It's up to you

It’s about you—it’s about your story. Fulfillment is a feeling, not the quantity of food. It is not about how many glasses of water you drank, but is your thirst quenched or not? It is not whether you were in bed for twelve hours or not, but how much sleep did you get? You’ll understand that one, right?

It is not about the lectures that tell you, “You are free; you are free; you are free,” that will set you free. How free do you feel?

And this is what I say to the inmates: “It’s up to you! It’s up to you!” Everybody is behind some wall; everybody is behind some bar. The only difference is the color of the bars, the shape of the bars, and the material that they are made out of.

Some are made out of metal; some are made out of concepts, ideas, right here. But they’re bars—and they hold you back. They will not let you be free.

Do you want to be free? Good question—“Do you want to be free?” [Individual, male.: Yes!] First understand. Before you set off on a journey to be free, understand what’s holding you back! Why are you not free? All these ideas you have about things that are not yours—that were just, cct, ppbt! Poukh, chu-chu-chu, boomf! And you went, “Thank you.”

Somebody came, opened the head, poured it in, “Dah, dah, you’re good.”

Some apes, they look at themselves—they can’t recognize. So, dogs are like that too! They look at themselves in the mirror and they go, “What’s that!? Arrrrrrrgh!”

You have the ability to go, “Ah! That’s, that’s me!” And the scientists say, that is one of the human attributes! Why stop there? Know the self! This is what Socrates was talking about, “Know the self!” If that’s you, looking in the mirror, you can say, “That is me,” then knowing yourself, that is the human attribute that makes you who you are.

– Prem Rawat