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Excerpts from Guru Maharaj Ji's Satsang in Denver, Colorado on July 11, 1976

Dear premies,

This is the tour that is really important, and it's been beautiful so far. The reason is because instead of holding Guru Puja just in one place, it has been divided so that really all the premies in their communities, in their areas, could participate. I think that this tour is important for all of us, because usually when we sit down to hear satsang we are told how negative everything is, we are told how this world is going to one day collide, collapse, how everything is going to be one day ruined, how in fact we're gonna end up in hell, and so on and so forth. And then of course we explain that if you have Knowledge, all that's not going to happen.

But before that, there's a lot of negativity. And that is the reason why I think this program is very important for us, because I'm not here today to tell you how negative everything is, I'm hereto tell you how positive everything is, how beautiful everything is, because we have this Knowledge and we have been practicing it. A very, very long time ago when we received this Knowledge, we were told that yes, this Knowledge has an experience, this Knowledge will give us that experience of truth, of realization. Well, a lot of people thought that this is just a trick, that you just blindly all your life do this satsang, service and meditation, and then at the very end, at the very last moment of your life, something happens, you hear all these jingle bells, you see a big green light in front of you, and that's a go signal that you have been saved. A lot of people will blindly do this, but Knowledge is not like that, Knowledge is a practical experience of this life. And if we are alive right now, then we can have the practical experience of our life. If we are dead, of course, it'll be virtually impossible for

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us to experience what this life really is.

The Doctrine of Devotion

So a lot of people took it upon themselves to define the way everything is, or is going to be, or was. The reason for that is because sometimes premies didn't exactly get the right picture. I mean, they got a very weird, a very untrue picture of what this Knowledge really was. When this Knowledge was just starting to be spread, a lot of people were trying to preach the doctrine of devotion, not trying to just have devotion. See, if you are devotees, then you have a certain amount of devotion in you. Of course, if you are not devotees, then forget about it. But it's completely illogical to preach a way to be a devotee.

For instance, a lot of people respect Guru Maharaj Ji and listen to his agya, to his advice. Now that's a very natural thing to do. If you respect a person for what he has given you, then automatically … It's like your father. When you are small and you respect your father, then automatically, you would like to listen to his advice. But that same idea was taken and totally changed around to, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not the way it is. It's because Guru Maharaj Ji is Guru Maharaj Ji and we have to follow his agya and if he tells us to jump into a well, into hell, then that's what we should do." But that's not true, see. Because what are we really trying to do here? This is a question that we have to all sit down and really ask ourselves: "What are we trying to do? Why do we have this Knowledge? What is this really going to bring? What is this entire search all about?"

Now everything is at the point of like, wait a minute, stop, look at ourselves first. Who are we, what are we doing here? I mean, after all, we have gone and taken such a major step in our life to receive Knowledge. Why? What is the purpose of it? To me, we just can't do things blindly in this life, especially things that have some importance to us. We have to really evaluate.

That's a big word, evaluate. But to me, it has to be the right kind of evaluation. I mean, what are you going to try to evaluate? How much food do you put in every week? When we sayevaluate ourselves, what are we trying to evaluate? What our average height is, how many inches do we grow every day? Or how many good things we see, how many bad things we see? I mean, what is the process of evaluation? What is the process of actually understanding? To me, that real evaluation we have to do has to stop for a second and say, "Wait a minute, am I really having this experience; am I doing it all right, or am I just going, beating around the bush because somebody just keeps saying, 'Listen if you happen to come through the darshan line, do this and this and this, that definitely will mean that you are a premie. And when you see other people, if you can just say that word jai satchitanand to everybody, that means that you are a perfect premie.' " I mean, that's like what I was telling you before, that that was the doctrine that was preached. What if the poor guy couldn't speak? And there's a lot of people who come through the darshan line who can't bend down because they're hurt.

So we have to just stop for a second because it is, after all, our lives that we are trying to have an experience of. That experience is for us, not for our ancestors, or not for the family that we are going to have in the future. That experience is now that we want to understand. This is why we have to wait for a second, and really look at ourselves from the aspect of premies. Are we actually having that experience that Guru Maharaj Ji has promised us?

What is Guru Maharaj Ji?

And really what is Guru Maharaj Ji? Guru Maharaj Ji is the person who advises us in this path of Knowledge. He is an advisor. We were looking for a process, we were looking to understand truth, and somebody came along and said, "Here is the process through which you can really experience your life, which is truth." We need a person, because this is something which is, you might say, new. It has been there all the time, I mean, it isn't my way. I didn't cook it up in the kitchen; this way has always been there. But now that it's being revealed to us, it is new because it's something that we haven't done in the past years. And so, when this process is revealed to us, then we have to really plug into this, we have to really experience this process because we have to really, really know it, really get into the flow of understanding it. If we don't, we're gonna miss a big part of it.

It's all there and Guru Maharaj Ji brings us the way, so what else can Guru Maharaj Ji really do? We can go up to him and say, "Guru Maharaj Ji can I have Knowledge?" And Guru Maharaj Ji reveals the Knowledge to us, but if we don't really meditate, if we don't put our hearts up to it, then what is Guru Maharaj Ji going to say or do?

But then on the other side there's Guru Maharaj Ji's grace, there's communities, there's premies who we can talk to, a community that we can go to, and there are ashrams that we can really go to and really understand what's happening. If we really need to be in an intensive care unit, there is an intensive care unit. If we need to be in the hospital, there is a hospital. It's so beautiful, because everything is right there. And in the whole process where we're realizing more and more, more and more, more and more, if we have any difficulty, we can really go and unload ourselves.

So to me, everything is really beautiful. Now, of course, let me explain to you the other side of this. Okay, everything is beautiful and everything is fantastic. Maybe this is something new you've heard, maybe this is different to you. Maybe for the first time you really think things are changing, but believe me, what made that change really occur? What made that change really happen? What really brought everything together and is bringing everything together more and more? To me, it's all of our effort. When we really sincerely put that effort in and join ourselves, become one and really have that strong effort, then what is happening today is the result.

My Relationship with the Organization

Like, I can understand my relationship with the organization. It has been so much up and down, up and down, because there was one time I wasn't even working with the organization. Believe me, this was quite a long, long time ago. My job was mostly field work, I was actually going out giving premies sat-sang, and talking to premies. A lot of premies are here from Colorado and they know what it was like. It was a little, small teepee, and about 17 to 20 premies standing out there asking all sort of questions. So, I mean, it was virtually impossible to plug into the organization, because there wasn't any. But then everybody really got together and said, "Yes, this cause is really true. We need to bring our efforts together and really spread Guru Maharaj Ji's word, because this is true." When we had that experience in our life, we really said, "Yeah, the world needs this; this is the way that there is a hope," and then we all came together.

Now there's such an incredible organization that has been founded. Yet slowly and slowly, I personally saw that, wait a minute, there's this incredible organization and it's quite potent, it's quite strong, but I have to use this, because everybody has put their hands to me, everybody has gone and said, "Guru Maharaj Ji, here we are, we're all together, we are organized, now really use us." Then slowly and slowly, I really started participating. There were so many things to be changed, and things were so slow. I mean, there are still so many things to be changed. The reason for that is because there are nooks and crannies, corners, where there are some things that are not going to help. It's like there are a few broken lights, there are a few of this and that in the organization which have to really be corrected so that this Knowledge can become perfect, and more people can really understand this Knowledge.

So here we are, and we really have it together. And I just pray that we all can really understand and really get rid of our confusions, instead of just sitting and thinking about things that are going to make us negative, the things that we really don't need to think about. Just understand and put that faith and trust and love in Guru Maharaj Ji in order to from now on really have that dedication, have that devotion, and keep on going so that Guru Maharaj Ji can really accomplish his goal.

You know, why we are all working so much for this organization isn't exactly all generous. Of course, it is, but we also have a very selfish motive. There is something in there for us, too. There's a lot of experience. And it's not an experience of how to draw on paper or to print something or to write a book or to do this or do that. That experience is of that truth, of that love and of that real understanding that we all have to have within inside of us to be able to pro-

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Experience (from page 2):

ceed, to be able to really go, to be able to really understand our destination.

So, premies, we all just have to have a little amount of patience. I know a lot of premies have had patience for a long, long time. And a lot of premies are running out of it. But remember, where that patience came from that you had before, there's a lot more there, and you can pull it out. Just open up that little window and pull out a little more. See what's really happening, because the changes that are happening may sound bad right now, but they're also good, because they're all changing.

Changing Has to Happen

See, everything has to have a change. To me, if we were never to change … It's like, I look back and Premlata was such a little girl when she was first born. And it was really beautiful, it was incredible. I just stopped talking, I just sort of merged in that experience, and she was so beautiful, she was so pretty. But I look at her now, and she has changed. She has completely changed. If you were to look at her passport picture and look at her now, you'd say, "No way, this is not the same baby." She has changed. She is starting to say little words, she is starting to say, "house," or "ruff ruff' or things like that. This is all changing. And I can just stop and say, "Wait a minute, this baby was really beautiful when it was little. I want it that way; I want it just to be a baby." But I really wouldn't be able to appreciate the experience that has happened by its growing. When we grow, when we change, we change for good. Of course, when we have determined to change for bad, then we can also change for very bad. But if we are determined to change for good, and we really put that effort into it, we can really all change for good.

Changing has to happen, because our motive is to really be able to give this Knowledge, to give this experience, to a lot, lot, lot, lot more people. So maybe we figured that we're going to give about 20,000 people Knowledge. Well, then, it has to change after we have given 20,000 people Knowledge, it has to go up to something like 50,000 people. And then when we have figured out that okay, there's 50,000 members, we can just stay like that, or we can change again and go to 100,000 people. So, to me, that change is really beautiful.

If we had a camera and put film in it and never advanced the film,just kept on pushing that little button, then what will we get? We'll get one picture. Then we'll have another picture on top of that picture, then we'll have another picture on top. I mean, it doesn't matter how many pictures we take, when we see it, it's just probably going to be a blank picture, there's going to be nothing there. Or say we pay two dollars, three dollars to go see a drive-in movie. Here we are, we take our cars in there and relax and get all comfortable. A big movie comes on the screen and we're all happy about it, and it doesn't move. Just that frame stays there. Nothing happens. I mean, that's not gonna be very nice, it's going to be awfully boring.

So there's change in everything. There are sometimes big changes, there are sometimes small changes, but there's always change. In this Mission, we have to all make that determination that we want this change to be for the good. Because if we make the decision, no, we want everything to be bad, then believe me, it can get really bad, because with the amount of potential we carry behind us, with the amount of dedication we really carry behind us, we can make everything bad and everything good, because it's for ourselves. So we really have to have the drive.

We Are All Premies

First of all, you have to understand what this organization is really all about. And to understand what this organization is all about, you've got to take one step further back and understand what is the aim of human life. Then you have got to step one more step back and really understand what is sat-sang, service and meditation. And then you've got to step one step even further back and then there's all of us. So it's all divided in steps. To just look at the organization and what it's all about, you have to understand that this Knowledge has a motive behind it, and the motive is that we want to experience that truth. There is the Knowledge, and we can have that love, that devotion, that dedication, that experience of truth by Knowledge. And then because we have accepted that path, we all become premies. It's just such a line. Because we are all premies, because we have experienced this Knowledge, we want to spread the word so that everybody can really have this experience, because it's beautiful. And that is what this organization is all about. As simple, as little, as small as it may sound, that's what it's all about: to be able to really spread this Knowledge and to insure that the premies who have received this Knowledge can keep on being benefitted with satsang, service and meditation. It's a chance for people to be able to actually have more and more sat-sang, to be more and more clear, and to plug in their services more so it can be more and more amplified.

It's a matter of all of us coming together, having that effort, and really coming from a clear place, coming from a clear head, so we can really do this, so that this organization can really be effective, so that we can really understand how Guru Maharaj Ji wants this done. How does Guru Maharaj Ji, in fact, want people to come to him? What should they be told? That if you come to satsang, and your peach tree has been dying, your peach tree is going to flourish and you'll have peaches the rest of your life? What does Guru Maharaj Ji really want them to understand about why they should initially come? It's just a matter of us all getting together and having more and more communication. And that's what's so beautiful, because this is happening more and more. It's just like, you have got to understand. You just can't walk into a place on one day and do everything just right. I mean, you could if you wanted to, but it's going to blow out a lot of people; there's going to be a lot of people just completely going nuts. So we do it slowly and slowly, so everybody can really adapt to this, so everybody can really understand.

Enjoy the Truth

And so premies, there's a lot more to say, and then again there's nothing to say, because what is there to say? We have this experience, we have this Knowledge. Do satsang, service and meditation, and enjoy this experience that you have been having. Enjoy that true truth, enjoy that experience of true love. Because it's rare, it's sort of hard to come by.

So just really be in that love, just really enjoy yourself, and experience what there is around you. Maybe you are having that experience of satsang, service and meditation, but I'm still going to tell you to keep on doing sat-

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sang, service and meditation, because that's something I've got to see - that premies really are doing satsang, service and meditation to be able to have that experience that I promised them. And that Knowledge promises them.

Just keep on truckin' and everything is beautiful. I, at least, think so. Maybe if you don't, I hope that you also one day will be able to find out that this is really all beautiful. It's not as bad, not even close to as bad as we think it is. It's just really all beautiful. We are really understanding more and more every day that we are brothers and sisters, not just people, not just bees that live and do things in this world blindly. We are, in fact, brothers and sisters created by that same Lord who has created everything. That is all of our experience, and we can really enjoy it. And by the grace, we have been given an opportunity in this century to be able to really experience the joy of that Knowledge. I think that's about all you can ask for: to be there to have such a beautiful Lord, a Creator, to be able to make you there, put you there, put all the things that He has into this world and to have a chance in this lifetime, an opportunity in this lifetime to be able to experience the purpose of your life.

Thank you very much. God bless you.