Topics

Whenever there was prosperity without peace, that prosperity didn’t last very long. You want prosperity? I know everybody wants prosperity. But true prosperity will never come without true peace.

And that’s why peace is important for all of us on this planet, not just in Colombia. On this planet, we are killing each other. We’re destroying each other. And we need to understand the value of human life, not the value of some ideas, some philosophies, but the idea of what truly a human being is.

– Prem Rawat

You are a human being. You have a certain power. You have a certain strength.

Problems are like clouds. They come; they go. Sometimes they’re big; sometimes they’re small. Sometimes they’re not there. Sometimes they’re there everywhere.

But the mountain that sits on the ground does not move with the clouds–doesn’t become bigger or smaller with  the clouds. You are the mountain; clouds are your problems.

– Prem Rawat

"Oh, I'm old. Oh, I'm young. Oh, I'm this. Oh, I'm that."

You don't understand what young is. There is only one thing that can be young and it stays young forever and that is inside of you. You trying to preserve what is unpreservable. Its destiny is to get recycled.

See, the word "green" has just come about. Nature has been green all this time and it doesn't care. So, you want to be young? Turn within. You're ageless. Be a part of that which is ageless because this is how it really works.

You have to pay attention to the company you keep. If you keep the company of the mortal, you too will be mortal. But if you keep the company of the infinite, it just rubs off. You too will understand what that infinity is. And you will respect that in your self, in your being. And you will understand what must go and what you get to keep. And you will know it.

This is what knowing is.

- Prem Rawat

Prem Rawat:

Just imagining that day—because people got up in the morning—and I don’t think anybody was really expecting to die... Going about their business.... Standing here today, looking at that, I wonder, “What have we learned? When something like this can happen where, instantly, hundreds of thousands of people are just wiped out from the face of this earth?”

And it isn’t just those people that are wiped out. It is their generation that they would have given birth to, and that generation, and that.... The wars are still happening. And there’s no one thing that’s going to solve the problem.

Onscreen text:

Prem Rawat, Peace Ambassador

Prem Rawat:

But every human being taking on that responsibility of knowing themselves, and establishing peace for themselves, that’s the only solution that has not been tried.

And here, the river still flows—and here’s a tree, and here’s that building, a reminder—we are human. And we are on this beautiful planet Earth, and there has to be some understanding of what it means to really be alive. We have woken up to the world, but we haven’t woken up to life!

[rings bell four times]

Onscreen text:

Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park

Cenotaph for the A-Bomb victims

Flame of Peace

Atomic Bomb Dome

The Hall of Remembrance

Bell of Peace

Do you know what it took to put you in that seat that you're sitting on? Do you know how many species went through evolution so you could be like you are?

We all take it for granted. "Oh, here I am!" But do you have any idea of how much evolution it took, how many experiments it took, so today you could sit in that chair?

What is the world that we live in? What is this world that we live in? Think about it. There is more food available today than there ever was. One of the points that I'm trying to make is, there was a time when people thought that if we had enough food we would have peace. Well, guess what? We have enough food, and we still don't have peace.

Once upon a time, people thought that if we would have enough wealth we would have peace. Guess what? We do have more wealth now than we've ever had. There is more wealth in this world than there ever was, but there is no peace.

People said, "If people were educated there would be peace." There are more schools now than there ever were, and there's still no peace. People said, "If we could communicate with each other, there would be peace." Boy! Do we know how to communicate with each other! So, we have more means of communication than we ever had, but do we know what to say? So, that's the problem.

The only equation we haven't tried is that peace begins with you. That the kindness needs to be surfaced. We need to have a society in which we are mindful of our kindness. We are mindful of our compassion, we are mindful of our capability to be able to help the ones around us, if they need help–and that help will begin by first helping ourselves.

— Prem Rawat

So, when I say “we,” when I say to you, “you can make a difference,” do you believe me? 

Why? Shouldn't I prove it to you? Should I prove it to you? I can prove it to you. I can. You want me to prove it to you? Yes? 

Come on, yes or no? There you go. See, in the world of absence, you can just go “Uhm….” And in the world of presence, you go, “Yeah, prove it to me!” So, there is a fundamental rule. This is my proof. There's a fundamental rule of nature. 

Bring…. Take two candles. One candle is a lit candle, and one candle is an unlit candle. Two candles. Okay? Unlit. Lit. Bring them together. What will happen? 

Huh? When is unlit and one is lit. And when you bring the two candles together, what will happen? Aha. You see, the world of presence, and the world of absence. 

What will happen? The lit candle, the lit candle will light the unlit candle. 

Not the unlit candle will extinguish the lit candle. Do you agree? 

This is how you, how you have a chulha at home. You know what a chulha is? That's how your stove works. Your gas, your cooking gas, you light a match. It's unlit. You go “Ech!” and “Boomf!” Sometimes too much “boomf” and that's how it works.

So, that is the proof that you make a difference if you are a lit candle. You have this incredible, incredible, incredible power to light an unlit candle. Now, how big do you have to be? How big does the unlit candle have to be to get lit? And how big does the lit candle have to be, even if it is right down to almost nothing, but it's lit. 

It's good. It can light an unlit candle. Doesn't have to be this big. It doesn't have to be this big. It doesn't have to be decorated. It doesn't have to be green. It doesn't have to be purple. It doesn't have to be yellow. It doesn't have to be any of those things. All it has to be is lit.

You carry this power. If you're a lit candle, you can light an unlit candle. And how many times can you do that? Is there a limit? Till your lit, you can keep lighting. 

It's no, it's not like, Oh, I'm too old. I can't light anything. No. If you’re lit, that's all it takes. Keep lighting. Keep lighting. Keep lighting. Keep lighting.

This law, by the way, is 4.5 billion years old.  It was there.  Not 200,000 or 6,000 years old—4.5 billion years old.

And this is the possibility. This is the possibility. In your life, goodness awaits. The Divine for you awaits to be discovered. Joy, treasured.

Hey, listen, you have no limit for joy. Pain, you do. After a little while, it's too much. “Ahhh, I want out.” Joy? No limit.  You can be joyful every day for the rest of your life, not a problem. Not a problem, not a problem.  Sadness every day? You will find a big cliff somewhere.  That's what people do.  A lot of people think they're insignificant. Right? “I’m nothing.”

Ahh, but this is where the Divine lives. This is where the light lives. This is where the goodness lives. This is where compassion lives. This is where kindness lives. 

What are you talking about, insignificant? 

The only reason why you would want to pretend to be insignificant is so you can offload your responsibilities. “I'm not good…I can't do anything.”

You know when you go to bureaucracy, go to office, you're getting something, you want something done and the person doesn't want to do it.  “Oh no, no. I'm just junior. You have to go see the senior.” But you say, “Okay, 10 rupees?” “Okay, okay, I can do it.”

So why are you abdicating your responsibility in life?  But you don't need to do that. Why? Why are you not understanding what this possibility is, called life?

- Prem Rawat