Birthday Party 1980 Satsang Transcript, 10/12/1980
On Christmas Day 1980 Prem Rawat, (then known as Guru Maharaj Ji) gave a speech (satsang) to his followers (premies) who were working and living in Miami at that time. Many followers were involved in the DECA project which involved a total refurbishment of a second-hand Boeing 707 in accordance with Prem Rawat's orders, including the installation of a gold plated toilet. There was much laughter from the crowd, far more than the speech deserved. He was rambling, revealing his deliberate poor organising, waiting until "the very last last of the moment and it was like it was really getting down to the wire" before he approved the function. He also revealed his cynicism, the premies were fed cheaply on canned vegetables. In this talk Prem Rawat discusses the importance of the Perfect Master, the imperative need to have faith in Guru Maharaj Ji, the current Perfect Master (himself) and the imperative need to have faith in faith in Guru Maharaj Ji and that through faith and devotion to him comes salvation. He says every single good experience is given by Guru Maharaj Ji but premies must have belief and faith in him. Although he claims that Knowledge is impeccable, infinite, incredible and ultimate he still complains about the mundane TV programs he watches. Rawat's speeches can only be understood in their true awfulness by listening to them but the poor audio quality of the tape I have recording this event precludes making it available.
Guru Maharaj Ji's Birthday
December 10, 1980
Miami Beach, Florida
Bhajan sung by Mahatma Gurucharanand: I Can Leave the Whole World But I Will Never Leave You
(Confusion, cheering) So you know just I feel it's a chance for all of us to have ice-cream and cake (cheers, laughter). That's all folks. (Laughter) So actually it's a chance for us to to come together and just be able to enjoy something that's happening within inside because celebration or no celebration, an occasion on no occasion, uh a party and no party, now to me it's like um just a few moments ago you know Wadi was getting dressed and she was putting her lipstick on and she was putting her makeup on and everything and her mum just said "She's really uh Wadi you look really pretty." I said "Uh yeah because she is pretty." I said "Uh you know if she isn't pretty she couldn't make herself look pretty" and sometimes it is very much like that for all of us too that we go out and we try to create an environment that'll probably bring us that we hope that will bring us something but until there is something really inside to light that fire nothing can manifest. If there is nothing inside to generate that particular inspiration no outwardly motive, no outwardly thing is going to hold it there. No outwardly thing is going to express it and no matter how hard we try to just bring ourselves about for a celebration I mean for a satsang program, same thing for a for Kansas City the same thing.
I personally had a very beautiful experience there and it was really nice because it was a chance for all of us to come together and listen and to try to understand something, maybe even try to go deeper because superficially listening to something isn't going to do us any good. It's like uh if you want to play a camera, if you just pick up a camera and start shooting pictures with it because if your attitude is really to play the camera then it doesn't make any difference if the camera has film in it or not but if your attitude, if your understanding is to really shoot something then it's very important that there be film there. Then a whole whole altogether another kind of thing takes place, an altogether other kind of thing happens from just trying to become extremely superficial and trying to plot out things, saying "Okay this is the way it is and I'm happy" or try to pin a smile on ourselves and say "Yeah, look I'm smiling."
By Guru Maharaj Ji's grace when we open up, when we make that little effort to understand, when we make that little effort to recognize because sure there's so many things going on in this world, there always have been and there always will be. Whatever age you know 20, 30, 40 years old, whatever our age is I'm sure there's a same age group of people have been saying pretty much the same kind of thing all along. "This world coming to an end." I mean I think that's the oldest statement. "The world's coming to an end, the world's coming to an end, the world's coming to an end." I wouldn't be surprised if that was the first statement made on the very first day the world was created. "The world's coming to an end, the world's coming to an end." And almost I don't know some of you may have read this book it's called the "Something's Eating the Sun" I don't know what the what the whole name of the book is but it's the most stupidest book I've ever read in my whole life (laughter) and uh I think I was travelling in a car, there was nothing to read so I reached in the diaper bag and I pulled out this book, it's a children's book you know "Something is Eating the Sun" you know and the chicken sells it to the turtle and the turtle sells it to the elephant and the elephant sells it to the lion and the lion sells it to the rat, rat sells it to the you know whatever happens it's just like yeah this is what's happening but truly for all of us an opportunity is given to us to recognize something that is more beautiful, that is more sincere, and that's more true in this world.
It sounds ???? is given for all of us to recognize that here is something that's really beautiful in this world instead of just for the day we're waiting for this world to end cause it just may not happen in our lifetime and if it doesn't happen in our lifetime then here we are, we wasted our whole life on an extremely speculative basis and we therefore very easily, and it is very easy to do, lose that focus of this life, lose that focus that we are really here to understand, to enjoy and you see that again you know when we came back from Kansas City the big question was "Well is there is there gonna be a party or not?" Because uh the last time it was really nice so it was like "Okay, well is it gonna happen this year or not?" And I didn't say anything till the very last of the moment and it was like it was really getting down to the wire and this time we had put one card ahead of ourselves, we had booked this place long time ago (laughter) and then it was really coming down to the nitty-gritty because you know everybody had to get uh moving. The stage had already been built, you'll see a lot of this stage from now on (laughter). It's here to stay I think for a few years and of course they have to make these preparations and you know who's going to do this food and what kind of food it's gonna be?
Is it gonna be cake and ice cream? You know there was the whole idea "Okay let's just have cake and ice cream and then for $.25 they can have Kool-Aid or cake (laughter) and uh I don't know the way it really involved "Okay let's get into the marinated vegetables, nobody has to make them they all come in a can" (laughter) and uh I'm sayin' all this because you've already eaten it (laughter). It's already down the Adam's apple where it doesn't make any difference (laughter) and uh you know just okay and then there was the whole question about what's gonna happen and what kind of event's there's gonna be?
Is there gonna be a skit? And that was the big question and the initiator conference for it's been goin' on for a week was there gonna be a skit? Was there gonna be a skit? And then for the last couple of days here we've been having question and answer sessions and there's so ridiculous questions that I said "That if you guys just sat down in front of the premies and didn't do anything everybody would just crackup." (Laughter) and if you started asking you know obviously started asking the questions it'd really make you crackup. But somehow in trying to even say "Yes okay let's have this" there has to be a reason. There has to be a purpose for all of it and the reason has to be obviously very simple, the reason has obviously has to be very deep, the reason obviously has to be very sincere otherwise it doesn't make any difference and everything that we see and even just this thing up coming together has to have that reason and somehow to me that reason extends beyond just getting something together but even in our life because it is the same reason.
Why do we need to live? Why do we need to come to see Guru Maharaj Ji? Or why do we need to have a birthday celebration for Guru Maharaj Ji? Or why do we need to have a dinner at a birthday party? Or why do we need to have a party at all? And simply that reason is that devotion that has to be between every premie and Guru Maharaj Ji. That understanding that has to be between every premie and Guru Maharaj Ji and that somehow every program, every festival, every little thing that happens has to evolve because of that love, because of that devotion. That somehow it cannot be that okay we're gonna walk into a hall and we're gonna have Christmas lights and we're gonna have balloons and we're gonna have a party and then we will see if we can squeeze some experience out of it but obviously it has to be the other way around. We're okay, we're gonna have a beautiful experience. You can't really touch that experience in any way but all right let's put some balloons in it you know and let's put some Christmas lights in it and let's do a little bit of this and do a little bit of that.
Get into that flow, get into that understanding because then something starts to happen, then an experience starts to manifest and that's what we want is an experience because the mundane TV. I don't see how five days a week you know every week there's gonna be Popeye on, every single day and somebody is going to watch that Popeye every single day and then every single day people are gonna wake up and watch Good Morning America or Today on NBC, both channels between the two you know and that someday I mean just the everything the way everything is laid out it's like a broken record and that's the way it is we can conform to all that somehow then it'll be all right and any little occurrence any little even the slightest little take off from that road that we adapt it means that maybe we're peculiar, maybe we're strange and yet I see that all that is completely irrelevant when we look that okay in this life when I'm having something nice am I really experiencing that fulfillingness? Am I really having something that will convince me, that's gonna bring me that happiness, that's gonna bring me that love? No.
Maybe it's just simply as simple as that and that's where my if it comes in that yes I want to have that experience, let me have it now. It doesn't make any difference, there is no quantity, nobody has a empty and a full gate(?). The question is that experience now, I have to make that effort now for my experience. I don't wanna wait, that's what every little kid tells you, wait wait wait wait wait, wait till you die then you'll get it all. My thing is now, let me have that little bit of experience now, let me make that effort now, let me be clear now, let me understand now because for every one of us there is that necessity, for every one of us there is that beautiful thing.
We come here. What can it mean? It can only mean one thing. Either you're gonna have a nice experience, either you're gonna enjoy yourself or tomorrow morning you're gonna wake up constipated. That's the only 2 things there are. And if I don't have it in me to enjoy, if I don't see that, that yes, okay, here's a gift from Guru Maharaj Ji, let me accept it. That Guru Maharaj Ji gives me Knowledge and Guru Maharaj Ji gives me so many more experiences, let me accept it, let me take that experience to my heart. Every single one is given to me by Guru Maharaj Ji. Then it's gonna mean something, then it's gonna have an effect. And yet if, if anyone of you is here just to enjoy a party, there is no party. The party is always going on, if you are waiting for a party to start, it'll never start because it's already started and if you're waiting for a party to end, it'll never end because it can't. That internal party continuously goes on, it's whether am I going to be a part, whether I am gonna be, it doesn't make any difference how big a part even though I'm gonna be the smallest fraction of that.
And somehow all of it has to be digested, all of it has to be understood. What Guru Maharaj Ji gives us is a practical experience of Knowledge in satsang, in service, in meditation. And there our acceptance of that practical experience also has to be practical. The experience that Guru Maharaj Ji gives us is instantaneous of Knowledge, of satsang, of service, of meditation. So does our response to that experience have to be instantaneous, our acceptance of that experience has to be instant has to be instantaneous. If we expect Guru Maharaj Ji to make an instantaneous response to us then we have to make that instantaneous response to Guru Maharaj Ji.
Being a devotee brings us an experience of devotion and believe me that experience of devotion is gonna be enjoyed by you, not by Guru Maharaj Ji because Guru Maharaj Ji is always enjoying that devotion. You are the one who's gonna benefit from that devotion that you're gonna have because you will be enjoying that devotion, you will be enjoying that love, you will be enjoying that peace, you will be enjoying it all and somewhere and somehow I have to exist that, I have to understand that. My response, my gratitude, my feeling, my connection, my devotion to my Guru Maharaj Ji I know has to be real. It cannot be hypothetical because living in the any kind of hypotheses like that is just a dream and when I live in a dream that one day I'm gonna wake up and I'm gonna find that it's just there for me to even have, for me to even enjoy and yet if I am open, if I am responsive to what Guru Maharaj Ji wants me to do, just to open up, just to have that devotion then it's not gonna be hypotheses, it's not gonna be living in a hypothetical world, it's gonna be a real experience.
Every minute, every moment of my life a real thing is gonna manifest for me and that's the way it has to be. Now and always that's the way it has been or maybe all of this is said or maybe many maybe many of us get dishearted, maybe for many of us it's too hard to understand but there is nothing to understand in it. It's very simple and there's no reason to reason to be dishearted, it's made for all of us, for us to experience, for us to enjoy, for us to to feel a part of. The thing that I talk about now is absolutely no different than it was centuries ago. The thing that I'm trying to convey is absolutely no different than what it's always been and yet always has been that response that has been wanted, that response that has been looked for by every single devotee to give to his Guru Maharaj Ji, that response, okay.
Because we don't have to try to create our happiness, we don't have to imagine now happiness, we don't have to try to create something nice, something wonderful, it already is there. We just have to open up that door and walk inside and it's so much for us to enjoy. Literally we won't know what to do with it. You know I know that my prayer somewhere has to be that lemme have that connection, let me stay in that connection that maybe the greatest power in front of me comes, that maybe it's like "Oh my God" and maybe my faith and maybe my belief starts to shatter but I know that is my belief and if my faith shatter what's there gonna be left of that connection and if my my connection breaks then what's there gonna be left of me? What am I then gonna expect? What am I then gonna desire? What am I then to even feel? The thing that I really want to feel and to even my greatest problem and to even my difficulties I have to let go of them and because I know that faith will for me true. I mean somehow and maybe it sounds peculiar but we have to have faith in faith because if we even lose that even lose that tiny faith in faith that we need to have to go on.
It's the principle, it's the principle of nature that one thing that feeds another. My faith feeds my devotion, my devotion feeds by connection and that connection ultimately feeds into my salvation, into my love, my life, my experience and for every of that, every part of that, it all has to be true.
For every inch of that has to be true, there cannot be any gap, there cannot be any hole. It's impeccable because it's ultimate. It's existence is just is with or without us because again it's ultimate and yet for us to enjoy that in this lifetime is also impeccable, is also infinite and it's also incredible and given that opportunity we have to accept, we have to take. So, you know, um all I can say is thank you very much for coming here umm I hope you've all enjoyed coming here, enjoyed your meal especially the gemerresan(?) They'll be departed otherwise and I just see that there's two ways of it I I I've really experienced this either this life can be chain in a series of disappointments and ugliness all this life can be a series of series of series of joy and happiness, bliss and contentment and I know that I gotta get good at it and pick the right one. I've gotta take the bliss, I know that I've gotta be my own salesman and somehow I've gotta convince myself that's what I want, that bliss, happiness and contentment not everything else because both packages come standard and I gotta pick and choose the right one. So again thank you very much for coming and blessings to all the premies. Thank you.
Bolie Shri Satgurudev Maharaj Ki Jai! Bolie Shri Satgurudev Maharaj Ki Jai!