Prem Rawat Spoil Sport
If a person makes numerous, mostly impromptu speeches during which they reminiscence about their lives there are bound to be some recurring themes. Rawat takes every opportunity to disparage everything, every part of human life, "the world," that doesn't relate to Himself. He especially hates sports, mountain climbing, exercise, joggers, jogging, yoga practitioners and regularly adds little jibes about fit and healthy people and their pastimes into his speeches. These are usually a sentence or two but sometime he goes further. He also derides extreme sports and challenging pastimes like bungee jumping and hang-gliding. This is probably typical sour grapes caused by a lifetime of 5 foot high obesity.
Copenhagen 24th June 2012 So now, I would like to talk about who are we? On one hand. What we are? Nothing special, really. Listen, really, really. Swimming? No good. Walking? Not really that good. Mountain climbing? Nothing like the goats. Flying? Oh, we're bad at it.
Alexandria, Virginia Participation Event, June 17, 2000 I mean you know one day I was saying that to myself "Maybe you should try bungee jumping?" I long time ago I took this course, aircraft safety course, and it was the same course that was offered to the stewardesses and they have a mockup and you get up on this 747 mockup and you get up there and there was a slide and you spoke to jump and and the thing is how you would actually jump if there was an emergency and I'm I'm I'm afraid of heights, I really am so I'm standing up there there is a long slide down there and I'm not budging and there were people who you know who wanted to say "Come on come on come on" but the the person who is training said "No no no let him do it whenever he feels just let them do it because it's something he has to overcome no." So I'm there I'm looking down going "No way." So here's a person who's afraid of heights right and this is only the top door not the lounge door the sky lounge door of the 747, this is just the regular entry door level of the 747. People have actually jumped off of that door without the slide and survived. Here I am I had a slide and am afraid of it and one day I was sitting there actually my mind was going at it you know "Maybe you should try bungee jumping because maybe that and here is here is the rationale maybe that would help you overcome your fear of heights" and I said to myself "What's wrong with being afraid of heights?" And I said "Well there is nothing wrong with being afraid of heights, shut up!" and it did.
Brussels, 9th December 1989 I was talking to a guy once and he was really into yoga and he said "Yoga is the answer" and I said "How about a guy who has no arms and no legs what he gonna do? You mean he's had it. He can't enjoy life." Didn't think of it I guess all the people who came to him had arms and legs. I mean you know when somebody has his place call says yoga instrucsh instructions available why would a person without arm and legs wasting his time going there? He ain't going to be able to do any yoga. So what is it? Oh, eat right, eat healthy, exercise every day. That's good for your blood pressure but it doesn't touch the heart. "Oh you'll feel really good." If tomorrow all the articles started coming out saying running is really bad for you believe me all of a sudden you wouldn't feel so good. "Oh my God I've been running, does it mean I'm gonna die?" "Yeah." All of a sudden it'll be like because what there is a difference, there is a difference.
Los Angeles, 1988: it's fun to go skiing, isn't it? You get on your little two skis and you stand on the top, you know, and you're going. Slip and slide all the way down the slope. Yes, and it's so, so much fun. Especially when you get down. Then you look up, and you look around to see if anybody's looking at you. Have your hot coffee, warm up again, go home. "Ah, I skied today, that felt so good."Isn't it wonderful? To be able to go to the beach, lie there, do absolutely nothing for a while, and then get up and jump in the water, and then get out of the water all wet and lie there again and do absolutely nothing for another few minutes. Isn't that enjoyable? Walk around a tennis court, trying to hit this ball with a simple act, a simple act, of taking a racket and hitting a small yellow ball to your opponent. Nothing could be simpler. But isn't it wonderful to try to do that and be unsuccessful at it for hours on end? And to be able to go home and tell everybody, I'm getting better. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that enjoyable?
You know, some people, they like the enjoyment of going off an airplane and diving off of it, you know, jumping off an airplane. Now, I fly airplanes. To me, that sounds like a totally sacrilegious act. As a pilot, I want to stay in that airplane. I don't want to leave. But to me, it sounds like a terrifying act. But some people actually like that, just jump off a running airplane.
On the 10th November 1979 in the warm afternoon sunshine Rawat began to reminisce about his school days and they had not been happy days. There was the desperate fear and eternal boredom of his school days which he describes here. He could have avoided all that terror if he just done his homework on time, concentrated on his studies and not been involved in a schoolboy cheating ring so he deserves no sympathy. But you can understand why the poor little coddled fatso Lord of the Universe who had servants doing everything for him and who never did a scrap of work or exercise, was literally carried round a lot of the time would truly hate the shame and embarrassment of doing PT in front of the other school kids. Boys are so cruel to the weak and flabby so Rawat withdrew and has avoided exercise ever since while taking many opportunities to disparage anyone he thinks of: joggers, mountain climbers, yoga practitioners. The envy comes out of the pores of his skin
"I can see you know all the contraptions that there were and every, you know, twice a week we used to have these classes called PT, Physical Training, and you go out there and jump up and down and do your hand stands and do all these things and then there would be all these recreational activities in the in the I don't know what, what was so recreational about it but you know you run around this whole huge track a few times so by the time you get there you're breathless and you fall down I mean it happened to every kid and the sports activities is to enhance people in sports."
New York 10th November 1982: You you listen to some of these mountain climbers and I always find it fascinating, they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb and they climb climb climb climb and sweat, dangerous everything they face and then they get on top and they have the commercial you know they get on top and they undo their six pack, pop it open (clears throat) and there they are. All this to enjoy a sixpack (laughter) or some people actually don't do that, some people actually do it, they get up there, they look down "Wow this is incredible!" What a feeling, very proud, what a feeling, what an accomplishment, what an achievement and I was looking at it in this sense so are you gonna stay up there now? Well this is what you wanted. You started climbing mountains and I don't know how many times you probably sprained your knees and buckled your elbows and and and and fallen off ropes, had blisters on your hands, everything that you've done and you climb this mountain and you gonna have this incredible experience at the top and are you gonna stay there? Just, this is it or are you in fact after you have your heart's fill that true happiness, wanting that.
"Birthday Program" Miami, 9th December 1983 Dance dance dance dance (stops whispering) for no reason at all. Dance because it's good for your heart then you dance so much you have a heart attack. I was reading an article about this guy who started this whole fad of jogging. Now he's not sure if he can back it up with the right kind of evidence to say it really is all that great for you. Wonderful. Wonderful. I jogged a mile the other day, whole mile. What happened? Cosmic? Nothing. You know people always tell you when you run you get high, it's a natural high. Boy, they have no idea, what it's really really like to be high from that bliss, from that grace of that that manifestation of witnessing that Knowledge. I mean they have no idea. It's like somebody who has smelled fuel all their life and they smelled the whale grease and they go "Wow, good." Sure it does, still stinks, still smells bad but there is truly something beautiful and not beyond our reach and not beyond our imagination, made for us, for its manifestation to happen now, not 20 years in future, not 50 years in future but to live now and to enjoy that now because it's so ironic in one sense.
Auckland, New Zealand, 14th March 1983 For others have your job, have your children, have your family, a nice green garden in the back and umm everything will be okay, everything will be fine. I know, I was talking to my wife this afternoon and umm her grandfather just died, just a couple of days ago or so and then I had seen him on many occasions. He was 90 years old so, I mean that's having lived in this world for quite a while and I remember seeing him go to his house in San Diego, a charming couple I mean just very beautiful people and he really had a green thumb I mean you went in his backyard and these huge squashes, and huge things and everything was definitely very green and, it was fine, everything was okay, they had a cute little house, uh it had everything, they were not millionaires uh they had their bread every day, everything was okay. And then, and then his health started to deteriorate and deteriorate and deteriorate and in fact he had a, he had a heart stroke and he had even a pacemaker and you look at this whole picture, it can happen to anyone of us, he's not the only exception, it can happen to you, it can happen to me, that we live in this world wanting to live, wanting quantity of life. We take our vitamins, we go jogging, we do our yoga exercises, we play tennis, umm we do all the little things that we do maybe for the quantity of life and yet what is the reason for quantity if we can't have quality?
Reeders, Pennsylvania, September 5 1977 It's like - just driving down New York. Now, you would think at five o'clock in the morning, everybody would be sound asleep. And nobody would be up there. Everybody would be just - you know, what's got to happen at five o'clock? And maybe something unusual you might see is a guy running across the road or running across the park, you know. He gets up, and he is into yoga or something like that, and so he daily exercises five o'clock in the morning, because that's a very nice time to wake up.
Copenhagen, July 3 1974 There are so many people who are doing yoga. They get up at three in the morning and they just completely swirl themselves around. But with all these things, they still cannot get Peace.
Portland, Oregon, Questions and Answers, March 19, 2001
Track 5: Q: ??? Shri Maharaji ??? read satsang about yogis and yoga and I have some questions about um the practice of actual physical asanas in yoga and how that relates or doesn't relate to knowledge?
A: Very clearly, it is described the Knowledge is Raj Yoga, the king of all the yogas because it is the unity, 'yoga' means unity, 'yog'. It actually doesn't mean physical exercise it just means unity, to become one with something and that which puts you to be in one with that essence within inside of you is the King of all yogas. All the yogas that are there, they are for physical benefit, maybe they put you in touch with different elements. This yoga is to put you in touch with the element of life itself. It is not a physical exercise in that you have to put your foot over your back. I mean look at some of the people who have knowledge, including me, it is obvious we don't do that, ha, ha ha ha. We have a hard time getting up from the chair, much less putting, you know, that's not everybody but it's very clear, it's very clear, clearly defined the two in one you do, you know, a housewife cooks or a houseman cooks, in this day and age, umm, but that feeds the stomach but Knowledge feeds something else, a thirst that is much deeper than that and so there is a very, very clear distinction between all these different things and I think to appreciate that difference, I'm not gonna put down anything, I don't need to, you know, umm, be in this world, do whatever do whatever it is that you do and whatever it is that you have to do but don't forget that element, that breath and in each breath there is that is the witnessing, that is the witnessing of that Supreme Power that makes all of this possible, the whole world, the whole universe, so, it's not a paradox, it's simply a very clear division, the two have nothing to do with each other.
Visions International CD #AC0722EN
1979 Hans Jayanti
Do we think of our Master? Are we really faithful, faith, are we truly faithful to Guru Maharaj Ji? Have we, you know, what what what are we tryin' to do? Are we tryin' to repay Guru Maharaj Ji? With all the things that we do, are we tryin' to repay Guru Maharaj Ji? How can we repay Guru Maharaj Ji? What do you give Guru Maharaj Ji to repay Guru Maharaj Ji? What? What conceivably, what possibly can you give? Except that love, except this life, except being just really a premie. That's what Guru Maharaj Ji wants is a premie. If Guru Maharaj Ji didn't want premies then there is this whole world right? Thousands of people here and there. Go sit down in a football game, "Oh Guru Maharaj Ji there's all your little creatures that you made one day." And it's like that, it's not gonna, that's not gonna please Guru Maharaj Ji's heart to see these dumb creatures that he made on a dumb day to sit there and watch a dumb thing happen, kicking around a little football or whatever.
That's it, I mean, look at it, these guys you know they really try to get good at that football and they go out there and they practice and they practice and they practice and they practice and they practice and they practice and they practice and I mean even of all those people only a few are selected to make a team and then they're lectured upon it and they practice every day and then for entertainment, you know, there is these big arenas I mean you know just like where the program was held in New Orleans was this big Superdome. It's bigger than Astrodome, supposedly and we were not, we weren't occupying the whole thing just a fraction of it on the side and I walked in there, it's enough to make you feel dizzy it's so big, it's huge, I mean it's just gigantic and yet what is it for? To come and to get entertained.
Then they used to have this thing called NCC, you know, even Raja Ji was a part of it. He was, he was one of the cadets and it was National Cadet Corps. You might say like the Boy Scouts but these little Boy Scouts fiddling around with real guns, you know, the real thing you know cause the whole idea was you train here and then you go to the army and it's like I just couldn't get into it. I just couldn't understand it, I just couldn't get into it. I mean it's like to me the whole motive was not understood by any per, by any kid.
Rawat was not above lying about his childhood either. He poured scorn on his elder brother Raja, for playing soldiers in the National Cadet Corps and claims he "just couldn't get into it." But a picture tells a thousand words and its obvious from the photos of the young Guru Maharaj Ji that he adored dressing up in an army uniform, actually he loved dressing up in anything. Once he realized that his followers in the West were 99% ex-hippie love-and-peace brothers and sisters he quickly changed his tune from fife and drums to flutes and guitars.
