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So, how do I understand “hope” in my life? How do I realize hope? Very easy, very simple. There are four points—and of course, the first point is, “Know thyself; that’ll bring you peace.” “Know thyself” will bring you peace. And the other three points will improve the quality of your life, will bring you happiness.

So, again, the first point is, “Know yourself.” Second point is, “Have gratitude in your life.” Third point, “Don’t care about what other people think of you.”

So, “My God!” you know? The thing is, what you have to realize—that person isn’t thinking about you. You know what they’re thinking about? They’re thinking about what other people think about them.

They’re not thinking about you; it’s just that you, you are caught up in this little silly game of thinking about, “Oh, what’s that person thinking about me?” They don’t care. They really could care less! But we create this whole thing.

So, anyways—and then the fourth thing: “Every time you fail, don’t accept failure.” This is about hope! And people look at me like, “Huh? Every time I fail, don’t accept failure? I, I’ve been accepting failure all my life. How can I not accept failure?”

The thing is, when you are a baby learning how to walk, you failed many, many times. Because here is a peculiar situation. You, you want to learn how to walk! Obviously, you can’t read. And you like your mother’s voice but don’t understand really what she’s saying....

And here you are. You have to accomplish what you have never done before. And no amount of training can be given to you. You cannot go onto your iPad, onto YouTube, and try to write in a URL “teach me how to walk,” because you don’t know how to type yet.

And it’s just up to you. So you get up—shaky, very shaky because your legs are not—the muscles aren’t built up enough to let you walk. And you get up, and you’re shaky, and you try to take the step, and you fall down. And if that was you today, you would go, “I tried. I failed? I don’t want to talk about it.”

Right? Complete shut-down. “Failure accepted”: boom! Door closed! “Don’t remind me of it. It’s a bad day. It was a terrible day. I don’t want to remember this day. I failed.”

No! Just because you wouldn’t accept failure, you saw hope. And you got up, and you tried again.

But you still didn’t.... And you failed. But you still didn’t accept failure. What you were left with—when you don’t accept failure, what are you left with? You’re left with hope!

And all this time, because you kept accepting hope and rejecting failure.... As soon as you take away “failure” from “fail,” “fail” doesn’t carry that much power anymore. But if you have “failure” coupled with “fail,” ooooh, that’s everything. That’s everything!

But you will fail, because there isn’t an instruction manual for everything in this life. There will be things happening to you and around you that you will face, that you have never come across. And whether it is in a hurry that you make those decisions, or unknowingly make those decisions, you may make a decision that is wrong and you fail....

And you fail—and it’s okay. Nothing in the world changes; nothing in the world says, “Uh-uh, uh-uh, uh-uh-uh!” No! Nothing changes; get up and move! Up to you—or stay there. Up to you.

- Prem Rawat

Everybody on the face of this earth has a reason why there is not peace. I think it takes the same amount of brain-horsepower to figure out why there can’t be peace, as to figure out a way that there can be peace.

I invite everybody on the face of this earth to change their thinking habit from going, “Not possible,” to, “Yes, how it can be.” Could you do that?

People will—I’m sure some of you are sitting here, “Well, no, no, those guys won’t do it, so why should I do it?” No! Not come up with a reason for “no.” Come up with a reason for “yes,” what is possible.

When the moon mission was afoot, there were a lot of scientists who said, “There is no way man can go on the moon.” That became a reality, not because of those people who said “it cannot be done,” but because of those people who said “it can be done.” And the same thing has to happen for peace.

Peace is required not only—and will be appreciated, not only by the patients, not only by the doctors, not only by your neighbor, not only by your family....

Because you are not alone; you are shared by many. You are shared by many. You affect your wife. You affect your children. You affect your colleagues. You affect the person who is next to you stuck in the traffic jam. You affect the police officer for whom you didn’t stop. You affect so many people during the day, (and night, for that matter). You don’t even realize!

You are constantly, constantly affecting somebody, and somebody, and somebody, and somebody, and somebody. And when you are not in peace, that’s how many times all those things that are the absence of peace are multiplied.

When you are not in peace, your wife may not be in peace; your children may not end up in peace. Her father may not end up in peace, all because of you. Your neighbor! Your dog!

But when you are in peace, ah!—and something beautiful happens. When you are in peace, you have the ability to take someone who is feeling pain and anger, and bring them a little comfort.

But instead I go, because I think that there is a possibility—that peace lies inside of you. I have heard this by—many, many, many before me have said exactly the same thing: “Peace that you’re looking for is inside of you,” and I know that that is true. Now you need to experience that too.

– Prem Rawat

Here it is. This is the opportunity. You come—automatic: here you are. Basics are provided. And you’re going to go—automatic. And to make it clear, you don’t know when. Because if you knew, you would sit there and lament that day. I mean, talk about waste of life!

You know, we have had these guys come occasionally on the face of this earth, and in no uncertain terms say exactly that: “You want to get the most out of it; it’s not happening again!”

And that what’s here is simply divine, the only place where you can truly understand the manifestation of that Divine. You can look at the stars, and you can be in awe. Be in awe, “Wow.” That there is silence! And what is silence? Silence is the only thing—the true silence, the inner silence—is the call of the Divine.

Not words—but the call of the Divine. To hear that and to understand something—not something complicated but something very simple. And what is that? What is that? That one shortest, most complete sentence in the English language. You know what that is? “I am. I am.”

Until, in your life, that little sentence, until that starts to mean something, forget it. Can you walk the life without the ideas? Can you walk the life without the ideas? Can you wake up in the morning and say, “I am content knowing I am?”

– 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

Are we honest with ourselves? I mean, we—you know, I tell that story about the guy who’s an archer, and he goes from village to village exhibiting his, you know, archery. And as he goes, people gather and they applaud, and so on—this is one of my favorite stories. So, you know, they all applaud, and everybody’s, you know, “Yay, great guy!” And he—you know, this really, really inflates his ego.

And one day while he’s doing this exhibition, he hears a guy all the way from the back going, “Ah, it’s only a matter of practice.” So this really irks him. So he shoots another arrow, and bla-bla-bla, and everybody claps, and, “Eh, it’s only a matter of practice.”

So after this exhibition is over, he goes looking for this guy; he wants to have a few words with him. And so he finds him. And there’s this oil salesman, a poor guy sitting in the corner—and he’s got a big bamboo pole with two big pots on either end, and a few empty bottles, and he’s just sitting there....

And the guy goes, “Hey, are you the guy who, every time I shoot an arrow and I get the bullseye, you’re the one who keeps saying, ‘Eh, it’s just a matter of practice’?” And he looks up at him and he goes, “Yeah, it’s me.”

And he says, “How dare you? Don’t you know who I am? I’m this expert guy. People come from miles to watch how good I am! And here you are; you just sell oil, and you sit there and you go, ‘It’s just a matter of practice’—so, what do you mean, it’s a matter of practice?”

So the oil salesman said, “Okay, let me show you.” So he picked up one of the big pots full of oil, took an empty bottle, put it down; lifted the pot—without spilling a drop, poured the oil from the big pot through the neck of the bottle and filled the bottle—without spilling a drop. He looked at the archer and he said, “Now, you try.” And the archer says, “I can’t. I’ll spill everywhere.”

So, after I tell that story, I ask my audience, “What do you think of that story? You like it?” It’s a matter of practice. He is good at archery because he practices it; he’s really good at pouring the oil because he practices it. You...you concur?

What are you good at? And the only reason why I asked that is because you practice it. Just.this is reverse engineering—whatever you’re good at, you practice it a lot. Are you good at getting angry?

How long does it take you to get angry? You’re expert! You must practice it a lot. How about getting confused?  How long does it take you to get confused? How long does it take you to lose hope? How long does it take you to lose clarity? How long does it take you to lose your focus? So, this is what you practice?

You don’t have to answer that question. You know the answer; that is sufficient. So maybe now, you want to change your strategy and practice something positive in your life: being aware!

– 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