This condensation of Rawat's speech on 8th December 1989 was considered so exceptional that it was printed and distributed to whomever.



'FEEL THE THIRST'

"Feel the Thirst" is taken and condensed from a speech Maharaji gave in Brussels in December 1989.

© 1990 ILC Productions Inc., d/b/a Visions International.

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FEEL THE THIRST

Stop if you can. Stop for a minute amidst the ongoings of your life and take a thorough look - not just a glance, but a deep hard look and question, "What's going on? Who am I? What am I? What do I want? What do I really thirst for? I am here and something urges me, pushes me, inspires me, propels me, motivates me and evolves me."

The push to become good doesn't originate from the outside. In fact, it is inherent inside each one of us. Yet, I'm using everything I've got in my life in trying to play a game. I don't even know it's a game. Nobody ever gave me a one-day break from it. Even on Sundays, I play the game. So many rules have been made; there are so many variations of the same game. As long as you're playing according to these rules - satisfying not yourself, but somebody else - then everything is okay.

Then one day the game is finished. Not because somebody said, "Okay, you won." In this game all the rules sound like you get to win, but it isn't written anywhere that you will win. You just keep playing the game. And one day this game has to stop because life comes to a grinding halt.

But there is something else going on that is so different. As a human being I can say, "I feel a thirst, and I want to be fulfilled." It's such a simple statement, but then life is simple. The magic that life holds is simple. Joy is simple. Happiness is simple. The feeling of being fulfilled is simple. None of this is complicated. It's not riddled with riddles. There are no big dilemmas. The thirst makes itself apparent. And the urge to satisfy the thirst is overwhelming.

The problem is we don't even know what we're looking for; we don't even know what we have lost. How can you look for something you don't know you have lost? Only when somebody reminds you. Only when all the other feelings for a moment are subdued and that thirst is allowed to express itself. I know everybody wants to quench it. But feel it. Feel that thirst.

Do you realize what a magic it is that you do feel the thirst? That the heart cries out, "I want to be fulfilled"? What a magic it is that from a deep place within each human being a sound finally starts to come which very simply says, "I need. I want to be fulfilled." Let this feeling be prevalent in your life. First understand that there is a thirst. Then the process of quenching it can take place.

A lot of people don't like it when I say, "This is a game." They get really cross. "What do you mean a game? Don't I have to have a house and don't I have to have a job to get a house? Don't I have to have a job so that I can keep my house? Don't I have to have a job so that I can feed everybody?" I don't say that any of that is wrong. But how caught up in the game are you?

One way to illustrate the game is the story of the man who had to go on a long journey at night. Before he left home he took a picture of a burning candle and stuffed it in his pocket, thinking that when he needed light all he would have to do is pull out the picture. But we all know that no picture of a candle will ever light anything. You need the real light, the spontaneous light. When that light shines it's such a beautiful process, because light does not create; it merely shines. The light allows the object to be illuminated, just as our heart - that space from which the thirst and cry comes - illuminates our whole life. There can be no substitutes.

We laugh at the donkey who goes around the well all day long. Poor little donkey, he's blindfolded. Yet_we human beings blindfold ourselves. And somehow in this game we have painted a whole picture inside the blindfold, and we look at it as we walk and walk. And what a surprise to have your blindfold removed and you're exactly in the same place you started from. Nothing has changed. What a surprise. "You mean I haven't been anywhere? What happened?"

When do I open my heart and feel that within me is the very joy that I have been looking for? When do I begin to realize that when I smell something good it's not the perfume, but it is the feeling inside of me that makes me feel good? That's what I want to get to. That's what I want to feel.

That's what life is all about: to recognize the real possibility that exists. To begin to unfold from within. To begin to accept that there is more and more. That's the first step.

When do I begin to be thankful? When do I step back and start to look at life as a gift, instead of waking up so recklessly every morning saying,

"Another day?" When do I - when do you - take that step back and say, "Okay, fill me. My life is important to me."

When do I choose to accept the simple challenge? To look up and within and all around me and acknowledge and smile and laugh and praise. Yes, to be fulfilled is a reality, not a dream. It is your choice to wake up to the possibilities of life, to grow in your life. Life is not a pain. Look around you. Feel that consciousness inside of you, awaken and be conscious in this life. Why not listen to yourself for once? You have alot to tell your own self. There has been somebody within you crying out for a very long time, saying things to you that you probably thought were in another language and therefore not meant for you. But it was meant for you. Why not start to listen to it? Start to accept. Start to learn that language. That will make a difference, thirst will begin to quench.