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I'm not here to try to point out all the problems of the world, because there are too many. But, despite all the problems, all the things that are wrong, there are some things that are really, really good. Despite all the ugliness, there is something very, very beautiful. Despite all the mistakes, there is one thing that is perfect. And that perfection, that beauty, is in you.
There are people who like to point out all the problems, and in a way, I'm glad they do. But I think there should be some people who point out the good, the beautiful, because this life, despite all the problems, is beautiful. And sometimes, caught up in our troubles, our turmoil, our ideas, our concepts, we forget what we have been given.
Who are we? Are we just the sum of all the things that happen around us? Are we just people who wake up in the morning and realize our responsibilities, "I have to do this, I have to do this"? Or is there something more, something inside each human being that wants to smile, to be thankful, to feel gratitude, to feel joy?
I speak from my own experience. I have responsibilities. There are good days, and there are bad days. In the good days, I want to be happy. I want to feel peace. I want to feel connected to myself. Then there are the bad days. And even then, I just want to be happy.
Nobody can explain happiness. You know what it is. It isn't just smiling or laughing or a time of day when you become happy. Happiness comes because you feel good. We think it is feeling happy about something—our child graduates from college; we win a lottery ticket; we get a promotion. We think our happiness is associated with all these things.
There is only one person who can make you happy, and it happens to be a person you know very little about. Strange. You know about your friends, other people—your associates, your colleagues—but very little about yourself, who you are. And you are that one person who can make you very happy.
I see people driving on the highways honking their horns, yelling, screaming. Somehow I get the feeling that they don't really think life is important. They just want to get to where they're going. I want you to take a moment and understand something—that your life is incredibly important.
You're not a number. You're not a name. You are more than the sum of all your goods and bads. So many people live in fear. But there is a place inside of you that cannot have fear, where you can feel freedom. When somebody has to tell me I am free, I'm not free.
We have our formulas. Happiness has nothing to do with formulas. "This plus this, minus this, equals happiness." Either you feel happiness or you don't. Either you feel joy in your life or you don't.
What do you feel in your life? Because this life is the stage where peace will dance, where happiness will sing a song for you. This life holds promise after promise after promise, gift after gift after gift for you.
I have been watching spring coming. Ah, it is so beautiful to watch spring come. Right outside my office at home, there is a tree, and in the winter, it shed every leaf, down to just bare branches. And then slowly but surely, spring began to come, and not a day was wasted for those green shoots to start appearing. This I call dedication. This I call life. This I call "the grand miracle." If that tree was human, it would say, "Why are we doing this? Winter will come again, and I will have to shed these leaves again. So forget this—just hibernate."
It is not logic, but something that transcends logic. Love is not logical. These little shoots wait and wait. They can't forecast the weather. They don't think: "These two days are warm, but then the next two days it's going to rain again, so just wait." No. For them, it is: "Here it is. The warmth has come. The sun is shining. The temperature is right. Let's go." And as tender and delicate as those shoots are, even with two days of cold and rain, they keep on going. There is a drive that is more powerful. And this scene plays out for billions of trees every year.
Your spring has come. It is time to reach within and allow the hope for peace in your life to resurface, to see the good, to understand that good, to once again know and to once again say yes to what you have ignored for so long—you.
Prem Rawat
in Maharaji: Life, Maharaji: Peace Permalink
Recently, someone was asking me about being kind. He was frustrated in his life and wanted to become a "better person." I told him, "Don't try to be a better person, because you already are. The kindness that you want to feel, you have. Ask a farmer how they prepare the field. It's not by frustration. When you get frustrated, you have the want, the desire, but you don't know what to do with it. So, prepare the field."
You're the field. Prepare it. How? Whatever you do most in your life, you will become good at it. Maybe you are good at being frustrated. If you practice this the most, you will become very good at it. So instead, start practicing kindness.
To practice kindness, just become a little more conscious.When you're going to talk to somebody, first think, "Who am I talking to?" Many times parents really want to tell their children, "I love you," but that's not what comes out. Instead they say, "Why did you do that? Why can't you be like this? I've told you so many times..." What they really want to say is, "I love you."
Being conscious has many benefits. I know this because when I am not conscious, I say things that I regret. So I'm not coming to you as an expert. I'm coming to you as a person who has a lot of experience.
Consciousness. This is your life. Don't let circumstances run your life; you run your life—what you want, how you want to be. Do you want to be angry? Sometimes it is good to be angry. Sometimes you want to be kind.
You are like a painter. There are many colors on your palette. You don't have to use only one. It's your life. Kindness is in you. Unconsciousness is in you, and consciousness is in you. The only thing you need is to take a moment to be conscious. This is easy to do. Just take a little moment before you do something and think, "What is it I am about to do? What is it that I want to do? I'm going to have this conversation—how do I want to feel afterwards?"
These are little things that you can do. And of all the little things you can do, the easiest one is just to take a little time.
What about the "reality" of all the things you have to do? That's not reality—that's fiction. To me, there's no difference between thinking about all the things you have to do and thinking there was a monster in the closet when you were little. There's no monster in your closet. Do all the things you have to do have to be done now? Maybe you wake up at 6:00 in the morning, and the office doesn't open till 9:00. But you think, "I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this."
Take a little time to be conscious. It only takes fraction of a second. If you are in the cockpit of an airplane, you don't want to be unconscious and hit the wrong switch. Hitting the right switch just takes a fraction of a second. And if you want to be conscious, it only takes a fraction of a second to think, "What am I about to do?"
Kindness is in you. You don't have to create kindness. There's more kindness in you than you can possibly imagine. There's more love in you than you can possibly imagine.
Why should you be kind? When you are kind, it makes you feel good. A lot of people want to be kind so that people will approve of them. But when you are kind, it makes you feel good. A very good incentive. And it's very contagious.
You want to be kind? Be kind to you. Yes, people get angry and this and that, but you need to forgive and to forgive yourself. This is where kindness begins. If you cannot be kind to yourself, being kind to other people is arbitrary. We all make mistakes and will continue to make them. If we did not make mistakes, we would not be able to learn from them. But we need to learn from them and move forward, whatever it takes. As long as you learn from them, making mistakes is not a problem.
So, you have kindness; you have everything you need. Practice it. And what you practice, you will become good at. It's very simple. It really is.
Prem Rawat
