Maharaji: Questions and Answers, Vancouver Canada, February 1986

His speeches were not written or prepared but they are certainly not unrehearsed. The speeches preceding his current one are the rehearsals and his speeches following evolve gradually using the same store of tales, premie gossip, clichés, life events, recent tv shows, stock phrases and buzzwords.

IN VIEW
VANCOUVER / FEBRUARY 1986
Prem Rawat for merly Guru Maharaj JiDistinguished Looking Premie
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

You are offering an experience apparently of direct perception of reality or something like that. I'm trying to figure out what it is we are talking about.

What I'm offering is a means to be able to go inside and have the experience that already exists of something that's inside. I wish I didn't have to say 'something.' I have racked my head to come up with a name.

For a second, just imagine that you're thirsty. Now let's get into it. Beautiful Danish crystal with H20. Hydrogen. Oxygen. Clear. Colorless. Odorless. Now how many of you that are thirsty have gotten your thirst quenched? By just the description? It would be hard.

I don't know if you can understand my own difficulty. I would love for you to be able to correlate it, but there is nothing that I have come across for which I can say, "Oh, it's just like that." The comments we get are, "I couldn't have even dreamed something like that existed." Some of these comments come from people who have tried everything, who have really tried everything.

You have stumbled onto something a little different, and maybe you won't be able to correlate it. Maybe you will. Keep an open mind. Stay open with it. There is a lot of exploration that goes on simultaneously as we are trying to digest what this Knowledge is. It is a very fun process.

So, it's more or less a spiritual thing?

No, it's more of a practical thing. Spirit is a very vague word to people. There is a little drawer called spiritual. All the things on the table that don't belong in any other drawer, just lump them together, open this drawer, and shove them in.

It's a very practical experience, something we can experience now. And we have a control over it in a practical sense as well–how much we experience it, if we want to experience it.

One thing is true. It doesn't matter how I describe it and how many times I describe it. We really can't nail it on the head until you experience it.

How does one go about experiencing this? I don't get the gist of it. You keep saying you have to experience it. Well, to me, that means that I sit down and I wait. I wait on something to happen.

There are people here who are very specifically trained in helping you through that process. It's not one of those things where you just have to sit there, close your eyes, and hope–here it comes, here it comes. It's much more specific than that.

They hold sessions where you can come, and you can ask questions. When you feel that you are interested, and you feel that you would like to go ahead with it, then the tools are transferred. Not physical tools, of course, but …

What are the tools?

There are basically four tools that are given. They are techniques that you can use to be able to go inside yourself.

Can you tell me exactly what the techniques are? Are they written techniques, or just something …

No, no. They are practical techniques, and they are practically demonstrated to you after you have decided this is the …

Personally, I would like it to be more explicit rather than go through this whole process. It isn't quite fair to someone like myself that's never heard of this. How will I know I am ready?

I can sense the frustration in you because you want to grab it. You want to grab it, take a look at it, and say what is it? It kind of looks like this; it kind of looks like that.


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IN VIEW
VANCOUVER / FEBRUARY 1986

Prem Rawat for merly Guru Maharaj Ji Well, it's no different than when you start high school, is it? Because when things start coming, at first they don't make a lot of sense. You sit there, and it's frustrating. I totally sympathize with you how frustrating an experience it can be. But as you go along, even what is being said starts to make sense. And the frustration starts to go away.

We are not trying to be vague. Look at it as an evolution rather than a revolution. Revolution would be "Pow, this is it." And then, "Huh, what happened?"

But to be able to explore within yourself where you are and evolve. Let there be an evolution. Because there is a very distinct difference between an evolution and a revolution. Evolution is ongoing. It goes on. It doesn't stop. Revolution is very abrupt. When the purpose is done, it's over. Life isn't a revolution. It's an evolution.

So then I'm never really going to know about it until I actually experience it t That's basically it? You have to participate to know?

You're right. Yes.

I appreciate the simplicity that you have. I found it very irritating at first that you seemed to be going round and round and not quite getting to what questioners want –a point, wrapped up in a package, and saying, "Thanks, that's nice. It's got a label." But I appreciate it now.

I see that it's difficult to talk about it, and I think that I appreciate the fact that it's commonplace. By that, I mean that it's a place that's common to us all. I like that. What I still would like to know quite simply is–I don't want to be told exactly which shovel, what tool, and so on–but is it an element of meditation that is the process by which you reach it?

It's very easy for people to call it meditation, and sometimes people do. But for most practical purposes, there is very little in it that resembles meditation in the traditional sense. Sometimes one thinks of meditation as having to do with a cross-legged posture and so on, and that's not quite necessary.

That's fine. Thank you. And thank you for not putting it into a mystic balloon.

Oh, I try very hard. I want to be here. There's no difference, I feel, between me and anyone sitting here. I'm learning, you're learning, we're all learning. There's a beautiful interaction that takes place…

This Knowledge. I really want it badly. Can I get it myself, or do I have to depend on other people like instructors to give it to me? Don't I have the tools within me to find it myself?

You have the experience within you. The gold is in you. Tools we provide.

So I have to go to these people to get those tools?

Only if you want to.

But I want to. That's just it, I want to.

If somebody told me that I have a gold mine, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to digest the idea. Maybe I'm in rags. I'll celebrate. Maybe it won't be champagne, but I'm going to kick back and take off my torn shoes. And digest it.

At one point, it is just, "I want it. Do it, fill me up." In yourself, you come to a place that your request isn't just words; it goes a bit beyond words. It goes into feeling. Maybe that will be a time when you even have a little acceptance in your own self. "Give it or not, I'm here." When that happens, the celebration comes. The heart starts to get filled; there is a real acknowledgment of something.

You know the bud? It will one day open to be a flower. And there will be a point when the flower will be beautiful, but from the bud until the flower, it's all beautiful. Isn't it? Those petals that are closed are beautiful. Those petals that are open are beautiful, too. One by one by one, it opens.

You are taking more steps than you think, and getting closer than you think. Let it happen. It's happening. Enjoy its sweetness. It's sweet, very sweet.

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