Maharaji, Élan Vital magazine

DRUMS OF SATSANG


Guru Maharaj Ji's Satsang in Atlantic City, New Jersey, December 19, 1976

We all have come here to this auditorium, to this place, for one purpose, for one understanding. Though we are different in different ways - I mean it was obvious in the darshan line that everybody wasn't exactly the same - the amount of time that people took and just different factors - it wasn't exactly the same. So the point is: But we are the same. Still's something is there that is consistent, that is true, that is realistic, that does make us the same.

Logically, if you look at your intellect, the intellect will throw the book at you and say, "This is impossible! What is happening here, this is impossible! What has happened so far, this is completely impossible. This is not true."

That's like throwing the book, and the intellect will throw the book at you and say, "Forget it." It's just an extension of mind; it is a true extension of mind.

But if you look at it from a different logic, that is the logic of all logic: What made John sit down and write the book? What made Luke experience what this Knowledge really was? What made Matthew realize? That is the logic that we all share commonly amongst each other. That is what we have to focus on. That is what we have to amplify in our lives.

This is the source. That is the Truth. That is the point. That is the point of all points. And this is where we have to come to. This is where we have to be at.

So despite the fact that in this world there is so much mind and there is so much happening and there is so much craziness, there is one factor that is constant. It is like a car: You can sit on a roller coaster, and then there's a rail. As the rail goes up and down, you will also go up and down. But if you are sitting on a roller coaster that doesn't go up and down, just goes straight, then you will just go straight.

What do you base yourself upon? Why is there so much unsatisfaction in this world? People don't realize that. I have watched the situation deteriorate more than become any better, over the past years that I have been in the United States, over the past years since I have come to West. Because I find that more and more people are taking a ride in a roller coaster. And all of a sudden they feel sick. They feel miserable. And then they turn around and they say, "Why am I feeling sick? Why am I feeling miserable? I am sitting still; I haven't moved. But then why do I feel sick?"

It's because, yes, maybe you are still. Maybe you are constant. But what you are based upon, that is not constant. What today's man bases himself upon, that is not constant; that is mind. It's illogical in the perfect logic, in the sense of perfect logic. Because then his logic fails; there he really cannot understand, because he's not sitting on the same boat. He's not on the same boat.

That was the exact thing that happened when Christ came, and today, the exact same thing is happening. There is a reality that we can all experience. There is a Truth that we can all come together for. I mean, look at this Atlantic City festival. Where did this begin? How did this occur? What happened? It's a good question.

This was not premeditated - at least not from my side; or maybe, then, it was. Because premies came together, and that is a premeditated thing: whenever premies come together. But it's like, when I arrived from Frankfurt to New York, some premies had gotten a lounge together and that was really beautiful. I came down, and in the lounge there was this big beautiful brochure, and I just picked it up and it said: "Birthday Celebration, 19th."

And I figured, "Well, it's not my birthday celebration. I wasn't born on 19th." Then I opened it up and it said that premies wanted to celebrate the birthday of their Perfect Master. And I didn't really give it much thought. There was a lot of talk going around about this festival. I didn't give it much thought. But then it just totally started to happen. After my birthday - that was the 10th - everything started to fall in place; it was just Grace.

And it was constant Grace that made me come here. It wasn't

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like, "Okay, let's get into this." No, nobody got into this. It just came together all by itself; it just happened. Nobody fudged it. Nobody tried to get on phones and do this and do that. It just slowly happened, where the love of premies and the understanding of premies brought everybody together, brought each other together, and brought me here.

I'd just like to talk a little bit about what this Love really is. This Love that we all have, that we all experience, that we all share - of course, there is a distinction: There is one love that maybe is true Love but maybe is projected through the wrong lens.

Maybe the projector is right, but the film is dirty, so you really cannot blame it on the projector.

Maybe you are sincere, but there are some loves that are just extension of mind. But then there is the true Love which is unselfish, which is pure, which is constant. And that is the Love that we want to talk about, that we want to share. Because all other loves fail. They are there and then they go away. But this one Love is not like that. It isn't like it is there and then it goes away. It is always there. It is always constant because it is true Love, because it is that thing, it is that Perfection, it is that Truth, that we all seek. It is the Perfection that all the imperfect things in this whole world seek.

And this is a great hunt. It is a great search and we are all looking forward to it. That generates - just that much generates a feeling within inside of all of us, a true feeling, a sincere feeling inside of us which brings us to be able to - brings us to the point where we can really share Love.

So premies, it is Love, that true Love that you have for me and I have for you, that really brings us together every time. That is the only reason why I am here and you are there. There are not many reasons why we should be in this world. You know, we already have too many cakes to bite into. Everything has been provided for, so there has got to be a worthwhile reason why everything is provided for in this world.

And to me - maybe I'm not too smart, but I think I'm smart enough to understand one thing in my life. Maybe I haven't had too many experiences as people think that they have. Well, I don't think they're necessary. To me, those experiences are not experiences of why this life was given to me, so they're unnecessary. People boast about their experiences. They say, "Oh yeah, well, he's nineteen. Well, I'm thirty-five;" "I'm forty." Well, to me that doesn't make a difference. Because you can be dumb: d-u-m, dum, even if you are a hundred years old, and if you are one year old you could be super-smart.

For instance, Premlata: Somebody gave her a bunch of cards with different animals on them and their names. Pranam Bai was playing the game with her where you say, "Where's the parrot? Where's the alligator? Where's the deer? Where's the lion?" And she'd just pick them up, just like that (snaps his fingers). And it's really surprising to watch her do all these things at a young age.

But sincerely, it's not those experiences that we are looking for. It is that one experience - that one experience is what we are really all looking for, and without that one experience, every other experience just doesn't seem worth it. We have to just in our lives keep on going - on and on and on and on - to gather enough experience to say, "Okay, well I have so much experience." And to some people, that thirst is never quenched. They can just keep on going on and on and on and on and on and on and on in their life, but that thirst that they have will never be quenched.

But premies, the experience that I talk about is very simple. It is very humble and it is very true. The experience that I talk about, the experience that I have of this realization of Knowledge - no, I must admit I have not weighed it against everything in this world. But whatever I have come in contact with, I have weighed it against it, and it outweighs any other experience that anybody else has in this whole world.

One thing you know that it outweighs is the experience of so many millions and millions and millions and millions of premies that are around this world who have received Knowledge in their lifetime, in their life, once - it outweighs any of their experiences that they have ever had before. Because this is really a true experience. Other experiences are substitutes, are replicas, but are not authentic. So okay, they pay off so much to you, or they look so good in your drawer, but that's it. After that, it's nothing.

So in the same way, the experience that I have, that I have to give, is of this Love, is of this Knowledge. Because Knowledge is Love - and that is what makes Guru Maharaj Ji Love and that is what makes all of us Love and makes all of us understand and makes all of us realize what we are really all about.

So anyway, I was talking about the experience of this Knowledge, of this Love, of this understanding. And that is really the true experience. You know, in our lives - like I was saying - we go out and we do this and we do that and we say, "Okay, we have so much" - but it really isn't worth it.

What are we trying to substitute for? Do we ever ask that question to ourselves? "Why am I going on day-to-day basis? Why am I making things so sophisticated for myself?" Because who makes things sophisticated? We do, for ourselves. We really make things super, super-sophisticated for ourselves, and that is the way our whole system is.

That is the system that we operate in. That is the way the government is. I mean, nobody can say the whole system of government is very super-simple. It isn't. Neither is the system of churches. Neither is the system of so-called God-realization, what other people claim, what other people challenge: That isn't simple either.

But to me, if we are here to realize God, to realize that Love, to realize that Supreme Authority in our lives, then it has to be simple; it will never be sophisticated. And as a matter of fact, it has to be so simple that we might miss it, just because of the fact that we would be looking at more complicated things for this experience than looking at very, very simple things for this experience.

Just watching the premies all around, premies have gone from so-called changes to - I couldn't even name everything - they have gone from A to Z in their experience. They're into this; they're into that. Sometimes premies are into this, in doing this; and then they don't get this kind of satisfaction so they split. They quit. Then they get into another project. So many changes keep on happening in the lives of premies, and a lot of premies really do get affected by that.

But there is one thing, and that is the simple Truth, and that is non-changing. It is always there and we have to merge into that. We have to really pull ourselves together for that, and this is

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Prem Rawat Inspirational Speaker When He Was Guru Maharaj Ji, The Lord Of The Universe, 1976

what we have to be one with. Because it is very simple. The whole process is very sophisticated. We make it sophisticated. We go along with our mind, with a game of our mind, and continue on to play with it. There is no stopping. There is no ever saying, "Well, wait a minute. Why do I have to play this game?" There is never a question and answer. There is never a shadow of a doubt when mind plays the game.

Yes, when Guru Maharaj Ji comes in and says something, or when there is true satsang happening, then a lot of doubts come, then everybody goes haywire, everybody goes frantic. When there's real satsang, then that's the way the people are. Because we have made ourselves so sophisticated. When that is happening, then so much mind gets disturbed. But when mind is leading us along, when mind is just throwing us from one wall to the other wall, we never question that. We never, never question that: "What for? Why? Why should I do that?"

Mind says, "Why don't you go and have an ice cream?" So what do you do? Look for money. If you have it, you'll go get one.

Guru Maharaj Ji says, "Go do satsang, service and meditation." And you go, "Why? Why satsang? What does meditation do for me? What is service? Could you please define that?"

That question has been asked to me a lot of times, and the question has been answered. I have answered it. But I myself am not satisfied with the answer. Because it's like somebody comes up to me and says, "Could you express to me what sugar tastes like?" So I say, "Sweet." They don't know what sweet is.

I say, "Sugar." "What is sugar?" "It is sweet." And you just keep on going back and forth between sugar and sweet.

Or somebody comes up to me and says - it is an experience that you have to experience yourself. It isn't like you can just go up to somebody and say, "What is the experience of salt? What is the experience of sugar?"

It is an experience. It is not an object. It is not a thing that you can just find out about it, "What is that pen like?" And you can say, "Well, it writes really smooth on the paper and really writes beautifully." And that's a good enough explanation. There's a lot of ads, there's a lot of commercials for onion choppers, for carrot choppers, for potato peelers - what have you. All that can be explained; all that can be shown on the TV because they're objects, they're things. They're very definite; they're very finite.

But this is an experience, and you have to experience that. It isn't something where you just lead on a person saying, "Oh yeah, you just keep on going and along the line you're gonna hit someday the right curve with a right bend on it, with a right accident and - boom! You'll have the realization."

It really isn't like that. It is now. It is for yourself to see right now. It isn't like I'm trying to say, "Now go to New York City, get on the 33rd Street, go down about a mile east" - or whatever way 33rd Street runs, I don't really know - "and then you're gonna see this guy and he's gonna have a monkey on his cart and he's gonna be playing this little thing: Ask him and he will tell you." It isn't like that.

It isn't like you patrol for the rest of your life up and down 33rd

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Street to find this guy with a monkey on his cart who plays this thing, who's going to reveal you this realization. The realization is with you right now. The realization is there, and people have experienced it, people have realized it - you have to just grow into that.

That is the difference between the explanation - because satsang is an explanation. Satsang is the company of Truth. But meditation, this Knowledge, is an experience that you have to experience. And through satsang, through meditation, through service, are the channels where you can focus inside from outside, where all your senses, where you actually are taken back to the original spot where you really belong.

This is why satsang, service and meditation are important for you. And if you have done satsang, service, and meditation, then you should know for yourself why they are important for you. Because to me - like I was explaining to Marolyn one day - mind is really something else. It'll play literally any kind of gimmick, any kind of game to win you, to get you. And it is so sophisticated; it is so complicated - the way it operates within you - that it is hard to distinguish between what is mind and what isn't mind. It is hard to distinguish between what is Truth in your life, for once that you realized, or what is mind, for once what you realized.

This is such a sophisticated game of mind. It'll take you from one trip to another trip, from one satisfaction to the other unsatisfaction, and then make every satisfaction an unsatisfaction, and every unsatisfaction a satisfaction for you, make every kind of toy, make any kind of dream.

It is the wand of the witch, not of the fairy. It's just like a big spell; it's just like a big, tasted spell which is in our heads. And we're just driven on a day-to-day basis: -Well, what am I going to do with my life?" Do you know what this life is? If you know what this life is, then you know what you can do with it. But today everybody goes around and says, "Well, I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life." Well, what are you going to do with your life? What is it? And nobody knows that answer. Nobody wants to find out that answer.

What is this life? What are we going to do with it? People go to churches, people go to their temples, people go from one place to another place. And for how many years do you think they've been doing it? Do you think you're the first one to go to church? Do you think you're the first one to go to a temple? No, man, it's been thousands and thousands and thousands of years that people have been doing this, and who knows how many ages past - not in this whole time, not in this whole century, not in this whole time lapse, maybe before even there were eggs and before there were dinosaurs - before all that was, maybe there was another world. Who knows? Maybe even in that time people went to temples. But the fact is, where is the realization? Where is the realization of this life? Where is the aim of this life?

You can do anything in this world. Anything is possible to do. But one thing is the hardest, and that is to come back, to come back home - to be simple again, to be able to once in your lifetime realize what that experience of Knowledge really is, to once in your lifetime experience what that Truth really is.

Because I talk of my own experience; I talk of what I have experienced. I am not into reading books, and a lot of people maybe object to that. A lot of people may be funny about it: "How come you don't read books?" I just don't like to read books. Because it would be like going into a library after you've already graduated from college, and you're already a philosopher - you're already a doctor and you have three or four more degrees in your pocket somewhere - and then you go to a library and you're followed by the press and you do this and you do that, and then you walk over to the kiddie section and pick up a book of ABC with little squeaks inside of it, and you sit down and you start playing with it.

How logical does that sound to you? Well, to a lot of people that doesn't make very much sense. "Why would you do that? You go and pick out a nice book and read that! Why would you pick out an ABC book? You've already been through that."

And that is the way I'm not into books.

I tell you, it's almost a record that I haven't read a whole book. I started on one book, the book of Narnia - I didn't finish it, I still have about four or five pages to go. I know the story, but I still have four or five pages to go. It's almost been a record - of course, in the school they never finished a book. They just didn't; they just went to maybe the ninth chapter or the eleventh chapter and that was the end of the term.

It's almost been a record where I haven't read a whole, complete book yet. Because every time I take a book and I open it - and I have a lot of books in Malibu and I have a lot of books in Denver - and I pick them up and it's just like: Life of Adolf Hitler or How Do You Do This or How Did That Happen or How Did the Plane Crash or How Did the Boat Go Down Under or How Did People Die or How Did People Come About. What have you, everything.

And you know, I pick it up, and it says, Adolf Hitler. That's one book I had in India. A big, huge, thick book. I still have it. And I picked it up and it was so ridiculous. I was sitting in the front seat and I picked it up and I read about two pages of it and then I just threw it in the rear. It just went flying into the rear windscreen.

To me, all that experience is not worth anything. Because I see people who have that kind of experience, and I also see within their hearts, within themselves.

You know, the point is, I don't look for people's smiling faces. Let's put it this way. Because I know half the time they have a rubber band that just goes from this side all the way back of their heads and lands on this side. They're doing this purposely. There is no point to do this. But they just sit there and go: (grins). They just smile purposely.

Half the time I can really tell that this isn't coming from within their hearts. This isn't really happening within them. And it's the same way with their happiness. A lot of people have come up to me - I mean, this is the big question that I can ask people: "Are you happy?" It's straightforward, nice and simple. It's easy. It's small, short but sweet. It's straight. And they say, "Yeah."

And then they think for a little while and they say, "Well, I think I am happy." And slowly, they just - all you have to do is just ask that question and wait for about fifteen minutes, and finally they crack down. First they go, "Yes." Then they go, "I think so. Well, I hope so."

And then it's just like, you really start to poke around, you really start to feel: "Well, wait a minute, how strong is this anyway? What is happening in here?" It's like going to a junkyard and this guy has a car there. Looks nice, all polished - of course, it's

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Prem Rawat Inspirational Speaker When He Was Guru Maharaj Ji, The Lord Of The Universe, 1976

not polished, its just kerosene oil dumped all over the car to make it look like it's a brand new paint job: oil all over the tires, engine completely painted black - and you go there and, "Oh yeah, it's just a brand new car. Urn, the guy hurt his finger on it and he didn't want to drive it anymore, so he just dumped it in the junkyard."

And you say, "Oh yeah, really? Hmmm, this is interesting, very interesting. Maybe I'm interested in this car." So you go around, take a look at it, kick it on the tire, and all of a sudden the whole rear end goes off the other side. The whole differential in the automobile just slides right out. And you say, "What is happening?" You go in the front, you kick the front tire, and all of a sudden the whole steering wheel falls off. You go and you touch the body and the whole fender falls off.

Today, that is the way people's happiness is. It is borrowed from the other concepts. What is happiness? You have a nice car, nice kid, nice house - and that is happiness. And you know, that's really not true; that's really, really not true. Because I know - people come to the residence in Malibu and they go, "Wow, this is fantastic." And it is really a very incredible place, both ways you look at it: In the view of the beauty, it's really incredible. And in the view of the people, it's like, materialistically it's incredible: sitting on this hill, a big, white, huge house, beautiful ocean view and it's incredible.

And as you must know, for my birthday present I got this lovely car, Aston-Martin. And I'd just like to say thank you for that. But the point is, yeah, Aston-Martin is a very expensive car, and so are the other cars that I have, really expensive.

And of course, there's a lot of difference between which way you look at it. There's one way you'd look at it and it's that: I have it.

It's like this person who goes into the parking lot, finds the nicest car there, and stands in front of it and tells his friend to take a picture. And then he goes around and shows it to other people: "Look what I've got." It's almost that identical situation, because none of that really came from my pocket - it's just all the effort of premies put in together.

But the way world looks at it, it is there. And well, it is there. There's no doubt about it. There is a two-door green Aston- Martin sitting there, and there's no doubt about it. I've driven it and that's what it is.

But there's a lot more story involved behind it, that sometimes people don't understand. But the point being that, having that car, and I have two kids (that's the common thing: two or three kids) - I have two kids, a boy and a girl, and that's just beautiful. And I have a lovely wife, and that's beautiful. A house, a car, kids - I have a lot of premies there who people would look at as servants. Because a lot of people come there who haven't received Knowledge and they say, "Well, you have a lot of servants here. Do you pay them? Do you do this? Do you . They don't understand that. It's just really hard for people to understand.

But the point is, I have all that, and it is all there. And to me, everything is there because of one thing. And the way this world would look at it, it's working backwards. Because I don't see things as the world sees them. I see things as that they're there because something is sustaining them. Without that, they wouldn't be there. I am there because something is sustaining me. And if I am enjoying it, the credit doesn't go to the item or me; it goes to the thing that is sustaining me. Because without that thing that is sustaining me, I wouldn't be here.

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If I wouldn't be here, who cares if there are a hundred thousand Aston-Martins or three thousand jets or five hundred thousand houses that you've got? What difference does it make? You're gone.

So I don't give the credit to either of those things; I give the credit to the thing which is making me come alive, which is making me here, which is bringing all of us together, which is making everything possible in this world (applause). And really, when you take this slide away, of Knowledge, from between me and this world, and this materialism, everything is just a big carcass. There's nothing there. It doesn't exist. And with Knowledge, with Knowledge being there, it makes the existence of everything else a hundred thousand times better.

It brings the life into a dead body.
It brings leaves. It brings spring to the flowers, to the trees that are barren.
It brings people into the valleys.
It brings the air in the flute that makes it sound so beautiful.
It makes the drums beat within inside of us.
It makes the clouds come so that the rain can fall.
It makes the sun come bright.

And that is the beauty of this Knowledge. That is the beauty of this Love. That is the beauty of this understanding. And without the experience of this Knowledge, I know those things can never provide me happiness. And even now I look at them, but I know I'm not happy because of them. And I'm not sad because of them, either. But I know I'm not happy because of them, either. And people think that by having all this materialism, that they will be happy.

You know, I have only got so much to say, and I can only say so much to the people of this world. But I wish, I really wish, that we could all come together and beat the great drums of this satsang, so that unto all brothers and sisters in this world, they could hear the voice of these drums beating.

And then they would dance to it, just like you and me have - every one of them. Every soul in this universe would dance to it. And it would be a beautiful experience. That is my wish, that is my greatest desire, that is - it's even beyond desire. That is my life. That is … it is just like a whole integrated pattern between everything to everything. You know, I have now an Aston-

Martin. But I haven't just taken the Aston-Martin and put it in a garage. I have involved that in the process of Knowledge. I have other things that people wouldn't understand: "Well, what is this going to do in the process of satsang and meditation - satsang and service?"

But no, I have involved everything, because everything that I see, I touch, that I'm around, I have just tried to integrate that completely into one full projection, into just one full, dead ahead steam - so that those drums can start beating.

Every Perfect Master - to me, it's like every Perfect Master has come in this world and tried to beat those drums. And they got somewhere close to it. But they didn't quite beat it. Not loud enough. Not loud enough for everybody to hear. And it didn't pierce the tons and tons and miles and miles of barriers that people had between them.

But for some reason, I have this hope. I have this dream. I have this - not an idea. It is not an idealism. But as a service to my life, as the aim of my life - to beat these drums so hard, so hard, that it might break down those barriers that people have placed between them, and that there might be Peace in this world (applause).

The point is, somehow, when I came to United States, that's what I already had dedicated my life to. And it seemed possible at that time. But so much more hope has sprung in between, so much more possibilities have come in between, that there can be Peace on this Earth, and that it is not an impossibility, but it is a very good possibility.

You look at it from any reason you want to see it, any way you want to see it. There can be Peace on this Earth. And to us - just look at us: If we can in our lifetime just once, one of us, just one of us, can initiate one other person (not just go around initiating other people, but initiate in the cause of - by having Guru Maharaj Ji's agya; and not in dreams that is; having Guru Maharaj Ji's agya personally and having that inspiration), and in our life spans, if once we can initiate another person, just another person, we have made one life, besides us, successful.

And to me, that is one of the greatest things we can all do. That is one of the greatest things that can be put together. If just one person realizes Knowledge, if just one flower blooms from one of us, one other person realizes Knowledge, that is really incredible. A whole life, a whole process, a whole cycle has been saved; and as you would put it: one down and one more to go.

And when that one goes down, you say the same words again: one down and one more to go. When that one goes down, you say one down and one more to go. And you just keep on going, because it is really a beautiful experience. Because it is really a true experience. And this is why we are all here.

Why are we … As premies, what is my relationship between you and me?

I'm your Guru Maharaj Ji. I am somebody - well, let's forget about nouns, verbs, adverbs, and what have you. But let us look at it: There is this person who has, by His capacity, by His Grace, revealed Knowledge. And that is what makes you a devotee and me a Guru Maharaj Ji.

Why are we trying to place so many barriers of concepts between us? Why don't we just really understand what devotion is? What a devotee is? Why don't we understand what this Knowledge really is, what this Grace really is and who this Guru Maharaj Ji really is, and break down the barriers of these concepts that we have, and really become simple?

Where has sophistication led you? I ask you, where has it taken you? Into more confusion. And now you're Confucius, and you can say anything you want to say and it never will be wise.

Because where has it taken you in your life? Into just total darkness - again and again, again and again, again and again. Why don't we just shatter those barriers? There is no necessity to have the barriers of concepts between us. Let us just all come together in our hearts and experience this Knowledge, really practice this Knowledge.

I ask you - it is a simple thing - it very definitely says at least, minimum, one hour of meditation. How many premies - I mean, I don't want you to raise your hands or say "Age" or "You" or whatever, or answer me right now - but how many

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Prem Rawat Inspirational Speaker When He Was Guru Maharaj Ji, The Lord Of The Universe, 1976

premies (you don't have to answer me, you can answer that to yourself) how many premies really meditate one hour? A lot of premies meditate one hour. Tell me one thing: How come we only meditate one hour? That's the minimum. It says so: a minimum of an hour. How come we only meditate one hour? Are we trying to cut short? What are we trying to do?

And are we meditating for one hour? It's a good question, because it's like Raja Ji was explaining yesterday in his satsang. We sit down and first of all, the mind says, "Uh-uh, it's too uncomfortable underneath here.- So you bring a pillow. And you sit down and, "Uh-uh, you're too thirsty to sit down and do meditation; go get yourself a glass of water."

And you, just like an obedient servant, ever-devotee of the infinite mind - the very finite mind, that is - you just get up and go get that glass of water, and that's it. Just no questions asked and no answers said. You just get up and get that glass of water. That's it. And then you come back and sit down: "Oh boy, you drank too much. Go burp it out." And it just goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on .

And finally it says, "Well, this guy's not gonna give up so easy, so I gotta try some other way.- And here you're sitting and all of a sudden it'll go, "Jai Satchitanand. realistically and very maturely looking at it, your clothes are burning. You laid your iron on them, the iron is hot and it's burning your clothes."

"Oh oh - burning my clothes, now, that's not a good idea. If I burn my clothes, that's not mature, that's nor very good.-

So you go there and find that, well, no, there was no iron. You don't even own an iron. You live in an apartment. You don't own an iron. You have nothing to do with an iron. But still, your clothes were burning and you could smell them as clear as possible. There could have been no doubt that your clothes were burning.

And you know, that's the way this mind goes: on and on and on and on and on and on and on … in that one hour of meditation. So what are you meditating on? More you're meditating on mind than you're meditating on the Knowledge that has really been revealed to you.

So listen. It is a very simple process. But when you have to fight with mind constantly, it isn't so simple, because you have a fight on your hands. And my suggestion to premies is: Don't fight it. A lot of premies have tried to fight mind. Don't fight it; it's very powerful, it's a very strong absence. Don't enter it.

First of all, you have to be more present, you have to be stronger than your mind to fight it.

If you can't fight it, don't join it, either. Don't acknowledge it. Let it happen, let it do its trip, let it just - let it do it, let it get tired. Don't acknowledge it. When it says, "Go get a glass of water," don't say, "Oh, I'm really thirsty." And you probably finished a whole five-gallon bottle of water an hour before that, or fifteen minutes before that. Then you are thirsty, then you'll be hungry, then you'll be thirsty again. And the mind just throws you around and around and around in a loop.

So don't acknowledge it. Just keep. on going. Just keep on having that sincere try. Just let it keep on going. And really come and become simple, and really for once experience satsang, service and meditation in our lives.

Let's all come back home; there's nothing out there. We just said, "Humpf! I'm gonna pack up my bags and I'm gonna get out and I'm gonna see what's out in this world." And a lot of people did that; a lot of people packed their bags and said, "I'm gonna go out and see what's in this world."

But they went out in this world and next thing you know you get a call from a hospital and they say, "What's the matter with the guy? He got robbed and he got beaten up and everything else happened to him." Not in the sense of really getting robbed and beaten up. But the mind just robs you of your experience that you have, beats you up and puts you right back into a hospital. And that's it. There goes that experience.

What is out there to experience? You have the greatest experience right here; what are you trying to experience? What more are you trying to experience, by the way? Have you conquered this experience of experiences? Have you?

If you have, then go - go fight them all. Be a champ. But suggest you don't, because I don't think so. I don't think you have conquered this experience yet. I think you're just a little bitty baby in this experience. And you have to go a long ways. But if you progress steadily, if you let it happen, then it can all successfully work out for you.

And I'm here to help you. This is the necessity of Guru Maharaj Ji. You know, a lot of people think: "There is no necessity for Guru Maharaj Ji. There is Knowledge. Knowledge is within us. We can experience it. Guru Maharaj Ji has revealed it to us, so Guru Maharaj Ji's role is pretty much finished. Its just us now. That's it: us and Knowledge."

That's not true; it's really not true. Because you see, first of all, without Guru Maharaj Ji in this world, you cannot realize this Knowledge. Okay? But after this Knowledge has been revealed to you, why doesn't Guru Maharaj Ji just disappear? Why hasn't He just disappeared? Why hasn't it just been a moment's thing, where the clouds open up - something like that, something like that up there (points to painting of angels and clouds on ceiling) where the clouds open up, something drops down the middle and Zap! it goes and everybody has Knowledge, and Guru Maharaj Ji disappears.

Why does Guru Maharaj Ji have to manifest Himself in a human life and come to this world and be here and stay here, and try to guide premies? Because there is an incredible necessity of guidance.

Listen. Understanding this Knowledge, experiencing this Knowledge, having this Knowledge revealed to us, is just one part of the game. The rest of the game begins after that. That's just the dice to throw if you can even really begin, if you can really begin with this game. And after that is when the game begins. After that is when the fight begins.

Right now, mind isn't going to bother you. It's too powerful. It doesn't see any threat. It doesn't see Knowledge as being any potential threat to it, so it takes it easy. What has it got to bother about? But once you do realize Knowledge, and once the mind realizes that, "Wait a minute, this Knowledge is an incredible amount of potential threat," to him, or to it - well, that's when the big battle begins.

So if you think you got a bullet through the door, that's nothing. And that's when you need your general. That's when you need Guru Maharaj Ji to take you in this battle of you and mind, to take you through all these trips, and to bring you where He is, where His experience of Knowledge is.

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Prem Rawat Inspirational Speaker When He Was Guru Maharaj Ji, The Lord Of The Universe, 1976

Prem Rawat Inspirational Speaker When He Was Guru Maharaj Ji, The Lord Of The Universe, 1976 This is the difference between Guru Maharaj Ji and just the experience of Knowledge. Because experience of Knowledge is just an experience of Knowledge. But Guru Maharaj Ji even takes it a further step away, where He enables that experience to be constant with you. Not just a one-time shot, but be constant with you, be there with you, all the time.

One of the saints in India, Brahmanand, describes Guru Maharaj Ji, he describes how beautiful it is to experience that Love, to experience that Grace of Guru Maharaj Ji, and to go on and on and on and on and on and have that help, to have that guidance, to have that Love of Guru Maharaj Ji in our lives.

But he says, "How can I then ever repay Guru Maharaj Ji?" And he answers it very beautifully, that "If I gather everything in this world, everything that there is in this world, and multiply it by ten million times, it won't even be worth a grain, one piece of grain, one penny, to what I owe Guru Maharaj Ji."

You can look at it from any way you want to, but why don't you look at it the way that you should look at it, the way that it is really realistic, the way that it is really true - that we all are proceeding towards the same path. And you know, there is a big river between you and me. You are trying to swim the river, and what I'm going to do is that I'm going to come on your shore, and I'm going to pick you up on a boat, and I'm going to dock the boat, and I'm going to get out of the boat and give you my hand so that you can come on the dock, so you can go ashore on the other side of this whole ocean of maya, on the other side of this ocean of craziness.

So first, a lot of people say, "No, well I can swim. Thanks but no thanks. Now I know the way and I can do it."

And I tell them, "No, wait a minute. Just please, for your sake, hop on the boat. It's incredible. Or if you want, I'll give you a rope; hang onto a rope, if that's what you want. At least you won't get drifted away; at least if anything happens, the boat can be then stopped and you can come aboard."

But a lot of people go, "Naw, I know the way. I can do it." I don't know what the real definition of dumb is; I know what it means, but I don't know what Webster has to say for it yet. But the point is, that's the dumbest thing to do: to just say, "Oh, I can do it." Because the boat leaves, and you find yourself in the middle. And all of a sudden you start seeing - well, maybe this is over-exaggerated - but you see this whole thing of these fishes, silver-like, in a massive school, swimming. All of a sudden, you get a feeling that you have heard the name "barracuda" somewhere before, and you also get the feeling these barracudas might be awfully hungry. And all you want to do is just get out of there as fast as you can. But either way you go, it's too far off.

Then it's just like - there's one way to explain it: Once there was this man. He was completely drunk. He was completely out of it, riding on his horse, and he just kept taking a whip and whipping the horse and whipping the horse and whipping the horse and pulling on the reins and kicking him. He was doing everything to the horse, just torturing the horse. And the horse just freaked out and threw him off the back, kicked him off.

And the guy lands in this well. And as he's falling, he's fortunate enough to get caught by this branch. After a little while it all shakes off his head and he looks down: What is down there, anyway? He doesn't see anything down there.

"I wish, I really wish, that we could all come together and beat the great drums of this satsang."

After a little while his eyes get used to the darkness, and he sees there's every kind of snake, every kind of scorpion, every kind of poisonous thing you can possibly imagine, just waiting there, just snapping at him - you know, the snakes are just waiting for him to drop in and just like that, just like that, get him. That's it!

And he looks up, and he sees that he's on a branch. And it's pretty thick, it's pretty solid. And he looks up again and he sees these two rats - one's black and one's white, having a nice time chewing on the same branch that he's hung from.

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What is his resort? What can he do?

When premies get drunk by the confusion of this mind, then they start going crazy, then they start going everywhere. They just start abusing everything: Knowledge, their lives, the experience of this life - everything; they just go haywire. All of a sudden, boom! They get kicked off, and they find themselves in that position.

You tell me; what is the resort? Because that person doesn't have a very long time, not very much at all, because these rats are having a ball chewing this branch, and they don't intend to stop. And you know, the rats don't have to bite through the branch all the way. They just have to make it weak enough so that it'll collapse. And if it does collapse, where is it going to end? Into this well where everything is waiting, just waiting by appointment just to get to you as fast as you get there.

What is your resort? This resort that will work at that point is the same exact resort that was offered to you a long time ago - a long time before that happened. And it was also explained to you that you wouldn't have to go through that. And the resort is really only one thing: Guru Maharaj Ji.

And this is the way we are, stuck in our lives sometimes. Time is flying by. Those are the rats of day and night, just chewing away this branch that we are on. They're just chewing it away.

Then there is this whole world, just ready to get to us as soon as we get in there - everything, every weapon, everything you can possibly imagine - it's got it ready, just waiting to get to us.

Premies, there's only one thing to do: is to yell as loud as you ever have yelled before to one person, and that is Guru Maharaj Ji. Yell, "Help!" (Several people yell "help!" Laughter.)

So the point is that you didn't even have to get into that position, because Guru Maharaj Ji was always there. He would have just taken you in his big yacht, in his big boat, and you wouldn't have to experience any of this problem. He said that. That is the reason.

You don't have to go through almost a guillotine, then almost get hung, then get electrocuted, then get baked in the oven, get fried and then die and jump from the cliff - go through all the experience of that. He'll just take you where you want to go and you won't have to go through any of this. That is the promise of Guru Maharaj Ji: to take you smoothly, as smoothly as possible, through this experience of life, through this experience of meditation into that ultimate experience that we all want to realize, that we all want to understand.

So it is our effort, it is us that can make this whole thing really manifest. It is us that can really make this whole thing work.

And premies, everything is right there. You don't need anything more. It's right there. Everything is just right there, just waiting for us to just act on it. It's just like a big Project Action, and it's just satsang, service and meditation - all of us coming together for one purpose, and the greatest purpose of life.

You know, I can understand giving priority to other purposes in this lifetime - if they were more significant than the purpose of the experience and the realization of this Knowledge. But I don't think so. I don't think there is any other purpose in this lifetime that should be given more priority than to experience this Knowledge, to experience satsang, service and meditation. Everything is just right there.

I'm right here, and like I said yesterday: I don't know what I can do by myself, and I don't know what you can do by yourself, but both of us put together, you and me, we can do a lot. We can do incredibly a lot. And it's just, you and me have to come together.

And the point is, I'm ready. I'm ready to step for you a million miles. I am. But there's one bet on it. You know, a lot of premies say, "Well, okay, then why don't we just let Maharaj Ji take a million steps for us?"

The point is, you have to take one step, too. You take the first step, and I'll take the rest of them. And your step is to really understand, and to really explicitly understand: understand satsang, understand service and have that Love. All I need is Love. All this automobile runs on is Love. You keep pumping Love in there and it's going to keep on trucking; and you take out Love from there and it's just going to start going back.

And that's the way it is. It's got no brakes; it's just got one gas pedal. You keep pumping Love in there; it'll just keep on going. That is really the way it is. So we really all can come together. Just Love. Love is all we need. Love is really all we need to realize, to come together, to tie ourselves in the bond.

Without Love, we are the beach which has no ocean.
Without Love, we are the sky - the sky that has no blue in it.
Without Love, we are the garland which no thread passes through. Pick it up, and all the flowers just fall apart.
And with Love, we are the beach with the ocean; we are the sky with the deepest blue you have ever seen.
And with Love, we are the garland through which the greatest and the strongest thread runs through, which holds every flower together.

And no power - not even of mind - can separate that. You take that away, and you bet your life it'll separate it. And with it on, with that powerful thread of Love, of that understanding of ourselves, of this realization, of Guru Maharaj Ji, of Grace, of dedication, of surrender - you're impeccable. You really are impeccable.

Let it go; just let us surrender. Because who are we really surrendering to? That is why a lot of people have questions about service. You know why? Because they really haven't done service in their lives. Yes, they have - they always carry a dusting cloth in their pocket, and there are those kind of premies who will pull out their dusting cloths - dust, dust, dust. As soon as the DUO coordinator passes by or the national coordinator passes by, they'll take it and slip it into their pocket. And that's it.

Because first of all, the root of service is surrender. First of all, you have to surrender. If you can surrender to Lord, if you can surrender to that ultimate being, then you are a servant. And if you are a servant, only then can you do service. Only then can your every action become service. Without that, if you haven't surrendered, you ain't no servant. If you ain't no servant, you can't do service. You aren't employed. But you first of all have to have surrender, and that is the root of service.

So premies, it is the most very, very beautiful gift that we have been given. I mean, even saying "it's a very, very beautiful gift that we have been given" is a total understatement - a total, total understatement. Because it's even more than that. Most

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Prem Rawat Inspirational Speaker When He Was Guru Maharaj Ji, The Lord Of The Universe, 1976

incredible gift that we have been given is of this Knowledge, and of this life, and the Grace that we are all here - a very, most, very incredible gift that we have been given.

And we've been also given one more thing, which I tell you is a real bummer. And this one more thing that comes standard with the whole package is to blow it all away. I wish that didn't come standard. I wish that it were a very, very necessary necessity of life - compulsory - that when the doctor slapped you in the back to make you cry, he also revealed you the Knowledge so you could survive. I wish it was like that. But yeah, the doctor slaps you in the back, but somehow that's not all it.

So the point is, premies, it's really beautiful that we are here, that this opportunity has been given to us of having this Knowledge, and we all can come together, just really, really dedicate ourselves and really do satsang, service and meditation, and realize the aim of this life, and let other people know. To come together and beat the drums, the drums of this Love, of this devotion, of this dedication, into all beings, so they can once realize the glory of their Lord, the glory of their Master, the glory of Guru Maharaj Ji, and really understand what this Knowledge is.

So it's completely up to us, and it's now; it's now or never. And it's now; it has to be now.

And you know, it's really beautiful - after all the changes that have happened in this organization, after all the changes that a lot of premies have gone through, we have just learned one thing: We need to come back home. All of us. And these changes, so-called changes, just aren't so good.

We just need to be back home where we are all snuggled and safe in our bed, by our fireplace, with somebody reading us this story, and us just enjoying the whole thing. I think that's where we want to be and that's where we want to come back.

Highfalutin stuff just isn't worth it. We just need to be simple. Because that is the way we are. We need to be who we really are.

We don't have to go around putting on this whole huge cosmetic show like everybody does: "Oh, I like Coca-cola," and "I like ginger ale." And you have a certain style of doing a certain thing. There's a certain way you talk. There's a certain way you walk. There's a certain way you eat. There's a certain way you say things; certain way you move your hands. And you do this, and do that - and put on a whole cosmetic show. For what?

We all go around doing it. Somebody's got to use English Leather and somebody's got to use Old Spice, or somebody's got to use something else or something else. We just get into these individual things, get into all these things.

And I'm not saying, "Well, you shouldn't do that," that everybody should have the same exact suit, and should talk the same way, and should look the same and everything. But let us not get so involved in that that we forget our main purpose, just for the cosmetics of this whole thing. Because all this highfalutin stuff just doesn't pay. Its like a synthetic diamond; a diamond, though uncut, is more precious than a fake diamond that has been cut and polished.

So if we're simple and if we're true, we are more precious. And I know we are more precious than to try to put on this big, fake polish, try to put on this big fake show of synthetics and cosmetics and: Ta-da! This is what we look like!

Let us all come back home. And let us all pray that our home is still there. And I think it is still there. Not only do I think it is still there, I know it is still there. And that home is never going to go away. No matter where we get lost, we can always count on that: That home is going to be always there. That is our home; nobody's going to ever take it from us. Because it is our home. This is where we belong. So far we are going to be here, there is that home going to be there.

So premies, just let us come back to that satsang, service and meditation: a lot of satsang and a lot of service and a lot of meditation.

There are a lot of new things on the road: There's the Initiator Development Program, which I'm trying to put together. Because I don't think Initiator Program really should be like a boot camp, where you get a premie in there and say, "All right! Now go up there and give them Knowledge and you do this and you do that, and all right - now you are an initiator." And the initiator goes out and has problems of his own.

But that's not the way initiators are, and that's not the way initiators should be made. So I'm trying to get that underway, to take care of that.

Other things are happening in this Mission; other things are happening. This organization really is a tool, this really is a channel, and this channel is there for all of us to use. And all of us put together can really make this flourish, can really make this happen. And if we take away our energy, then it just doesn't function, because the whole thing is based upon premies. The whole thing is functioning because of premies and Guru Maharaj Ji.

And so, premies, we just have to come back together and do it, just do it again - in terms of your own determination to make it even stronger than it has been. And it has been very strong for some premies. But I'd like to see that determination very, very strong for all of the premies, so that we can really truck through, through everything, with the Grace, and really realize what we are here for. Because that's the whole, that's the whole ball game.

I'm going to be doing a tour of America in 1977, and there's going to be hopefully more satsang programs in between, and hopefully the other brothers and sisters around the world will be able to take advantage of the big festivals, in terms of Hans Jayanti and stuff.

I just want to see it all happen, and I want to see it all happen right. And I want to see everything flourish, and I want to see people realize. And I want to see everybody being benefited from this greatest gift.

Because this greatest gift, really, is so incredible that nobody - not even me - can sing the glory of this Holy Word, can sing the glory of this Knowledge. It's so incredible; it's so incredible. But we can realize it, and that's what we have to do: We have to realize it, and realize it now.

So premies, I don't know when I'll be seeing you next. It'll be 1977. That's not too far away. And let's see if you can really pull together in that time. Really pull together. I mean, not go a notch up and down on the belt. But really yank it tight, and really do it.

I'll be seeing you very soon, and I love you. Bless you all. Thank you very much.

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