Prem Rawat aka Maharaji The Perfect Master, Lord Of The Universe And Teacher Of The Possibility Of Peace

"We have Knowledge. We have the source of peace. We couldn't be more fortunate. It's like in the middle of the desert where everybody's crying, 'Water! Water! Water!' every one of us is sitting under a waterfall, How fortunate can we be?"

are doing this and we are doing that …" a lot of political things, a lot of getting together and so on and so forth. But to me, through my own practical experience, there is only one way and this one way is through Knowledge.

When I was in school, I was the monitor of my class. It was a different kind of class. I was a different kind of monitor in that I didn't go around scolding every kid. I didn't go around constantly telling them to shut up. But, in fact, I said, "Okay, listen. Do whatever you want to do as long as you keep quiet and do what is in line with your education."

And that was fine with them. That was great. Possibly they were writing things that they wanted to do, finishing their homework for the next period. But I understood that it was love that kept my class so neat and clean. It was love, not authoritarianism, not authority, not being such a person who thumped them out. But it was true love that really kept them together, that made them understand what I wanted them to do.

In the same way, premies, the whole unity of this world is liable to fall apart. This world is unified and existing right now in the shape and the way it is existing - and I believe this world is existing right now because of love. I think there is still enough love left between human beings that we are still pulling together, that we are still going, that still something is happening.

But that is not the only answer. The love that is holding mankind together right now, to say it in right terms, is literally deteriorating. Because the mind that man has is far ahead of him. The kind of mind that is affecting mankind today is so strange that it is actually beating him at his own game. And this is what is happening. Man has reached so far, that he doesn't even know where he began from. Because actually he takes great interest in finding out where he began from. Why? What is the reason? Why has mankind today gone back and researched how civilization was, how people came together, what was the kind of rule, what was the kind of answer? And of course, all of us are interested in the teachings of the past Perfect Masters: Jesus, Krishna, Mohammed, and the other saints that have been in the past. Why? Because we have lost touch with our base. And we are lost now. And the only way we think we can gain our base back again is to explore, to find out where the door is.

It's like having a glass room where even the door looks like glass. The door is slammed shut, the blindfold is put on you, and you don't know where you are, where you came from, and where you're going to go. And then you just try to figure it out, you try to touch every glass, you try to open every door that's possible for you. And this is what a lot of people are trying to do. They're trying to search. It's a constant search.

But the problem with that searching is - it's good. The intention behind that searching is good. They want to know what is Truth, what is reality. But the way people are proceeding today to find that reality is absolutely wrong. Because that is not the way that they're going to find it. That is where man has made his mistake.

Because this is not the first time that mankind has made this mistake. This is a mistake that has been made repeatedly. The Bible is a witness, Gita is a witness, Koran is a witness, and all the scriptures are witness to the fact that when a Perfect Master came and offered a way - an easy way - of realization, that it was either refused or put down. But now is the time for all of us to really get together and understand what is the true possibility of actually getting together as brothers and sisters - as mankind - and proceeding towards the real goal of this life - realization of the perfectness, realization of this Knowledge. And this is what we have to really understand.

You see, times and ages have passed, and the whole history is just like a big pendulum. It starts from one point, goes all the way to the other point, stops there for a second, and then goes right back up again. This is happening and you can see, time and time again, that this is exactly the way history repeats itself. I'm seeing that this is exactly what's happening. Mankind started from a great search, great enthusiasm, and is turning back to that spiritual life, to what is purity, to the realism, to what is real in this life.

Because today, we face such an artificial life, such a fake life, that reality is a very precious thing to us. Why? Because we've forgotten. We have lost touch with base so long that we really don't know what reality is. How does reality really exist? What does reality really mean? What is real? And today, the greatest question asked is, "Who is God?" Simply, the reason why is because that is real.

What is real is a big question for us, while it used to be an answer for mankind at one time. It was meant to

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be an answer for mankind. It was meant to be a support for mankind to base himself upon reality because he was a product of reality. His origin is in reality. But today, is that the way we see ourselves? No. Because our thinking, our mentality, our reactions - everything has changed so much that the Truth that is everywhere, that is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, has become the object of a big search.

It's like a mother who takes her finger and tells the child to hang on to it. And as long as the child is holding on, everything is fine. He doesn't even care. Because he just looks around and he wanders and he just looks and looks and, "I want that and I want this and I want that." He doesn't even care. There's so much security, there's so much understanding within him, that his mother is there, that his security is there.

But all of a sudden, he finds himself looking at this one item that he very much likes and very much intends to have and turns around to his mother and says, "Mama, I want this."

But when he turns around, to his own surprise, mama isn't there. It doesn't exist. And that's the way we are. That's the way it has become for mankind. It was there and we wandered from one thing to the other thing. Well, at one time we said …

Okay, I'll give you more examples. Man starts off as a little child. Looking at Hans: he's very calm, he's very beautiful. All he needs is his life support system. All he needs pretty much is to breathe, to have milk, to be secure and to be comfortable in the diaper. He needs to be changed every time he gets wet. That's all he wants. That's all there is to him.

It's the same way with Premlata, too. That's all she wanted when she was a little baby. Now she's growing. Premies have been sending so many gifts and toys to her. It's beautiful. She looks around and she sees all the toys. "I want this and I'll play with this." And she plays with it and then she throws it away. In the residence she has little places where she stores all her toys, and every morning she has to go there, pull her toys out, and play with them. She plays with something else and she throws it away. Then she leaves and the premies come and put all the toys back. That's a baby's schedule pretty much. That's all - play, play, play. And sleep and eat.

And there's a lot of difference between Hans and Premlata (while they were both the same at the time). And then look around at people and there's an extravagant amount of difference between Premlata and them, where all that desire - everything - has been magnified, everything has been multiplied, so enormously, that the contentment isn't just worth crying; where I know when Premlata doesn't get something, she'll cry it out. She gets what she wants pretty much - she's hardly a crying baby. But sometimes when she gets mad over something, she'll just cry it out and it's fine.

But, to me, man grows up. He doesn't cry anymore. It's not worth it. To Premlata, that's worth it. Cry it out and she's fine. She doesn't even know what she wants. She doesn't care. But today, for man, that's not worth it to him. That's not what he wants. It's not crying. It's pursuit. He'll pursue that goal that he has made until he has it. And by doing all this, we are just looking at different areas of the world, saying, "Maybe this is better. Maybe this is better."

When you come to this part of the world, it really reminds me of something like India. I've been to a lot of places in South America. I've been to Lima, Bogota, to Buenos Aires, to Brazil. I've been to a lot of places here. It reminds me - it's a different part of the world - nobody can say it's the same thing. But people's pursuit is exactly the same. Maybe people in America want to go to Mars. Well, they have gone to Mars. Maybe people have pursued going to the moon. Well, they have gone to the moon. (Maybe here it's on a slower scale, smaller scale.) Or people in America want to buy the new cars because the 1977 cars are coming out. So they are in pursuit of buying the 1977 cars. While in Lima, 1975 will do pretty good.

Pursuit - quality of pursuit, weight of pursuit, volume of pursuit - is identical. Maybe in America or Western countries, we go out and we want to buy suits. But in India, you want to buy a dhoti and a kurta and a jacket. The value of pursuit, intention and rate, are identical. But the option at the end is different.

So let us look at ourselves. And then, it's like we go through all of the things in the whole world - everything - because to a poor man, it's, "Oh, wow. If I had this, this, and this, I would be happy." And the rich man goes, "If I didn't have this, and this and this, I would be happy." They are both trying to be happy. But you see, after all this mental goose-chase that people have all their lifetime, they decide, "Now wait a

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minute. Maybe peace, maybe Truth, is worth something." And that's it. That is the conclusion that they come to.

This is a fact. Because there's so many people who are pursuing that fact. How? Maybe a lot of people are not going around shaving their heads. Maybe a lot of people are not going around wearing kurtas and visiting India. But happiness is their pursuit. Happiness is what they want. That is why man today gets up at a certain hour and works all day. For what? Is it going to make him live longer? Is that the reason he works all day long? Actually it shortens his life span.

So finally he decides, "Well, maybe I want happiness out of all things. So to me happiness is …" and he makes his list. "Okay, I'd like to have this particular kind of home, this particular kind of car, this particular kind of wife, this particular kind of child, this particular kind of job and this particular kind of faith, and if I can have all this, it will be my happiness."

So, for instance, he says, "I want so-and-so's house, Mr. Spans' job. I want Mr. Ribbon's car. I want Mr. Jones' pay and I want so-and-so's wife and so-and-so's kid."

But the fact is, if you were to bring all those people together - Mr. Ribbon, Mr. Joe Doe, everybody - and bring that one person and ask him to ask all these people who have come together if they are happy, most definitely, they will not be happy. Because that kind of happiness is superficial. That is happiness. But it's not the happiness that you are looking for. It is superficial. It's cosmetic. It is fake.

It's the kind of happiness where you would expect that when you're driving a Cadillac, people would look at you and go, "Wow, what kind of car he's driving!" That is cosmetic happiness. It's for show. Maybe you find the president of a big corporation who thinks, "Most definitely I'm going to be an influential person and all these people are going to come on their knees to me and maybe I'll do this kind of favor for them." Cosmetic.

So what is man doing? He's putting on a grand show. And just talking to IHQ members, I told them that everybody puts on a grand show. We have become so unrealistic in our lifetime that everyday we get up, we have to put on a certain kind of perfume, use a certain kind of toothpaste, have a certain kind of suit, a certain kind of this and a certain kind of that. For what purpose? Everybody has to differ.

I have seen two people wear the same suits in an airplane. One person will take off his jacket so that it doesn't resemble the other guy's suit. I've seen two people wear the same kind of watch. One will take it and turn it around. I have seen people decorate their interiors. They'll do everything identical, except change one thing. For what reason?

It's all a cosmetic show. It's all for a show. Because

Prem Rawat aka Maharaji The Perfect Master, Lord Of The Universe And Teacher Of The Possibility Of Peace

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the real reason is gone out of our lives. So we try to put on a big show.

Let's forget that for an instant and come to reality. Imagine what that look is. Let's forget our cosmetic shows. Let's forget our superficial dreams and realize what we are doing on this Earth. Why are we here?

Because man has really advanced. He has explored. He has investigated. He has searched. They didn't bring Apollo out of the moon. They brought it out of here. Every resource, every technology, everything - was right out of here.

to me, it's like you take this paper and take this glass and put it on top of this paper and it looks different. You take that rose out of that vase and you put it on the table and it looks different. You take this microphone and you turn it around and it looks all different. That was just changed - from one structure to another structure. You take metal - it's in one structure in the Earth's core - you pull it out, make it go through some chemical changes and it becomes something else. And make it go through some more changes and it becomes something else. You pull it out of there; you put paint on it. You make that go through some chemical change. You spray a car and spray Apollo … everything is just right out of there.

To me, we could have always done that. And actually, in trying to witness the changes, in trying to see some of the things that have been mentioned in the Bhagavad Gita - the kinds of tools they used - it's simply quite amazing. Because the kind of tools that existed at that time would beat out any kind of tool that exists now.

So the problem is that it is not what we have achieved in this world, the problem is what we have forgotten. This is what we have to remember. What we have achieved isn't a great matter at all. Because to whom does that credit go? To nobody. Except one Person, the Creator. He created us and gave us the intelligence to be able to create anything else. And after we give the credit for creating such a pattern, creating such a thing, even still the credit goes to the Almighty because He's sustaining it in that form. He can destroy it just like that. So the point is, not what we have achieved, but what have we brought out. And what we have forgotten in all of our adventures, in all of our research, in all of our patterns, is the reality. A way, a method, how to touch base, how to make that contact.

That is the most important thing, to me. And this is why, when we receive Knowledge, there is such a change in people's lives. Sometimes people receive Knowledge and they have a very nice experience. Then they go back home and two days later, all of a sudden, just like a big demolition grenade, he pulls the pin on it and five seconds later it blows up. "Fine. Yeah. I have received Knowledge. Yes, it's great."

All of a sudden - zap! - you realize something. "Wow. Wait a minute. This isn't another trip. This isn't just another adventure that I have gone through. This is reality that I just came into. This one I didn't go through. This one I was brought home to."

That's when the beauty begins. That's when the understanding begins. That's when the love begins. Because what they want in this world is love. But there's a little bit of difference. Because the love that premies experience is a little more real, has a much more solid bond to it, has a much more solid core to it, is a lot more substantial than a love where people can say, "Oh yes, I'm in love with this person." And then days later you find they're getting a divorce.

What happened to their love? It flew out the door, out the window. But the love that we experience is true, is genuine. It's got the base. And the origin of that love is Knowledge.

Let us not forget. To me, the most important thing is satsang, service, and meditation. Sounds like the same old rhythm, same old saying. Well, if it is the same old saying to you, then it's the same old thing inside of you which is making you tick. So let's not forget it. And let us proceed in it.

A lot of premies just say, "Well, I do satsang, service, and meditation, but I have a lot of problems." I was talking to an initiator in America. I said, "How many premies do you really think do one hour of meditation?" Because in your recommendation, it says that it should be at least, at least (that's what it says, at least) one hour of meditation. I said, "How many premies do you think do an hour of meditation?"

And he said, "Well, as far as I know, everybody does about an hour's worth of meditation."

I said, "That shows our curiosity, our great effort, that we are making towards this Knowledge." How? It says "the least." And that's what we do. Not a little bit more. The least of the standard is what we comply to, just one hour. "Over an hour is too much meditation. Under an hour, it's okay."

What do you think? I mean, you have to understand something. Imagine. Just try to feel in your own life how far we have come, how far we have drifted from our original base, from that reality. If it is only a little distance, I'd say, "That's fine. An hour's worth of meditation. Take a dustcloth every time you go to the ashram, show you're doing this for everybody. That much service. Go down to satsang and fall asleep. That's fine."

But this is not the distance that we have. Literally, if I tried to show you the distance, I would have to be like a rubberband, to be able to extend my arms infinitely to show how really we have lost touch with our base.

Premies, we have to try. It is our effort. This Knowledge is Truth. This Knowledge is real. But we have to put in our own effort. It is our share that we have to put in. Not somebody else. Not an initiator, not your community coordinator, not your regional coordinator, not Guru Maharaj Ji. We have to put in our own effort as individuals to come closer and closer to that realization, to that understanding.

A lot of people have huge concepts. They have this extreme idea that, "Oh, maybe the realization of Knowledge is that we'll be sitting down in meditation one day and whammo! Our spine will lift out of our head. There will be a little sun right behind our head. Nobody will be able to see us and we'll be able to see everybody."

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Prem Rawat aka Maharaji The Perfect Master, Lord Of The Universe And Teacher Of The Possibility Of Peace

To me, those people are on the right vehicle but on the wrong flight. They're on the right plane. Yes, it is a 747 that takes you there. But they're on the wrong flight. They're going to the other part of the world. Their effort may be sincere. But it's going the wrong way. It's going to an imagined experience. It is going towards that experience that they have imagined. So what you are fulfilling in your life by doing meditation is the imagination, not the purpose that you actually want to realize Knowledge, that you want to experience Knowledge. Because the experience of Knowledge is as intimate and as constant and as flowing as you are living right now, as your life goes on.

So premies, there's so much to say and I've said it so many times. But let's not forget one thing. Satsang, service and meditation. This satsang, service and meditation that we do is not for Guru Maharaj Ji. This satsang, service and meditation that we do is not a cosmetic thing. This satsang, service and meditation that we do is not for other people. It is for ourselves. So why should other people be a hindrance? When it is not for them, when they are not going to get credit for that thing, why should other people be a hindrance? Why should other people be the reason we don't do satsang, service and meditation? No. It's us. It is ourselves. It is our trial, it is our effort that is going to bring us closer and closer to the experience and realization of this Knowledge.

There are a number of things that we can do. There's a lot of premies that are really getting involved in community activities. There are a lot of premies getting involved in this and that, just with the Mission. And that's okay. That's fine, getting involved in the community. That's fantastic. I'm all for it. But I'm also all for doing satsang, service and meditation. That is a necessity. It is the food for premies. Without that, we are no longer premies, we are no longer the people who have tied into that true love, the true love which is real. This is our food - satsang, service and meditation.

A lot of people are getting so involved in their communities these days that it's becoming some kind of political issue. I don't really know how to express this, but they're getting involved in such a way that it is detrimental to them. They're not getting involved in the community for its purpose. They're getting involved in the community for some other purpose. But they're not coming as brothers, they're not really coming as people who just come together, who are premies.

What does premie mean? Lover. We are lovers. We have understood Knowledge. We have one Guru Maharaj Ji. We have the same Knowledge and we all come together in a community to share that experience, to share that love, to share that enjoyment that we have to share. Because that is beautiful. That is very precious.

Sometimes we start saying, "Oh, tonight I missed my dinner, so tonight I miss satsang. It doesn't matter. I've got a lot more to attend to."

Well, that's one way of looking at it, but maybe not the correct way of looking at it. To me, that's not the way it goes. It is very, very precious because it has to do with something which sustains me, which is what life is all about. So if you start putting your life away - the life source, that realization for which you are here - then what is the purpose of humans in the world anyway? If you can put aside your goal, if you just say, "Forget it. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. Not day after tomorrow." Then you tell me, what is the purpose, the purpose that this body has been given to us?

This has all come too easy for us. This is too easy. Everything that we have these days is super easy. Punch a button and this happens. Punch a button and that happens. I'm interested in electronics sometimes and I have watched since I first came to the United States, to the West, till now, "Wow. It's just really happening."

Because I remember in India, we had a turntable and you cranked it up and it took these needles - like pins - that you inserted in, you screwed in and put it on the record. And the speaker was built right on the arm. There were no electronics because it didn't need any electricity. It was simply vibrations.

Then I remember I was really excited. We got this turntable which had a little switch on it and it took a 90-volt battery and you wouldn't have to crank it or anything. It even had a speaker built into it. It even had a volume control and a tone control.

It went on and on and then I came to America and I looked at these things called record changers. It was fascinating for me. You stack up all your records, turn it on, play one side, it drops the record, plays the next one, and drops the next record. Great. I took one to India with me. (It blew up, didn't last very long.)

I watched this happen and now they have come to a stage where it's totally remote control. You don't even have to touch it by hand. You put your record on and you punch into this little gadget what number song you want to play. If you want the fifth song, you put "five-play" and the needle gets up and goes exactly to the fifth song and drops down, plays the fifth song and comes right back up. You can punch twenty-four songs in it, in any sequence you want. Last one first or first one last. Twenty-four times and it'll keep on doing it and then it'll turn right off and that's it.

I've watched all this happen. I very distinctly remember the first camera I had was this little box camera. It had this little thing in it. You'd look at it and it was really funny. You just guessed. And the way I would take my picture was - to be sure to get the picture - I would move my camera to all the settings possible. So for one picture, I would take twelve pictures in all different settings to make sure that one would turn out.

From that time, look at where we are now. And this step up has happened very, very recently. All you have to do is just be able to look through it - and they're coming out with a camera which even focuses automatically - and press the button. And that's it. I'm pretty sure they're going to come out with a camera where you just look through it, blow in it, and it will

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Prem Rawat aka Maharaji The Perfect Master, Lord Of The Universe And Teacher Of The Possibility Of Peace

take a picture.

Since the time that I have come, I've seen all this progress happen. I've also seen the state of unhappiness rise to an extreme. People are unhappy. In America, the big thing was, "Let's get this Vietnam war over with, then everybody will be happy." Yes, the Vietnam war is over. And who's happy?

I remember when that gas crisis came to America. Your gasoline was rationed and everybody was saying, "Well as soon as this gas crisis is over, everybody will be happy." The gas crisis is over. At least you can go to the gas station peacefully and get gas. And that hasn't done anything for peace.

When are we going to realize that that has nothing to do with peace? That has to do with running your car. And your car has something to do with taking you to your office. Your office has something to do with money and money has something to do with your stomach. Period. That is not the solution. That is not the answer.

To me, it doesn't matter. If you look at clothes, I want to wear clothes because I want shelter on my body, not because I want to wear clothes for peace. That is what I don't understand. Development is development. Guns are guns. And so on and so forth. They might be pertaining to a particular subject and let's look at them that way, not under the false pretense that they are for peace. Because they cannot bring peace. Peace is peace. Peace is reality. A little understanding is what is going to bring real peace.

Let us look at all these examples that we have and take them. Why do we have to wait for another example? Why do we have to wait for the pendulum to come right back again and hit us on the head? There's no necessity for that.

So this is the time. And then, how fortunate are the premies. I couldn't explain that. They're so extremely fortunate that in this time when everything is dingdong … Who knows? Somebody might get freaked out in the morning and blow up half the world.

And the whole situation is really funny. We have Knowledge. We have the source of peace. We couldn't be more fortunate. It's like in the middle of the desert where everybody's crying, "Water! Water! Water!" everyone of us is sitting under a waterfall. How fortunate can we be? Not only is water there, but you're sitting right under it and it's pouring right on you.

And this opportunity is available to everybody. One saint once said that it made him laugh to hear that fish are thirsty in the water. It made him laugh. And it makes me laugh that on this occasion here the opportunity is all there, it's all around us and we are not utilizing the best of it but we are screaming that we are confused.

Confusion is something that we have invited upon ourselves. Confusion is the absence of what there is. And this is what we have to realize. It's like a ghost. It doesn't even really exist. It's an absence in itself.

So premies, let us all come together and take advantage of this opportunity that has been presented to us. Let us take great advantage and let us take time to thank Guru Maharaj Ji and thank this Knowledge for what it has brought us and for what it promises us.

Thank you very much.

Prem Rawat aka Maharaji The Perfect Master, Lord Of The Universe And Teacher Of The Possibility Of Peace

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