't even have Knowledge and they wanted to be Instructors. They were serious. "What do we have to do?" It's just wonderful enthusiasm for it and for that growth.

So I hope that all of you keep in mind the true spirit that prevails in all of our hearts. I know that Christmas in the air everywhere. Somebody, one of the people that came from one of the countries, Sunday morning, starts flipping through the channels. And only comment they had that day (they had never seen American television), is "Oh, my God, God's for sale here." And you can understand that, one after the other channel. No problem guys, no problem guys. And I can understand.. .

A lot's going to be happening this Christmas. Already the speculation of the businessmen is how is this Christmas going to be. How many father Christmases are we going to need? How many elves are we going to need? And all based on a computer projection.

But let me tell you the true spirit of Christmas is that spirit that lasts all time. Sometimes people want to cal. - the spirit of Christmas. Sometimes don't want to call it the spirit of Christmas. Some countries they don't even believe in Christmas. But there is the spirit. Doesn't have to have any name. It doesn't need any name. It is the spirit of life, that it demands, that it promotes, that it insists that we enjoy.

I think we are truly very fortunate to be just a part of this life.

Thank you very much and I hope that you enjoy yourself for the rest of this evening. And enjoy yourself for the rest of the days of your life.