Prem Rawat in Hualien, Taiwan, 12th April, 2014

Prem Rawat in Hualien, Taiwan, 12th April, 2014
Man's Finest Achievement

So what I have come to talk to you about, it is very simple. It is simple because that is its nature. But that does not mean that it is not profound. It is the most profound. Why is it profound? Because it is the very fundamental, the very basic. And it is that truth that every human being from their heart looks, for wants to know. Without it. Without it, everything becomes nothing. Without it, everything becomes nothing. Without it. There is a season with it. There is a life with it. There is an understanding with it. There is a joy with it. There is a realness to this life, to this existence.

I see some of you are wearing the orange jumpsuit sitting in the audience. And I also see that symbols. The flight suit that you have. So in a sense, you know, hopefully you'll be fellow pilots. I'm a pilot. I started flying when I was quite young. I was not supposed to fly then. I was not. I was too young. But nobody asked me my age. So everywhere I went, I joined the flight school and I would learn how to fly. So I started learning to fly from America to Canada to England to Australia to South Africa. I was just joining the schools and I would learn. And then finally on my 16th birthday. I got my licence and right around my 18th birthday, I had my airline transport pilot.

Since then, I've just been flying, flying, flying, flying a lot of different aeroplanes. Started off flying the Citations. Then I went onto Hawker Siddeley's, Learjets, Boeing 707. The Falcons, the Challenger, the Gulf streams, helicopter, glider. And I have about 14,000 hours of flying. And I'm here today talking to you about enjoyment. Enjoyment of life. Enjoyment of flying. Enjoyment of living. Enjoyment of breathing. Enjoyment of understanding. Enjoyment of learning. Because these are the possibilities. The possibilities in your life. And whatever life you live, a little box and in this box you have everything that is very similar, very similar. You live in Taiwan. You live in Japan. You live in India. You live in Canada. You live in America. You live in Mexico. You live in Argentina. You live in Brazil. You live in England. You would think there would be differences, right? On the outside there are differences. They speak a different language. They eat different kinds of food. They drive, some of them drive on the wrong side of the road to the other. So they all drive on the wrong side of the road. But, but they all experience joy and they all experience pain and they all experience hope and they all experience disappointment. Yes, this is not exclusive to Taiwan. Everywhere in the world. Everywhere in the world we experience the same things. Maybe we call them differently. But they are the same because first of all, you have to understand.

I mean, yes, we are here to talk about peace. Of course we are here to talk about peace. But peace is inside all of you already. Always was, always will be. So the question becomes, why don't you feel it? And the reason why we don't feel that peace is there is so much, so much between us and that peace. That's not real. People come from other countries and you say that person must be different. Lot of you are trying to learn how to fly. You might go, "Oh, he has 14,000 hours. That's a lot of hours. He must be a really good pilot." To be a good pilot I have to be focused. I have to try to be good. Mistakes. Don't look at how many hours you have. Mistakes. Don't say "Oh, he has 14,000 hours. It's okay." No, you make a mistake and you will suffer the consequence. What is a mistake in this life? When we are searching for something that is everywhere. When we are trying to see the very thing that is everywhere. You have to ask if it is everywhere. Why can't I see it? If it is everywhere. If that peace is everywhere. If that divine is everywhere, then why don't I feel it? When it is closer to me than my shadow.

One day, a man had a similar question and he wanted to know that which is everywhere, why don't I see it? That which is everywhere. Why don't I feel it? So he decided to find a wise man and go and ask him. So he found a wise man. He went up to the Wise man. Sat down. I have a question. If it is everywhere, why don't I see it? Is it everywhere? The wise man asked another one of his students. He says go and bring me and bring me a big chunk of salt and a bucket of water. So the student went, brought him a big piece of salt and a bucket of water. And he said to the man with the question he says do you see the salt? Says, yeah, I see the salt. He says, are you sure you see the salt? Is this salt? Man tasted it. Yes, it's salt. It looks like salt. It tastes like salt. It is salt. So then the Wise man said, "Ok, take the salt and put it in the bucket." So he put it in the bucket. And he said now stir, stir, stir, stir, stir, stir. The salt disappeared. So the wise man said. "Where's the salt?" He said, "it's gone." No, that's not gone. It's still here. Taste the water. Taste the water. Salt is, salt is still here. Same way. That which is everywhere. Why don't we see it? Because we haven't got the eyes to see it.

What kind of eyes do you need? What kind of eyes do you need then? You need the eyes of a child. Pure, not through judgement. But from discovery from feeling, not from ideas. Not from ideas, but from feeling. Do you begin to see. Do you begin to understand. We in our lives. Look at ourselves. and we go I am unfortunate. And I would like to tell you a story. It was the time of drought. Not much rain. The river. The rivers were running quite low. One day a wise man needed to make a journey. So usually everybody travelled along the road. The wise man decided he would take the path of the river. There wasn't that much water in it. So he started walking along the river as he went further and further and further and further. He heard a cry. Somebody weeping. So he went up to the person who was weeping and said "why are you weeping?" "Sir, I'm weeping because I have such bad luck. My fate. My destiny, my karmas." Karmas. You understand Karma, right? "My karma is so bad. I'm so poor I cannot support myself. I have tried and I have tried and I have tried to be rich. But every time I try, I fail."

The wise man looked at him and he said "If you are unfortunate, if you are unfortunate, your misfortune is that you're not looking around." He said "what do you mean?" He said "you see in these little pools. Look at these little pools. Now the river is running low. Look at all these little pools. You see that glitter that shiny stuff. All these pools are full of gold. And you are so busy sitting here crying lamenting your fate that you are not even paying attention. You are are so wealthy right now. All you have to do is take this gold and you will be super rich." So the man immediately thanked the wise man. "Oh thank you. Thank you." Got very happy. He got very happy. "Oh boy. You know I'm rich. I'm rich. I'm rich. I'm rich. I'm rich. I'm rich" and he looked. Everywhere he looked, in every hole, in every little puddle that he looked, gold, gold gold, gold gold, gold. So he thought "Hmm. I should get all of it and further he went, the more puddles he saw and more gold he saw "Oh my God. There's so much gold here. I must go home and figure out a way how to take all this gold." So he went home and at home because he was poor. He went looking through the home and he found a little bucket, little bucket, you guys. "This is not big enough." He looked look look look look, He found a little basket. "This is not big enough." Looked a little pot. "This is not big enough. I must do something."

So he decided the next day he was going to get up early and work really hard and get a bigger basket. So he worked and he worked and he worked and he worked and he made good bit of money and he went to the market and whatever he could find with the money that he had earned, he bought a bucket. He brought the bucket home and he realized that it wasn't big enough. So he decided that he would go the next day and he would work really hard, even harder and maybe not even eat for one day. Save every money. Save every bit of money and get another bucket. So he worked really hard. Worked really hard. Worked really hard. Worked really hard. Went and bought himself a bucket. He brought it home to only realize that it was only just a little bit bigger than the last bucket and that that was not going to be big enough for all the gold that was there. This kept happening every day and the season changed. The season changed. The floods began. Started to rain. The river swelled. The puddles disappear under deep water.

Time went on. The wise man decided to pay him a visit. Came to his door knocking. "How you doing? You're rich now. You must be very happy." "No. You showed me the way to be rich. And truly it must be my misfortune." The wise man said no, "You are still fortunate. But now you have to have understanding." You do see. He says to him you didn't have to get all of the gold. First day you should have just brought just a little bit. Just enough. What would ever, what would fit in your palm. Sold that, with that you could have bought all the buckets you needed. Anything you wanted. and then you could have gone and filled all those buckets. So then have patience. Because if that drought came once. It will come again. You must have patience. "You need to know" the wise man said, "when to be patient and when to be impatient. Because if that first day when you discovered that gold, if you would have been just a little impatient and grabbed just a little bit. You wouldn't be in this predicament." Time went on. Time went on. Time went on. Time went on. Finally, the season changed. It started to get very dry. Man went and he started looking for all those puddles. The pools to see if the gold was there. He didn't see anything. All he saw was mud. It was filled with mud. Time went on, the wise man came again, knocked at his door and said, "Did you? Did you make it? Did you? Are you rich now? He goes "Aah. I went. But there is no more gold." "Let's go look." So they went looking. They found a puddle and the wise man took his hand and went like this, stirred the water up, the silt floated up and you could see the gold was still there. Finally the wise man said to him "You could have been rich a long time ago, it is not that the opportunity wasn't there but you did not know how to take the opportunity." Do you understand that? It is not that the possibility of you being rich was not there, that was there but you did not know how to recognise the opportunity.

So I'm going to ask you this question, you are searching for peace, right? You want peace, right? You want to hear about peace, right? You want peace in your life, right? Have you ever asked yourself the question if that opportunity ever ever came in your life? Would you know how to grab it? How to take it? Do you? Do you? Because without having that possibility of "Okay! It's here! The time slips by, the time slips by and then once again in your life you will come across a message at some point in time about peace and you will give it a little thought. And then the time will slip by again. Seasons will change. Seasons change in your life too. Seasons change. When you are in pain. you will listen to every word I say. Every word I say. And when everything is going good, you don't have the time. You don't have the time. Hey, hey, I'm too young. But has that got to do it?

I was thinking about a picture that I saw. Actually, it was a documentary that I saw of a monkey. Monkey. in Africa. And the monkey was sitting there early in the morning. Warming itself from the sun and it sat there and it closed its eyes. Monkey. Monkey did that. Our relative, our long, long lost brother. Sister. Knows how to appreciate a moment of just being itself. Not thinking about the 1000 jumps it's going to make, not thinking about the 1000 shrieks it's going to do. not thinking about the dominance. Not thinking about this game it's going to play. That game is going to play how it has to make sure that it respects the boss monkey. No just just to take that time and just to close the, close the eyes. A monkey. I wonder who taught the monkey to just be there, close the eyes and take in the moment. Do you know how to do that? Headhones. Telephones. Cell phones. Beep beep beep. Bing bang bang bang. Who is calling? Who's calling? Amazing, monkey is more like a human and the human is more like a monkey. What is that? What is that? How much unconsciousness can there be? How much unconsciousness does it take? How unfocused have we become that we have taken the attributes of the monkey and the monkey still has taken the attributes from us.

One time I was in Egypt. We were going down the River Nile And I saw big crocodile. And it was the morning. and they had come out and they were on the bank of the river. Completely still. The mouth a little open. Just still being. Us? No, we want to be bombarded all the time. No focus. No focus. You know they are learning how to fly? And I can tell you one thing. After 14,000 hours of flying I can say one thing. If you want to be a good pilot, learn how to focus. Because if you're not focused, it doesn't matter how many hours you have, you will make terrible mistakes. There were pilots in America. They were on their computer. (laughs) You know, they were on their computer. They were surfing the web. They were not were not flying the aeroplane. They were not focused. They went past the destination. It was the stewardess, the flight attendant that actually saw on the display that the aeroplane was continuing past the destination ran up to the cockpit and say, "When are we landing?" And that's when they realized, "oh my God, whatever you've been doing?" Focus. Do you know how to focus? Do you know how to focus in life? Do you know how to focus when the opportunity comes to feel the peace in your life? How many of you have been searching for peace? How can you search for something you already have? How can you search for something you already have? It's not the search you need. You need to learn the art of observing, experiencing, what you all ready have? You don't have that. You don't have that. What do I have to do? I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this. I want to be busy. I don't want to be. bored. People get stuck in traffic jam. Right? Ah, when are we going to move? Do you get bored when you're stuck in a traffic jam? Next time. Next time you are stuck in a traffic jam. Smile. You know why. Because you're going at a speed of 67,062. miles an hour around the sun. That's how fast you're going. 67,000 and 62 miles an hour around the sun. You are spinning.at the rate of 1040 miles an hour. You're going very fast. But you don't, in your life, have the means of understanding what that means.

ow many of you have watches? How many of you have watches? Very few huh. You don't have watches. You have watches? No. (audience: Cell phones) So that's that. Well, that's not a wrist watch. I did not say a wristwatch. This is a wrist watch. So you still have a watch. It's on your phone. Do you have a clock or your new phone? Do you know how to tell time? Do you know how to tell time? Really. Really. Really. You see, we have watches. We have clocks but we do not know how to tell the time. Why don't we know how to tell the time? Then let me ask you another question? How long are you going to be alive? Here it comes. If you lived to be 100 years. 100 years, you would be alive for 36,000 500 days. If you live to be alive for 70 years average 25,550 days. Not 360 36,500 days. Do you think that's a lot? Do you think that's a lot? Can you imagine winning a lottery? And it was only 36,500 NT. That was it. Would you go? Yay. Or would you go Hah? OK, it's nice. Yeah, maybe I can buy a little motorcycle. Maybe a little used car. Not much. Next time you will look at your watch. You should be saying "Have I done what I am here to do?" Not, It's 6:00 o'clock. Not, it's seven minutes after 6. Not, Oh when are we going to the movie? How many more minutes to dinner? And have I done what I need? What I need to do. So I know you are asking what is it that we need to do? You don't know. You don't know You don't know what you need to do. First thing, you need to be fulfilled. Fulfilled (pats chest). Not from here (points at head). But from here, in your heart, to be fulfilled. You haven't done that and something is not right.

Talking to my aviation friends. There's a saying amongst pilots. The fuel in the truck. The runway behind you and the altitude above you does you know good? Fuel in the truck should be in your aeroplane not in the truck for it to do any good. The runway that you have squatted away behind you. You need it in front of you, not behind you. But the same thing is true in life. The fundamentals have to be taken care of. First the fulfilment. Not in some concept. Not in some book. Not in some idea, but in your heart there has to be fulfilled. Your understanding of life needs to be crystal clear. Not with confusion and doubt. Not with confusion and doubt. Crystal clear. And you're thirst for the peace needs to be obvious. Not hidden. Then! Then! THEN! you know how to tell time. Otherwise this will tell you what you don't have. And when there is the understanding is clear. When the thirst is obvious. And there is the fulfilment. Then this will begin to tell you how much time you do have to enjoy this life. Not how much time you don't have. How much time you do have to understand to grow, to be. For me, that is what it takes. I have to make that effort every day. Every day. I'm not here to pretend anything. I'm not here to say I am wise man. No, no, wisdom is a fire. Wisdom is a fire. It needs to be tended You have to keep feeding it. If you stop feeding it, it will die. You won't be wise anymore. You'll be dumb again. The same coals that burn red hot when there's a fire, upon cooling down they are as cold as the grass next to them. Sometimes even colder. Wisdom every day has to be tended. Every day peace has to be felt. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day. You know that to keep a house clean you have to clean it every day. Every day, every day, every day, every day. To keep the understanding clear you have to tend to it every day. Every day, every day, every day. Those who think perfection, once achieved, will stay that way, they're wrong. Perfection has to be tended to every day. Every day, every day, every day, just like you need to drink the water every day, every day, every day. It's like you need to eat food every day, every day, every day. And when, this is when you become, then you know how to grab the opportunity. Then you look.

One day a master was teaching his students how to use bow and arrow. So he had five or six students. And one of them was very good. Good student, keen. Really wanted to learn. So the master that day turned to all his students. And he said "look on that tree there is a bird. Do you see it?" And they all said yes. And the master said now look at the eye of the bird and tell me what you see. So one student said he wanted to you know be really good student give some fancy answer. Fancy. And he said "oh master I see the grass and I see branches being reflected in the birds eye. And I see the blue sky." The master said "anything else?" Another student, "Oh, master I also see a little butterfly flying by the bird reflected in the eye of the bird." "Anything else?" "Oh Master, I also see the green leaves of the tree in the eye of the bird." Finally, it was after, you know, a little while it was a turn of the keen student. And the master said "tell me, what do you see?" He said "Master, I only see the eye of the bird. That's what you asked me to see. And this is all I see."

What do you think of that story? Do you like that story? Yeah, but that's the problem. That's the problem. What we were asked? Look at the eye. And what did we get carried away with? Not the eye, but everything else. So. Where is peace? Oh some wise man has it. What do you think? A wise man walks around with peace in his pocket. Where is peace? It's on the temple. Up way. See that temple way up in the mountain. I see a lot of temples up on the mountain. I've seen them and I was in Nepal I saw a mountain temple way up in the mountain. And every time I see a temple up in the mountain, I always ask a question. Why did you put the temple there? Why is it? For gods or is it for human beings? Is the temple for gods? So it could be a little closer for them to come. Less distance in case they have to run away. Or is it for human beings? If it's for human beings, why put it up on the mountain? Put it down below where everybody can get to it.

Same problem. Not seeing the eye. Everything else but the eye. Where is? Where is peace? Oh you have to renounce everything. I who started this? Who who started this this, this incredible lie. You have to give up everything. If I have a pain in my foot taking off the tie is going to help? No, I'm just talking about logic. If your window in your house is dirty on the outside. How much cleaning on the inside will finally get the window clean? Does this sound stupid to you? Somebody cleaning the window upon the inside cleaning cleaning. Why are you cleaning the window from the inside? The window is dirty from the outside. Yeah, but you know, if I clean the window from the inside, maybe eventually outside will become clean. When the divine is inside of you. When the peace is inside of you. When the clarity is inside of you. What happens on the outside? What difference does it make? What difference does it make? What difference does it make?

Then people go. I I am a family man. I cannot give up everything. I have a house. I have children. I have responsibilities so I cannot have peace. Sorry. I cannot have peace because I cannot give up everything. You don't need to give up everything. If we all became monks and had no more children, how long did you think human species would last? Not very long. Not very long. Nothing wrong with being a monk. Then the monks go. I don't know. You know they are monks in India who go We We cannot look at women. I'm like, but where do you think you came from? Did you come from a special monk tree? No. See the obviousness. See the beauty. See the joy. See the peace. You need the eyes to see the peace. Understand the simplicity and we have made it so complicated. Oh yes I see the branches and I see the leaves and I see the tree and I see the butterfly. Do you see the butterfly? Do you see the butterfly? Do you see the butterfly? That was not what you were asked to see. You were asked to see the eye. Do you see the eye? Do you see the eye?

Oh, I feel this. I feel that. I feel this. I feel that. Do you feel peace? Do you feel peace? If you do good. If not, if not, then you need the eyes. The eyes of the heart. There is half of you is here (points at head). Half of you is here. And half of you is here (points at heart) and you only know this half (points at head). Wait till you know this half (points at heart). When you get to know this half (points at heart) Oh man, you will really begin to live. Dance. I'm too old. I don't want to dance. This becomes old. This never ages. Never ageless ageless. So you have not been living and for you know my pilot friends its like having a twin engine aeroplane and always flying on one engine. Wait till you start the other one up too. You will realize how much power you have in life. You can really take off on really short runways. You can actually carry your payload. You can actually make altitude. But if it's just one this is what the whole world lives on and not here. It's not here. For me. It is always a pleasure to come and talk about the subject of peace.

My first speech was when I was 4 years old and I talked about peace. I'm not four, I'm going to be 57 in December and I'm still talking about peace. (applause) Because without that peace, without that understanding, without that clarity, we're only half a being the other half is missing. All the symptoms in the world exist because we are not truly living the potential, the potential of a human being. Peace is going to be mankind's finest achievement. Not rockets. Not the technology but peace. Not colonisation of other planets. Because if those planets, they go there and they're still fighting. What is the point? They were fighting here. They can be fighting there. They're going to be discontent here. They're going to be discontent there. There's going to be politics here. There's going to be politics there. The finest achievement of mankind is going to be peace. And all of us. All of us have a part to play in making that possible. So thank you very much. Good night and take care.