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Cecilia Valenzuela:

Success. For some, success is the happiness of family, fulfillment in their career. Others believe that success is, to make a lot of money. What is success for you?

Prem Rawat:

For me, the question comes that people have pre-defined what success means to them. And day and night we pursue this. And sometimes we get so caught up in pursuing that we don't ask ourselves the fundamental question, "Today, am I happy? Am I happy today?" Because for most people the answer is, "Oh, I will be happy when I am successful." And my point is, of course you should be happy when you have succeeded, but you should be happy every single day pursuing your success.

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

One woman said to me when I was in the South Africa—I was in Soweto; we're doing an event. She says to me from the prison, she wrote me a question. “I killed my children. I killed my children. Is there hope for me?” She was in prison for killing her children. “Is there hope for me?” So you know what I said to myself? I can give an answer. It would be pointless. Nobody would believe me. I said, “Why don't I talk to the audience? Why don't I have them give the answer?” So I said, “Okay, here's the question, ladies and gentlemen. Here is the question from this lady who is in prison. She killed her children and she is wondering if there is hope for her.” And I said, “What do you say?” That's what they said. That's what they said. Somebody said, "No!" I heard that. Still have good hearing. Somebody said, "No!" You would be right, my friend, if you said, "No." The day that rule changes where a lit candle does not light an unlit candle. 

Of course there is a hope; otherwise, we are done! The amount of unconsciousness we live with in our life, if there is no hope for us, it's pointless. It doesn't matter. This is what I tell people because I know it is true. I know. I don't believe it's true; I know it is true because of that law.

Whatever has happened in your life, move forward. That's what...this is what this life tells you every day. Move forward, not backwards. Forward. 

What is forgiveness? Oh, you should hear my definition of forgiveness. It's very different, very different. Forgiveness is not forgiving other people's actions; that cannot happen. You know what forgiveness actually is? It’s actually to cut that cord that is still tying you to that situation and saying, “No more will I be the slave of that situation. Bye-bye.” That's what forgiveness is.

Because you need to move forward. Understand in your life, the possibility. Bring! I want all of you to be happy even though you don't know why. I want you still to be happy. I want you to be in peace because peace is already inside of you. It's there now. It is there now. Your light goes with you wherever you go; you cannot go any— so far as this breath is coming into you, you cannot go anywhere without your light. Let it shine. That's the difference. That's where that peace is. Let it shine.

Not only you, I wish this peace, I wish this happiness, I wish this joy—and I have means to make it possible—for all the citizens of Sri Lanka, and India, and Nepal, and Tibet, and the whole world. 

And because I'm a great knower—and I remind you I didn't say believer—great knower of that law of the candles, while this candle is still lit, I'm going to go try to light as many candles as I can. And for every candle that I light, I better my chances—mathematically you can figure it out by how much—but I better my chances for the whole world one day to be lit—for every candle to be lit. 

The world doesn't need peace. You do. 

So that's peace is possible. That's my definition of why peace is possible. And as much as I can, the time will permit—because my intent when I came here 14 years ago was the same. I wanted to light the candles. I'm still lighting the candles. And I hope and I pray, I keep lighting the candles. And for every candle that I light—another one, another one, another one, another one, another one, another one—well, we're getting better at those chances of lighting all the candles in this world.

- Prem Rawat

The main thing you know really is, that it’s an irony where we have made our lives so difficult. And it’s not that somebody else has made our lives difficult. We have made our lives difficult. We have taken and gotten ourselves completely lost in explanations and we want everything explained to us. Because we have lost the ability to just observe something and understand it or accept it.

This is how it is. Water is wet. We want to know why is water wet. Water is cold, but we want to know why is water cold. It’s cold because it’s cold.

And to me, really what I do in my reinterpretation of so many things about life and about the problems of life is to put it in a very simple way so that people can just understand it. Because if we can understand the issues that we really have, we can go forward.

We can actually have a pleasant life, we can actually have a meaningful day, every single day in which we feel in touch with what we are all about. It doesn’t need to be this whole frantic stuff that we always … the drama, the trauma that it all gets involved in.

- Prem Rawat

If I am traveling in a train or in a bus—some public transportation system—in an airplane—and I have a bag in one hand, right? And in my pocket, in my pocket I have a 40-carat diamond, pure, beautiful—one of the most expensive diamonds. It’s in this pocket right here. And I am traveling on this bus.

And then, in this bag is like, nothing—just some tissue paper; that’s all. And all of a sudden somebody comes and snatches this bag away from me. What do you think I’m going to do instinctively? This is what I’m going to do. This hand—not this hand—this hand is going to go, “Did I still have this?” This is gone!

All right, I—granted, I am allowed, "eahhh!"—for a moment. But then I’m going to do this. And so far I’ve got this, I am all smiles! Right?

Why? Why? Why? Why? Have you—or have I…? Just now, have I not been robbed? Of course I have been robbed. I’ve been robbed. Somebody took my bag of tissues. And maybe it was tissues that I needed to get rid of, but I couldn’t find a paper recycling bin. So I thought, maybe on my way I’ll find a paper recycling bin and I’ll dump this in there, and, you know, it’ll be done.

So now this guy has just done me a favor; he’s taken it. He’s going to dump it somewhere. But I have no question about the preciousness of what I have in this pocket.

Your problems are just like that. And, "eaahh!" Yes, you’re allowed that; "eahh-ah!" Yes, you’re definitely allowed that; it’s a shocking thing; somebody takes this thing from your hand. But then, you know. And you’re not going to say, “Hey, you forgot this!” No, you’re not! You’re going to go like, "Good riddance." This, you know the value of.

Do you know the value of kindness in your life? Do you know the value of clarity in your life? Do you know the value of joy in your life?

So, that "someone" who loves you has given you these to use as you wish, as much as you wish. You think there is a limit to kindness? You think you will ever run out of kindness—ever? Can you technically run out of kindness; is it possible for you to run out of kindness? No! Is it possible for you to run out of joy? No!

In our lives, we look at the outside spectrum because this is what we’re told: "Look at that; be successful!" What is "successful"? "Well, when you have a big bank account." How big should that bank account be?

Every year it has to grow. The cost of living keeps going, "tick, tick, tick, tick, tick!" So, what you could have when you were back in the forties will not sustain you in 2017.

So, many, many before you only looked at the outside, strived for success, strived for the gains, strived for whatever the world told them, and then they are gone now. Now, the question becomes, "Is that what life is? Or is there something more?"

Is there a world of yours that you are unfamiliar with? Your inner world—in which you don't strive for success, but for happiness; in which you don’t strive for fame, but peace; in which you don’t strive for diplomas, but clarity; in which you don't weigh and measure the accomplishments, but measure your existence by the gifts you have been already given.

- Prem Rawat