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People have dreamed of possessing something of value that replenishes itself whenever it is used. That possibility exists. We hold within us a wealth of resources that never diminishes.

It was a Greek philosopher who said once, “You are never happy if you get what you don’t want.” Tricky words. If you get what you don’t want, you’re not happy. And even if you get what you do want, you still won’t be happy because you won’t be able to keep it. That’s the problem.

So many families, finally they get everything going and the husband dies. “Oh, terrible, what’s going to happen now?” Children grow up too fast; they start bossing you around. You’ve been bossing them around? Wait! You will get a taste of your own medicine. They will boss you around. They will start telling you things.

You had the child because you wanted a child—because you thought all these beautiful, lovely thoughts about having a child, “How sweet the child will be.” And now you are going to be on your bed without a second of sleep, thinking, “Where are they? Why are they not home? It’s already past midnight. What are they doing?” You can’t keep it! Can’t keep it!

You finally got your promotion; you finally got your promotion that you had been waiting for, waiting for, waiting for. And after you have got your promotion, you realize that there are twenty other people wanting the same chair. The one before, there were only five wanting that chair. This one, twenty more....

And if you go to the next one, it’ll be forty more, and if you go to the next one it’ll be a hundred more. And now it’s a matter of, you make one mistake—one mistake—and your chair is gone; promotion is gone. Because you can’t keep it! You can’t keep it; you can’t keep it; you can’t keep it.

Because there is a change afoot, and you don’t like changes. You don’t want changes; you don’t want anything to change. You, even though you want your son who is three years old to grow up, you don’t! You want that child to just stay that way. And you want your wife who’s so pretty to stay that way. And you want your husband who is young to stay just that way.

But everything is changing, changing, changing, changing, changing—and so are you. But you don’t know. Why don’t you know? Because you don’t know yourself. You know your friends; you know your neighbors; you know other people, but you don’t know you.

That’s what Socrates says, “Know thyself.” Knowledge of the self! “All knowledges are good; knowledge of the self is the supreme.” When you know yourself, now you know who you are.

– Prem Rawat

If I have to come and create a need for peace, then I’m not doing justice to peace, because the need for peace is within you. And you have to feel and understand that need.

What does feeling good do to you? Do you know? Do you know what feeling good does to you? Have you any idea what feeling good does to you?

And I will try and go there—I’ll try to explain what feeling good does to you. And before I go on to that tangent, I just want to say that, of all the things that I can feel that are good, peace is on the top. And so, of the things that make me feel good, peace is on the top, but what happens when I feel good? What happens when I feel good? I transform. I transform. I become forgiving.

– Prem Rawat

There is something constant. And all the days you’re going to be alive on the face of this earth—all the days—how many are there? Even if you live to be a hundred years old, how many days is that? Thirty-six thousand, five hundred. Take 365, put two zeros at the end, right?

I know I can see disbelief in some of your faces, like, “Whoa, whoa, what, you’re missing a zero. It has got to be three hundred and sixty-five thousand. Couldn’t just be thirty-six thousand, five hundred.”

But unfortunately, or fortunately, that’s all it is—and a big chunk of it is gone. And I only say this, not to scare you, but to provide the spice of urgency of how important it is for you to know yourself, so that the rest of the days that you exist are spent existing to your fullest potential. You have no other choice; you’ve got to live every single day to its fullest—and that’s not “party.” That’s the grand party, the party in which you are happy!

You’re not happy because you are with your friend, but yet, you are happy because you know yourself. You are happy because you have the courage to understand. You are happy because you have chosen, by your own choice, the fifty percent that’s good in you. And you have chosen to tame the fifty percent that’s bad in you.

That you have chosen, you have made a choice in your life to be real. That you have made a choice in your life to find the joy of being alive, to find the joy of existence, to find the joy of understanding, to find the joy of what it really feels like to have courage to know.

– Prem Rawat

All our dreams, our road maps that we make in our mind to achieve happiness.... And we draw little maps: “If I have this, I have this; I want this, I have this, I have this, then I can be happy.” These are our road maps to happiness.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re educated or you’re not educated, whether you have a job; you don’t have a job—you do, every day, you aspire to be happy. This is who you are.

Now the question becomes, if this is who you are, this is what you aspire, this is what you want, why doesn’t mankind succeed?

– Prem Rawat

There would be quite a case to be made if there was no clarity! There would be quite a case to be made if there was no joy. There would be quite a case to be made if there was no understanding. There would be quite a case to be made if there was no compassion. Because this world then would be very empty, very empty.

But there is compassion—and it’s in you. How much? Limitless. As much as you need. All you have to do is use it. How much love is in you? How much love do you think there is in you? Oh, my God! That you could never measure it. All you have to do is use it! And when you use it? Multiplies. It’ll never ever go down.

Unfortunately this is true for anger, too! How much anger is in you? Oh, my God, no limit! And more you use it? Tank will be full all the time. It’s not like if you got angry, angry, angry, angry, you would use up your anger. You won’t! You can never use it up.

You can never use up kindness. More kind you are more kindness there will be. This is—this is who you are! This is what it is like to be a human. And that heaven, and that hell? Well, when you are in heaven, you’re not in hell! And when you are in hell, you’re not in heaven.

And of course, you know, I ask all the religions—I say, “Okay, whatever you teach people, where heaven is, where hell is, fine. But just do one thing. Just do one thing. It won’t change anything in your religion—just do one thing. Declare ... that ‘If you want to go to heaven ... then first you have to make heaven here.’ That’s all. [applause] That’s all.”