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Prem Rawat reads from his new book “Hear Yourself,” due to be released in English later this year.

All excerpts from this book are copyright protected by RawatCreations, LLC. Any unauthorized duplication or distribution of this content is prohibited.

View all released episodes of "Lockdown" under the Series tab.

Prem Rawat:

So, hello, everyone. I hope you’re all well, feeling good. Weekend has come—and so we’re going to be doing some question and answers.

“How can I find the beauty and peace when there is so much darkness in this world and in me? I can’t seem to find a way to connect to this life inside of me. I know it exists, as I have felt it in your presence. I would like to chase away all the dark thoughts and the pain in me with love.”

Well, it’s very, very easy. There’s this—it’s uncanny but I just answered that same kind of question in Hindi, very, very similar.

So, it really is a matter of you understanding that “the darkness is there, but there is also the light.” And it completely depends upon you, what you choose. The choice is yours. You can choose darkness—and the darkness will be there. You can choose light and the light will be there. Is it that easy? Is it that simple? Well, guess what; it is.

When we walk into that dark situation, most of the time we don’t even realize we’re walking into the darkness—but we’re slowly, slowly but surely, walking towards that darkness. Conscious living goes out the window. We don’t want to live consciously. That’s too much trouble; that’s too much. So, what do we start doing? Live unconsciously. We don’t care!

“What happens here; what happens there; this is right; this wrong; this is this way; this is that way.” And off we go. We’re making these steps; we’re taking these steps; we’re going towards the darkness; we’re going towards the darkness; we’re going towards the darkness; we’re going towards the darkness. We don’t realize it.

You know, getting lost is not an abrupt condition. It’s not an abrupt thing; it can happen very slowly. You think you’re heading the right direction—and then all of a sudden, it’s like, “Oh, we should be there by now. And we’re not there.” And then it’s like, then the dawning of it can be very abrupt. Then the dawning of it can be, “How do I...? What happened? Where did I get lost?”

Wrong question: “How did I get lost?” The question should be, “How do I get back on track,” not “How did I get lost?”

So, we go towards that darkness. Living our life unconsciously, this is—it’s almost like you can call it: “That’s what’s going to happen.”

But then, there is that possibility of living this life consciously—that I have a choice! Understanding that those things, the source of my light, is in me. The source of my understanding is in me. The source of my clarity is in me. And I don’t have to go wandering, looking for it and wondering, “Where did it go?”

And a lot of people.... People say that. It’s like, “Oh, that was such a nice time; then, where did it go?” Well, it didn’t go anywhere. It’s in you! It always was in you, always has been in you and always will be in you till your very last breath.

What happens is that our situation, whatever the situation may be, overwhelms us. It’s got us. It’s defeated us. It has taken over our free will, our choice, our understanding, our clarity—and it has to do that, because it can only get hold of you without those things.

And what you have to do is do exactly the opposite. You have to hang on to your clarity; you have to hang on to your hope; you have to hang on to your joy; you have to hang on to your understanding; you have to hang on to your peace. And then, just like a storm, the storm will be gone; the sun will shine again and all will be well.

So, this is what you have to understand, that this is how it works. And you have that beauty—and that beauty will always be within you.

Here’s another question, “Many people are facing financial, job uncertainties. Would you have some words of strength for those facing the situation?” Yes. Again, the same thing. Whatever the outside situation, you have to have the strength to go forward, because you do.

Now, again, I’m just going to remind you of this example that I give quite often. When you came out of your mother’s womb, when you were born, what you had to do was virtually impossible. At that point in your life, you were the most fragile. My God, you couldn’t walk; you couldn’t talk; you couldn’t command people; you couldn’t lift anything. You were extremely fragile.

And everything, literally, was stacked against you. You had to, at that point in time, change your world, literally—I mean, literally. All that sustenance that had been, up to that point, sustaining you was coming from the mother and now that was going to go away. You had to become independent.

The amount of force that you would have had to exert to be able to be born is nothing shy of a huge rocket accelerating away from earth. This was the situation. This was the situation.

You were, in the mother’s womb, completely surrounded by water—and here you were going to come out in this world where you’re going to breathe. And I’m just talking about “physical situation” and it was totally going to have to be totally, totally, totally different.

And so, what did you do? You looked at the enormity of the situation and obviously said, “No way,” right? You wouldn’t be born! You wouldn’t be born. So, you took on that challenge. That urge was there and you took on that challenge. Of course, you didn’t look at it as a challenge, you just found yourself in the midst of it—and that was it.

So, do you think any one of these challenges that you are thinking about facing is greater than that challenge that you already have been through? I can’t imagine how they could be any bigger than what you have already been through.

I talk about “un-change.” You know, people don’t like the word “change,” “I don’t want to change.” People say to themselves, “I don’t want to change.” So, I came up with this one: “un-change.”

So that means that at one point in time in your life, you were incredibly strong; you were incredibly powerful. You were very clear about what your objectives were. You were very precise with them. And you had no hesitation whatsoever to accomplish them.

So, un-change. See, the change happened—and now, things are very different, so maybe you need to un-change and go back to that strength, go back to that clarity, go back to that understanding.

Not frailty, not sadness, not disappointment, not these arguments, “Oh, what’s going to happen to me?” Take on any challenge that comes. And, believe me, this is, for a lot of people, just a long, long journey that has just begun. Isolation and everything else just is one part of it. After this, we will have to see what happens. Because I can tell you, it’s not shaping up really well.

Some of the leaders that we have in this world, they are no leaders. And of course not, I’m not going to say who they are. But they’re no leaders and you know it—and you can see them in action and they’re like, out to lunch and never came back. And they’re still having lunch for—I think, for the rest of their life, they’re going to have lunch. They have no idea what’s going on.

To them, death and numbers is a statistic; it’s something to plot on a graph. And to me, one death that is unnecessary, that was not natural, is too much. We could have done something about it—yes, we could have done something about it.

Let’s face it; we don’t know how to say “help.” We have forgotten how to say “help.” We have forgotten to say “Let me help you.” We have forgotten about humanity! Humanity has gone right out the window.

And so far humanity goes out the window, what do human beings have? Nothing. What can they rely on? Nothing. What can they keep on looking forward towards? Nothing. So, this is truly a very, very long journey.

So, here’s another question that’s very important, I think. “Dear Prem Rawat, I appreciate listening to you every morning. My ninety-five-year-old grandmother is in a home for old people. And the visit to the old people is forbidden. I’m scared she leaves this world without anybody holding her hand, and no possibility for us to say ‘goodbye.’” (Oh, but actually it is a grandfather so, I’m sorry.)

“No possibility for us to say ‘goodbye’ or gather for the funeral. I know he had a long and good life but I find it sad to end like this. What could I write him to help him in this difficult situation?”

Only one thing—you love him. That’s all you can say. “I love you. Please be. And please be well. And I love you and I will always love you. You are in my memories; you will dance in my memories; you will dance in my heart. And—I love you.” What else can you—I mean, what else can you say? You know?

You have to accept the situation, sometimes, the way it is, not the way you have created your picture postcard. Accept it. There’s nothing you can do about it. It is unfortunate; it is sad. And they don’t want more of these transmissions to happen; that’s why the isolation: “No, you can’t go there.”

I know you have your little picture postcard, but you’re going to have to put that picture postcard to rest for a little while and look at the reality—and the reality is still beautiful. You love him; he loves you; that’s the reality. Coronavirus or no coronavirus, you love him; he loves you. No walls, no great distances, not even those two walls can keep that love apart.

That’s what love is. Love can go through the walls. Love can travel humongous distances. Love can reach down to the bottom of the ocean. Love can reach to the heavens above. Love is. And that’s what makes love so special. It has no boundaries. It will never go away. So far you are alive, you can love him every single day of your life.

Now, how incredible is that? How wonderful is that? Accept the situation. And most importantly, accept the love that you have for your grandfather. That’s how it should be.

Not trying to make our picture postcards that we create in our head, make them a reality—no, look at the reality that is. And maybe that will help you.

So, thank you very much—and that’s all the time we have today. And we’ll get back tomorrow for some more questions. Be safe; be well. Be.

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Prem Rawat:

Hello, hello, everyone. I hope you’re all well. And what I would like to just talk about today is very, very simple. Because that word “simplicity”—sometimes we forget what it really means just to be simple.

Under the circumstances these days, being in isolation because of this coronavirus, that word seems so appropriate—because those people who really, truly understand the meaning of the word “simple” can adjust and adapt to this situation in the best possible way.

What is “simple?” Simple is that this breath comes into you, without any effort, without you having to think—and it brings you the gift of life. Simple is that you can look with your eyes, see the blue sky, see the clouds—and you can be content.

Simple is to be able to see your life and understand that you exist—and how profound that is, how beautiful it is; that is simple. Simple is that you have love in this heart—and that from this heart, you can love. And you carry the gift of this loving. Anybody—for anybody who can spark that love in you, you’re willing to give.

Existence is so simple; life is so simple; being alive is so simple—and having a profound experience, even in the midst of all this, is really very simple.

Last night, I was trying to sleep—and a storm came by. And the winds were blowing; you could hear the rain. And we don’t like storms; the metaphor of a storm is something not nice. But what is a storm?

Winds blow—well, we like wind—but not too much. You know, when the wind starts to ruffle our hair and starts to throw us around and throw around things, and we can’t drive; we can’t fly properly, then things get a little bit nasty.

Rain comes; we don’t like rain. We don’t like getting wet. Why don’t we like getting wet? Well, when the evaporation happens—when we get wet the evaporation happens; it feels cold. We don’t like to be cold. Our temperature margin is relatively very small.

Then it can be windy; it can be cold; it can be rainy; it can be snowy. It can just storm. And yet, what can you do when a storm comes? And so, this is what I was thinking. So I’m lying there; it’s like, “What can I do; what can one do when the storm comes?”

And in one sense, the storm is not under your control. That’s not what you control. But what you do during that storm, how you react to that storm, that’s under your control. You can do something about that.

This little leeway, this little passage that you have can make all the difference in the world. It may sound very trivial; it may sound very insignificant—but it is the most important thing. “I can’t control the storm, but how can I just...?”

And, you know, I was lying in my bed and I was very comfortable—and even though outside a storm is brewing, I’m comfortable—because that’s where I am.

Similarly, when the storm brews between our ears, to find the place, to find the solace of the heart—and get comfortable, get warm. And all of a sudden, even though there is the storm, you have found a place that is so profound, that’s so beautiful that is inside of you.

And in that place, in that place of the heart, you can be comfortable; you can enjoy—and you can hear and see the storm move by. And when the storm goes, the sun will shine again.

That metaphor is so important to understand—that yes, storms do come in life; situations do come in life. But we don’t have to fall victim to the situation. We can actually still remember how important it is for us to know, to understand what the opportunity brings, what this opportunity is.

I mean, what is this opportunity? You know, and I was thinking about it. It’s like, “Is there anything good about this?” Because I had so many plans; I was going to go to so many places, see so many people. I really miss doing events where I can see everyone’s face. I really like looking into people’s eyes—and be in front of them and do live talking.

I mean, this is okay—I mean, there are two black objects in front of me; that’s what I’m looking at. And they have absolutely no emotion whatsoever; they do not concur with anything I say—they don’t reject anything I say; they don’t concur with anything I say. They’re just there, these two dark holes which are the lenses.

And, yeah, I mean, I can just imagine people are watching and, you know, somebody’s watching in their living room; somebody’s watching somewhere, something, something, something, something.

But what is this opportunity—and I mean, it’s a horrible situation. You know, world leaders lying to us, world leaders trying to now, all of a sudden, protect their position.... And that if this is a train wreck, this was a long time coming.

I mean, there was so much leeway that was there for the whole world to prepare—and for the whole world to hunker down. And spectacular mistakes were made. And I’m sure that, you know, right now we’re kind of getting in the midst of this. But later on, I hope that there are people who try to learn from this.

Because I was listening to this other documentary the other day and it was about the Spanish flu—and that happened quite a long time ago. And there were so many similarities between the Spanish flu and what’s happening now.

I mean, people just disregarded—but the world leaders just disregarded anything that was being said. It’s like, nothing was learned. And when you look at everything that’s happening today, compared to what was happening with Spanish flu, it’s like not one iota of lesson was learned. Not one iota of lesson was learned.

And with all the information technology, with everything available, I mean, this horrible situation has been created. Because, for me, one death, one death that could have been prevented is too much—is too much.

So, in this horrible, horrible time, is there anything good? Is there anything good? I see one thing that can be good—and that is that you get to move a little closer to yourself, to understand your existence, to understand who you are all about, what you are all about—to understand the preciousness of your life. And to understand how powerful the noise between the ears is.

And when I talk about that noise, a lot of people are like, “Okay, you know, yeah, yeah, I guess so.” But now it’s like the amplifier has been cranked way, way, way, way up. And that noise is just so powerful, just comes knocking and “Bam, bam, bam!” day and night and day and night and day and night. It’s there! How powerful it is? Huh, you know.

There are people who get into “This spiritual thing”; they get into that spiritual trip. They go, “It’s like, you know, that it’s wonderful to do this kind of travel; I’ve got to try this thing; you’ve got to try that thing....” And people are trying everything.

But here you’ve got this noise that’s driving you crazy—and just imagine this noise: twenty-four/seven it’s on. And sometimes you don’t actually hear it because you’re distracted, but it’s going on.

So you don’t sit there and hear this noise because you’re distracted with this; you’re distracted with that—and sometimes I think people like to be distracted so that they don’t have to sit there and hear that noise.

But now, the distractions have gone significantly down—and the noise is on. Now, what are you going to do? Now the volume is turned up, you have to now do the impossible—which is, you have to live with yourself. I know there are a lot of people who just can’t do it; they can’t stand it. They can’t stand themselves.

Is that a tragedy? Hmm, I think so; I think that’s a tragedy. If you cannot be by yourself, with yourself.... If you’re not comfortable being you, then who are you comfortable being?

You know, a long time ago I’m sure it must have been very different—that you go out every day, and most of the day—and you collect berries. And you collect berries; you collect whatever you can collect. Hunter-gatherers, that’s who we were: “Collect, collect, collect”—and you eat, eat, eat.

And then in the evening, you lie down; you go to sleep—and hope no animal comes and eats you—but you go to sleep, wake up in the morning and start that cycle again. And I’m sure people must have been fed up with it: “We wish we had one place we could just go and we could eat.”

From that time, we’ve actually created a system. And the system that we have created—the fact that you have to spend all day long doing it hasn’t changed. So, now you don’t go picking berries. Now, you go working so you can buy the berries; that’s the change that we have made.

Before, we were just, we were not paying anybody; we were not trying to make money. We didn’t have to make money; caves were free—and all you had to do was just go out all day long, pick berries, pick fruits, pick whatever came your way. Eat it—and that was it.

Now, one big problem, I can imagine, in those days would have been, “That can you guarantee food every single day?” So, there would be some days that you didn’t have food and you were hungry.

In a way, now we have created a society in which we take pride in fasting. So, that’s the same thing—but there it was happening naturally because you just couldn’t find any food—and you had to keep moving. And now, you do it on purpose. You do it for some, you know, some reason.

And here you are—and you’re working all day long; just like in the old days, you get up in the morning. And what do you do? You go out to work so you make some money—and you can buy the berries; you can buy all that food.

In the process of making sure that we always have food, we have created an overabundance of food. I mean, an unbelievable amount of food is grown—right down to the point where most of that food is wasted—that we can’t even consume it. And when you’d look at all the animals that are raised for slaughter, it goes completely out of proportion.

So, when you look at this, we have created a system. But the problems, we have not been able to deal with—we’ve still got the problems.

So, we have overabundance of food. We don’t have to go pick berries but we still have to pick something else, which is called “money”; you have to create money, make money—and that takes us all day long. And then we can use that money to buy the berries.

Well, I’m not going to be the judge to say whether that works or doesn’t work; you can be the judge of that. But somehow it doesn’t feel simple. And I’m talking about simplicity; I’m talking about that simplicity that is inside of you—the law of existence that is incredibly simple.

The needs that you have? Not the wants, the needs that you have? Air, water—a huge system to take that salty water and create fresh, distilled water with it, freshwater with it, make that water available—all the river systems, all the fountains, all the systems in the world.... Air, it’s here; it’s there, everywhere.

Simple, realistic, adorable: this is life. Simple fulfillment, simplest, simplest, simplest of needs for clarity, for understanding, to go forward, to be in joy, to enjoy every single day. And then one day everything packs up, circus is gone, everything is over. But till that day, every day, enjoying, enjoying, enjoying, not from here—but from here, the truest, most beautiful way.

Be well. Be safe. Be. I’ll talk to you later. Thank you.

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Prem Rawat:

Hello, everyone. I hope you’re all well and safe.

So, today I’d like to just talk a little bit about this opportunity, really—a chance to be, to be happy—a chance to enjoy, to be simple, to have an understanding that your relationship between the two walls is with you.

It’s about you—it’s about your existence; it’s about your being here. It’s not about the coronavirus; it’s not about this world; it’s not about the world economy; it’s not about all of this stuff.

The reason why I say that is, all the stuff that we are always concerned about is human-made. All this economy, all this stuff, this is just a play of the human beings. Somebody came up with these ideas: “This is what we should do; this is what we should do; this is what we should do.”

There are policies; there is, “This happens; that that happens. There is this bank that controls that; there is a group of people that controls that.” And you, you don’t feel like a puppet in it; you don’t want to be a puppet in it, but that’s exactly what you are, whether you like it or not. Hence you have a desire to be free.

And when the word is mentioned, “freedom,” there is such a strong feeling, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to be free.” But have you ever asked yourself, “What is it that enslaves you? Why do you want to feel free? Why don’t you feel free?” And the reason why you don’t feel free is because all this stuff that is on the outside is holding you back from being truly who you are and what you are.

You have this life. You have this existence. And for the most part, we know so little about it. We have not thoroughly explored it; we have not truly looked at it and said, “What does it mean; what does it mean to be alive; what does it mean to exist; what does it mean to be? What does it mean to have this?”

Is this an opportunity—or is this a kickback of some actions of a past lifetime and this and that—and you know, there’s no shortage of people making it complicated. Oh, you just cannot believe how complicated people of this world have made existence to be.

“Oh, you are only here because you did something in your last lifetime; you did this; you did that,” and on it goes. And those people who tell you all these things, they themselves have no idea what it all means. Why? Because it has all come from a book, not from them.

It’s all about believing—believing, believing, believing, believing. And we are all happy to believe; we can just believe away our problems; we can just believe away all the complicated stuff. We can just believe away who the creator is. We can just believe away how we got here. We can just believe away all this, all this stuff.

I challenge the people to know! What can you know? To know, to understand, to have the awareness of the self. And that’s what everything is about—to really feel what it means to be alive—and in this time.

So, what happened? Well, you heard some news; it was around December 2019, “Yeah, oh, there are some people who got sick in China.” “Wow. Okay, hope they get better soon.” Hmm, well, they may or may not get better soon—but they all started leaving. People realized that they had jumped.

And you see, when I say, “And this is all people’s doing,” it is. We human beings do these things. So, all of a sudden, we have airlines who are happily taking people away, wherever they want to go. And unbeknown to most people, they’re carrying this virus. The next thing you know, all over the world....

Now, whoever came up with the idea of having unrestricted travel, it wasn’t with a bad intention; it was like, “Yeah, that would be really good; people could go wherever they want to go.”

There was a time that was not the case. When I was traveling a lot in the early seventies, 70, 71, it wasn’t like that. It wasn’t anything like what traveling is like now. People actually got dressed; it was an occasion. And you had to have a lot of money to be able to get on an airplane.

Then, it was around the Carter administration where they opened it all up. Before that, the major airlines had everything locked up. And they removed all those restrictions and now all competitive airlines could come—and all the airlines could come that wanted to come and start flying people around. And the quality, of course, disappeared, but yes, a lot of people were going all over the place.

And the next thing you know, something like this coronavirus, traveling, traveling, traveling—and there’s quite a parallel to this, Spanish flu—that was all about traveling too. And that traveling made it possible for that stuff to spread.

So, anyways, besides the point that, yeah, whatever is going on.... That human beings have created for themselves, this issue—and it is human beings who have to try to figure out how to get out of it.

And there are people, I’m sure, it’s like, “Oh, it’s, but it’s, this is complicated and that’s complicated and this happened this way and that happened that way.” It has nothing to do with it.

Don’t ever forget what your business here between the two walls is. Please, don’t be distracted by this stuff; this will go away. All you have to do—it’s a pretty simple formula: “Isolate. Don’t give it; don’t get it. Wash your hands; maintain the distance”—fair enough.

They’re working on viruses––the vaccines; they will have the vaccines, medication, whatever.... And then you can go on with your business of whatever that business was that you can’t wait to get to, (which I can’t imagine what that could be), fighting with each other? You know, all kinds of bizarre stuff, that’s what we were doing.

Excuse me, that’s what we were doing before—you could have picked up the newspaper and seen all that stuff that’s going on. And now we have got coronavirus; that’s got our undivided attention. And when this is over, I’m sure we’re going to go back to the same old craziness.

But this is not why you’re here. Neither you are here for coronavirus, nor you are here for that craziness that goes on every day. You’re here for something else. You’re here to be fulfilled.

Like many times, I give this example; it’s like, you know, you bought a ticket and you won it. And the ticket is that, you know, for X amount of days, you’re going to be in this most incredible shopping center.

And there are all kinds of shops in that shopping center, most magnificent shops in that shopping center. And you can have—you can go to any shop you want and get anything you want. There’s only one caveat. And that one caveat is, you get to take nothing from that shopping center with you.

What is your strategy going to be? I know what my strategy will be. I will enjoy every minute of being in that shopping center. I may not be able to take anything with me, but one thing I can sneak away from there—I know I can—and that is my enjoyment.

So, that’s my strategy; my strategy is to enjoy every minute of it that I can. And now, situations happen. People come up with ideas, situations, different things, “Oh, don’t do this; don’t do that, you know, I don’t want you to do this and I don’t want you to do that.” And I’m like, “What? Why? What’s your point?” But then you just like, understand, “Look. Fine, let it go.”

It becomes very important—I can’t control the situations, but I can control the way I react to them, for my sake—not for people’s sake, for my sake. This is a big part of what the training that I am putting together for you is all about.

“What do you control?” You don’t control the situation. Obviously, you want to control the situation—but you’re not going to be able to control the situation all the time. But what you can control is how you react to that situation.

And if you can control that, not for other people’s sake, not for the sake of looking good, but for yourself—whatever you do has to be for yourself first.

If you cannot be kind to yourself, you cannot be kind to other people. If you cannot be understanding of yourself, you cannot be understanding of other people. If you cannot be fulfilled, you cannot fulfill other people. If you cannot love you, you cannot love other people. If you cannot be clear, you cannot pass on clarity to the other people. First, it has to happen for you.

And if it can happen for you, then it’s up to you, “What do you want to do with it?” It’s up to you, how you want to unfold it. It’s up to you, “What do you do with it?” Because you have just awakened and evoked those beautiful powers that reside inside of you, that are inside of you.

Will we never feel sad? Of course we will feel sad. Somebody asked me that question and I’ve been thinking about it—“You know, I’ve got my grandfather and I can’t go and say goodbye to that person; I cannot take care of that person. What do I do?” And when I read that, you know, of course, I was sad too. This is not good. This is the sad part of it.

And what’s going to happen with this virus thing; I mean, this thing has only begun. I mean, can you imagine all those poor people—the poor are the ones who are always going to get hit the hardest—really, really hard.

I mean, you know, most people have a house or have an apartment or have a place which has got proper walls and so on and so forth. Can you imagine how many people live in these shacks that are made out of those corrugated aluminum tins? That that’s it, those aluminum sheets?

And the summer is upon them. You know, I mean, in California, of course, it’s still cool outside—not a problem. But in places like India, places like Africa, I mean, the summer is here in the northern part. And my God, it just gets.... How do you quarantine yourself? Where do you quarantine yourself?

So, you know, give it a thought, of all that stuff. And yet, what did I come up with for that person who said, “You know, there’s my grandfather....” It’s like, “You can love. You can love that person.”

Love is the only thing you’ve got that does not see walls, that does not see doors, that does not see time, that does not see situations, that does not see wealth, that does not see economy, that does not see anything. Love is! And it is one of the most powerful things you have.

Your love? Your love? Oh my God, it is the most powerful thing you have. It is more powerful than punching somebody with your fist in somebody’s face.

Love! Love is one of those things, that when a person is touched by that, they will never forget. If you hurt somebody, they may, after the wounds healed and everything is good, they may forget it. But love will touch them in a place where they will never forget what it has been like.

You have that. You don’t know how to use it; you don’t know how to evoke it. Why, because you’re always being shortchanged by these little picture postcards that this printer keeps putting out—what your vision of love is, what your vision, what your view of the perfect person is, who you should give this love to. This is what happens every single time.

These pictures, the more I think about them, how obnoxious are they? Every single time, they shortchange the people, my potential, my possibility of why I am here between those two walls, the time that I have....

And they get shortchanged by this printer that just keeps putting out more and more and more and more prints—and I keep looking at those prints and going, “Oh, how wonderful that is; yes, yes, yes, that’s what I want.”

For me, this journey has been quite a journey. I mean, I left Spain—and the lockdown hadn’t quite begun yet. They were just getting some talk about it and I left—and I arrived in Brazil. And at that point, when I arrived in Brazil, it was fine to go to South America; it was fine to go to Argentina; it was fine to go to Montevideo.

But I was going to be there for a couple of days, three days I believe, and just then they said, “No, no, nobody’s coming to Argentina.” And I decided, “Well, you know that we really shouldn’t be holding gatherings and getting people in one room; this would be very bad.” So I said, “I don’t want to do that.”

And so then, the day I left Brazil, the next day they were announcing that they were going to go under lockdown; they were going to stop. And I’d looked around where I was, and people were so poor! Being isolated wasn’t going to work for them. And they just, and that just—they didn’t know how to be isolated.

But this is what poor people do; they congregate; they go to a tea shop; they go to a coffee shop; they go somewhere, just, and they congregate and this is where they, you know, have their interaction and this is where they get their little news and this is where it happens.

Because a lot of them are migrant workers and they’re there; they have come from different villages. And their families are in their villages and they’ve come to the cities to do and make a little bit of money. And I was like, “Oh my God, poor people are just going to get slaughtered by this.”

And it’s so important that the governments and all of us as human beings, try to help as much as possible. And I have some good news in that regard.

So, I asked TPRF and I asked RVK India to send me a report of what TPRF is doing and what RVK is doing and I would like to share that with you at some point in time. But it’s really wonderful to just see what little effort we make, and it has such a profound impact.

And so, I know, whatever the difficult situation may be, have a heart and give a thought for everyone else. Because they’re in the same boat; you’re all in the same boat; we’re all in the same boat. The boat isn’t any different. Somebody may be by the bow; somebody may be by the stern; somebody may be starboard; somebody may be port—but it’s the same boat.

So, somebody might say, “Yes, I am in the bow; I’ll get there sooner.” And then, you know, somebody might say, “Well, I’m in the stern and I might get there later,” and somebody might say, “This is the port side; I’m going to dock first,” and then somebody says, “And the starboard side; I’m going to dock....” And whatever. But it’s the same boat. We have to realize that.

And that would be an incredible turning point if we could realize what humanity means—in these times, what humanity means. That, let this not be another repeat of the Spanish flu. And a world with all the technology, with all that information, forgot what that was all about.

So, I hope you stay well. Please, be safe; be well. And most importantly, be. Thank you very much.

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Prem Rawat:

Hello, hello, hello, everyone. I hope you’re all well. And, you know, under the circumstances, I hope you’re taking this in stride, one day at a time. That’s all you can do—one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time. That’s such a befitting pattern to life, to take things one step at a time.

Yes, we have the capacity to plan for tomorrow. Yes, we have the capacity to remember yesterday. But we also have a capacity to understand what today is all about. We also have the fantastic capacity to understand what now is all about.

And unless we bring that into play, that capacity that we have to understand what now is all about, what today is all about, the planning for tomorrow is going to be fairly pointless. And the yesterdays would have gone and will be gone.

But today, this moment carries a message for you. And that message is very profound; this message is very simple. And that message is very clear. And that message is all about “Be. Exist. Enjoy.”

And not the enjoyment of this world, not the enjoyment that people usually talk about, “Yeah, let’s go to the beach,” or “let’s go do this,” or “let’s go do that,” but enjoyment that comes from within you—the enjoyment that is all about your existence, the enjoyment that is all about you being alive, the enjoyment that comes from understanding what it is that this moment brings to you.

Is this life, is this existence a gift? It’s only a gift if you realize that it is a gift. If you realize, if you’re willing to accept this gift, if you’re willing to take this gift, if you’re willing to open this gift, then it’s a gift.

Otherwise, it means nothing. I mean, so many people before you and so many people after you would have come in this world and would have gone. And what difference would it make? Another person....

You know, these days everything is about statistics. And every morning that I wake up, I go to this one website and it’s called “Worldometers.” And I go to that website and it’s just got all these numbers. It’s got numbers for all the people that are born, all the people that are dying, all the people, everything. And then it’s got all the information about coronavirus.

And I look at those numbers and it’s like, “Yes, those numbers represent all these human lives. But are they truly representative of what really is going on, lives that are at stake?”

You know, you say, “Oh, yeah, so many people died and they, you know, they were above this age and they died.” That’s really sad. It is sad. Because there will be a whole generation that’ll grow up without that wisdom and that knowledge that the grandparents impart to their children.

I mean, that’s so valuable; that is so important, somebody to be there to tell them, “That’s the way it is.” That “It’s okay.” It’s okay when something happens that they didn’t plan on happening; it wasn’t part of their little plan.

You know, a lot of times, the parents, they don’t have the time. But the grandparents do have the time. And that wisdom gets passed on, generation to generation to generation to generation.

And this is the value—not the numbers, but the value of each person who is around, the life. Because one of those numbers, (maybe it’s in thousands), but it represents a human being. It represents you; it represents me. It represents, truly, the meaning that this breath comes into that person—that they are given an opportunity to exist, they’re given an opportunity to thrive.

And I’m saying all these things to you because I think, once in a while, we have got to get our head out of the sand, (like an ostrich), and look around us and look at the reality that exists, look at the beauty that exists.

Because, yeah—yeah, there are terrible things happening. Some world leaders really missed the boat. They really missed the boat; they saw the storm coming and they did nothing about it till it was too late. And terrible penalty, terrible chaos, terrible fiasco.... But even in that fiasco, you’ve got to pull your head out of the sand and look at what’s real. What is real? What is beautiful; what is good.

Because you have those two wolves in you, a good wolf and the bad wolf, and they fight. Which wolf is going to win? It’s obvious—the one you feed. If in this situation, you are feeding the bad wolf, the bad wolf is going to win. And believe me, when the bad wolf wins, it’s going to make your life miserable. And that would be a tragedy on top of a tragedy.

But if you feed the good wolf.... What does the good wolf live on? The good wolf lives on kindness. The good wolf lives on clarity. The good wolf lives on joy, a fulfillment. And if these are the things that are fed to that wolf, it’ll become strong. And then it wouldn’t be a tragedy on top of a tragedy. It’ll be something good. Something would have been learned; something would have been understood.

There’s a saying, you know, “When you’re down, pick something up. You’re so close to it; pick something up.” And I agree with that. When you’re down, pick something up. Understand.

It’s always been a case of, “When there’s the time of the bad, you must have prepared for that bad time when the times are good.” To prepare for the bad times, you must prepare for them when the times are good. And the question becomes, “Did you? Did you prepare when the times were good?”

Or were you just out there going, “Yes, you know, everything is great; nothing bad will ever happen. Look at our....” This is what happens so many times in civilizations. And this wouldn’t be the first time that, at the apex of the civilization, at the crescendo.... And people lost. People got into, “H’oh my God, we are so powerful; we are this; we are that; I mean, nothing bad can happen....”

Everybody, about virtual reality. Well, try virtual reality now—I wish you could. Because this reality is not very good; some virtual reality might be good.

How is that going to help the human condition? That’s why I keep pointing out to people; people always kept telling me, you know, “What about this; what about that?” And I’m like, “Wait-wait-wait-wait, wait-wait-wait-wait, wait, wait, you are a human being.”

You know, relatively speaking, we haven’t really, as this “modern man,” this modern human being—we haven’t been around for that long. We haven’t even sorted things out yet. We’re still living in a very antique world.

We—I mean, we may think we are living in this “modern,” you know, at 2020 and all of these technologies and all that. But the reality of it is that women still don’t, in our society, have equal space. And that’s unimaginable.

Not so long ago, just a few years ago—and I know that there are countries like India which I’m sure that this is going on there right now, that they don’t want mixed marriages. It has nothing to do with love—but it’s like, “No, no, that person can’t get married to that....” Even though the society has changed dramatically, but it has such a long way to change.

There are people of LGBT community—that are having to fend off so much hate. And we’re not accepting them as who they are, as human beings.

And the society still remains dramatically divided—dramatically divided. I know there are shows on television where they show people hoarding things. And they’ve got so much, so many things; I mean, you can’t walk into their living room and they’ve been hoarding and hoarding and hoarding and hoarding.

But what do you think some of these corporations have been doing? And when they hoard, (they hoard money), they’re tapped on the back, “Oh, you are doing really good.” But all they’re doing is hoarding money.

When, “But, oh, look, look how that person became so successful.” Maybe that person, what they have, they took from somebody. You know, when there’s corruption, this is what happens. That it is taken away from some poor person’s mouth; the food is taken. We produce so much and waste even more. This is the society that we have created for ourselves.

It is time, truly, to reflect on this; to understand, “What do we want? Do we want to be divided up or do we want to be united as human beings on the face of this earth? Do we want to have a world which feels safer and safer and safer or do we want a world that feels more dangerous and more dangerous and more dangerous?”

The answers to these questions, my friends, lie in your heart and the heart of all human beings. These are not some exceptional ideas that have come up in 2020; these are the ideas that have been around for a very, very long time—in fact, as long as there have been societies in this world. A desire to be free, a desire to move forward, a desire to be progressive and a desire to be united.

And working for the betterment of all mankind. The world we create today is the world which will reflect upon tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that. Whether you like it or not, you are the architects of tomorrow.

But believe me, you will never be able to understand what tomorrow is all about if you have no idea what today is all about. You will not be able to understand the value of yesterday if you don’t understand the value of today. Tomorrow will remain a mystery if today is a mystery to you.

And so this is the time; this is the time to take a step, to look inside. Not to ponder about the uncertainty, but to ponder about the certainty that we can bring. It is time to unite like we have never united before. And more importantly than the rest of the whole world, we need to be united with ourselves.

We cannot be two; we cannot be three; we cannot be four—we need to be one within ourselves, too. We need to know who we are. We need to understand who we are, so that we can move forward and make this world a better place for everyone—that we understand, we understand the meaning of “man kind, man kind,” kindness for all human beings across the world.

So, thank you very much; I’ll talk to you later. I hope you give this some thought. And most importantly, be safe; be well. And be.

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Prem Rawat:

Hello, everyone. I hope you’re all doing well, safe, and feeling well. What I’d like to talk to you today about, again, is very simple. Because that’s what we have to, in our lives, really come down to. Whatever the situation may be, simplicity will see you through it. Look at the simplicity of life; look at the simplicity of existence and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

In our lives, we sometimes don’t understand how important it is to have harmony in our existence, to be harmonious with everything that is around us, to be harmonious with this nature, to be harmonious with the people that we are around.

And most importantly, to be in harmony with ourselves, the harmony of our existence, the harmony of this breath coming in, filling us with life—the simple things, the beautifully simple things in life—you, your existence. Your want, put aside—but look at your needs, the simple needs to be fulfilled, to be in peace, to be in joy, to understand.

To question, but then to have the answer, too. To understand that all those answers, the ocean of answers, is within you. To query, “What is this,” but then to find the answer to what this is.

That understanding can only be if there is the profoundness of simplicity in your life, if you understand the rhythm of this joy, of this existence—that it comes, that you exist, that you want to thrive—you want to go beyond surviving; you want to thrive. That what it’s going to take is just that simple thing of simply being. To be, to exist, to see the harmony, to see it in the simplest of ways.

Not the complicated. We like the complicated—oh, we love the complicated. Because when it’s complicated, we feel challenged of, “What can we say; what can be the profound thing?”

You know, and one time I saw somebody who was talking about somebody’s past lifetime, “Oh, you were an elephant. Oh, you were a this; oh, you were a that.” Why are you going there? This is the life you have. Not that. That you had. This is the life you have. And what can you do in this life? What can you be in this life? Can you be simple? Can you see it with the eyes of a child?

What is that? And that is simply to see, to accept something without wondering, “What is it; what is it called? What is its function; what is its purpose?” That’s going to happen later—but there is that one stage where the child merely looks at something and accepts.

Many times I have seen this. You show the child the moon. You bring them out. You show; the night is there; they look up; they see the moon—they don’t know it’s called “the moon.” That’s the parents who go, “Moon”—they give it the name.

But without giving it the name, without anything else, the child is looking at it and appreciating its beauty, appreciating what it is, without having to know “How far it is, what the diameter of the moon is, what the circumference of this thing is, what is a moon; where did it come from”—all that happens later.

But the issue is, “Fine, it happens all later; later we get into all this stuff”—but what about that simplicity? I always ask that one question, “What happened to that child?” You were once that child—that child that was incredibly simple.

And for a lot of people, you know, they don’t see the profoundness of that. I do. To be able to see something for what it is, without having known its name, without having known its characteristics, without giving it a purpose, without giving it a this....

I mean, why does the moon look beautiful? Is it beautiful? Well, when it’s shining up in the sky, it does look beautiful. Why does it look beautiful? It doesn’t matter, so far it is.

Can that be me too? Do I have to give ten thousand different meanings to everything that happens in my life—or can I simply, simply accept, “I am. I exist”?

And can I accept my needs? I want to be in peace. I want to feel good. I want to be in joy. I want to be fulfilled. And a lot of people go, “You know, what is it that we’re going to get fulfilled by?” Somebody just recently asked me a question, you know, “What is peace...? What is peace?” Somebody—actually, many times people have asked me, “What is peace?”

Wow. Really, you want to know what peace is? You don’t want to feel it; you want to know what it is? What is sugar? What is chili; what is salt!? You know, you can give it a name: “Yes, it’s this; it’s this; it’s this.” Taste, taste it!

There is that story where there was this king—and he was sitting in his court and an ambassador came. And the ambassador said, “My king has sent you, as a gift, this fruit that comes from his kingdom.” And so the king that was sitting there going, “What is it?” He goes, “It’s a mango.”

Now, it just so happened that in their kingdom, they didn’t have this fruit. So he goes, “Well, what is a mango?” And somebody said, “Okay, let me go take a look at it.” So they went and looked at a mango. And they said, “Oh, sire, it’s this fruit and it looks like this,” you know, “and that’s what a mango is.” “But I don’t understand,” the king said, “what a mango is.”

So, then their man went and touched it and he goes, “Well, it feels like, you know, gooey-gooey.” And the king said, “I still don’t understand what a mango is.” Then somebody took a bite of it and said, “Oh, it’s really delicious; it’s sweet; it’s got this beautiful aroma,” and the king said, “I still don’t understand what a mango is.”

And finally, this kept going on and on and on and on and everybody was getting sick and tired of it—and then one courtier got up; he took a slice of that mango, put it on a plate, brought to the king and said, “Sire, taste it.” As soon as the king put it in his mouth, he said, “Now I know what the mango is. Thank you.” That’s the power of knowing.

And the power of believing? “More, more, more, believe in this; believe in this; believe in this; believe in this,” because it’s not knowing; it’s “believe, believe, believe.” Somebody is going to go out there and figure it out for you—and then put it in a pill and give it to you. And you’re going to take that pill and say, “Now, I think I know it now.”

But you don’t know. “And I just believe; I believe more of this; I believe more of this; I believe more of this, but I believe more of this,” and the belief goes on and on and on. And then there have to be people who will interpret that belief for you. And so there’s no shortage of interpreters.

And what do they do? They get up and they, you know, open the books. And they, it’s like, “Okay, let me tell you this as in this book, and it’s true because it’s written in this book and it’s not true because it’s written in that book, and it’s true in this....” And it’s like, on and on and on it goes.

But that’s what belief is all about; what is the power of knowing? What do you want in your life, beliefs or knowing? You want to know. And that is being in harmony with the self—not at odds, but being in the harmony with the self, the true harmony, to be in that rhythm.

Otherwise, what is life like? And I can tell you this; it’s like a band playing and one player is playing off beat. He’s completely somewhere else, playing off-key and off beat. Does that sound like your life sometimes, where the music isn’t making sense because somebody’s playing something else? It’s not in the same beat; it’s not in the same harmony.

This life needs to be in that harmony every single day. Every moment that you can be, you need to be in that harmony. With the times right now, that is challenging.

Because this is going, “What’s going to happen?” This is going, “What’s going to happen; when is this going to end? What is this; what is this; what is this; what is this?” And the heart is more interested in what happens every day: “You’re alive,” your life, your existence.

Understand what it means to be in that harmony. Understand how important it is for you to be in that harmony. Harmonize with this existence, for the time you have—for the time you have. And when this is gone, you won’t be able to harmonize. Will you want to? Yes, but would you be able to? No.

This is your chance; this is your opportunity to feel, to experience. And how beautiful that is, that you can do that; you can feel; you can feel peace; you can feel joy. You can feel the goodness of being alive, the goodness of who you are, the harmony, the understanding. And you know, that’s what it has to be. Not the complicated, but the simple.

And when you understand what that simplicity is—and how precious that simplicity is, then everything begins to change. Everything takes on a new meaning: “Wow. How do I capture today? Just be me”—and you will capture it. This is what you want. It’s always a good time, always a beautiful time because you understand what that means.

Not analytical, not through analysis, “Oh, there’s....” We need analysis; I’m not saying we don’t need analysis. We need analysis. And in this world, there are many things that need analysis.

But your existence is afoot. No point in analyzing “what this means, what that means.” Accept. Accept and understand—that you need to be in that simple harmony, in the simplest synchronicity with your existence, with this breath. As simple as it is, you need to become that simple; you need to become that real.

What is real? Not some philosophy that bounces between these two ears. No, no, no, no, no. What is simple; what is real—to you? It’s the coming and going of your breath, your existence. Your.... What is real is your desire for peace, your need for peace. What is real is your need to be fulfilled. What is real is your need to be in that simplicity.

What is real is to have that harmony in your life, your need to have that harmony in your life. To once again, see the world and to see yourself with the eyes of the child. I always say this, you know, “What happened to that child, do you think?” That child is still here. Each one of you, once upon a time, was a child. That child never died. That child is still there.

Get in touch with that child; get in touch with that simplicity; get in touch with that harmony; get in touch with that joy. And the reward for all that is fulfillment, is peace, is the beautiful stuff in life.

Be safe; be well. Be. Thank you.