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What would it be like for you if somebody said “I'll give you a gift and with this gift, you can do anything you want—anything!” What would that mean to you?

What if somebody came to you and said, “I’m going to give you a gift and it 's priceless. It 's priceless. And I'll not only give it to you once, but I'll give it to you again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.”

What if somebody came up to you and said, “I’m going to give you the possibility.” If somebody handed you a magic wand and said, “Here, here's the possibility. I...I give you this magic wand. This is...this can make it possible for you to be fulfilled.” What would that mean to you? What would that mean to you?

“That I give you a gift and with this gift just like Aladdin's lamp, with this gift you don't have to suffer any more.” What would that...what...what would that mean to you? I mean, if somebody did that—I mean, it's like, if somebody just said all those things to you, I mean, what would that mean to you?

Wouldn’t it be like, “Wow”? “Yeah, oh, man! That would be incredible. That I could just wave away all my problems? Just, whssst, gone? That I could accept a gift, be given a gift that is priceless, again and again and again?” Yes, yes, yes!

But you know, that’s exactly what has happened. That's what life means. Life isn’t this dreary thing that you have turned it into. It isn’t. It actually means receiving the most priceless gift again and again and again and again and again. And never, ever have to say, “That's enough.” Keep accepting, keep accepting, and it's being given, and it’s being given, and it’s being given, and it's being given.

That you have the possibility to do anything. Anything you want. You can do something hideous, or you can do something incredible. Now the thing is, when it would come to one of those things - hideous or incredible - you would go, “I will do something incredible.” And the definition of incredible would be that “people would admire me.” Because it’s just our habit. Because we don’t do things for ourselves. We do things for ourselves that other people will look at and go, “What a nice guy!”

And it’s a bad habit.

People have come up with excuses that are just grand. I mean they’re just incredibly good, but dumb. I mean it’s like, “… but isn’t that selfish?” All right. Just go that route.

So, you...maybe 40 years old, 50 years old, 60 years old, 70 years old, 80 years old. Still healthy, or decently healthy, or marginally healthy.

So go to the hospital and find somebody who’s dying. And give them four days of your life—four days here, four days there, two days there, two days there. Do it! I mean, that would be incredibly unselfish thing to do, right?! But you can’t do it—even if you want to.
The time you have is only yours. You can't give it to somebody. If we could give time away—our time, this existence, away—there would be no poor people in this world. (You understand that, right?) There would be no poverty. Because all the poor people could then sell their time to the rich people.

And every time you’d, like, you know, had too many parties, and kind of running out of money, you sell one more day. And eventually, you know, it would get to be like, “Okay, one hour. I'll...I'll...million bucks? One hour.” Just But you can't do it!

You can’t do it. Because what is yours is yours! This is the rule! You come. You are alive. And one day you go. And you're not enamored by life! Here's the problem. You celebrate your birthday once a year.

And you think about death just about every day. How can this be? So, let's put to rest the “selfish” bit and get on with the business of accepting this life that has been—and you can say—“given to us” if you want. It doesn't matter if you don't say—“It wasn't given. It was plopped here; it was dumped here” or….it doesn't matter—you have it!

And how do you begin to accept this, to really understand the value of the gift that you’ve been given?

Prem Rawat

I always say, “What is the most important thing about reading a map? You need to know where you are on the map. And you got to.... If you have figured out where you want to go, but you don’t know where you are....

Have you been to a supermarket or one of those big shopping malls, and they have those little maps that nobody can figure out? At least they say, “You are here!” But you need to know that.

What do you think a GPS actually tells you? A satellite constellation that is out there actually just calculates your position—your “current position.” That’s all it does. After that, it’s the rest of the algorithms and this and that which figure out, “You need to turn left, right.” Da-da—that doesn’t come from GPS. That’s all in the software in that little unit.

All the GPS really does, it just tells you, “You are here.” Have you figured out, “You are here”? And Where is that “here”? Here. What’s taking place here?

Life is taking place here. This breath is coming into you—here. This is where you are; you are here. And here is this breath, coming into you and bringing you life. And you are alive.

And what does that mean? Everybody is busy trying to escape their problems. And it doesn’t matter where they go; the problems come—follow them. Have you been to Mauritius? Beautiful place. There’s a British Airways flight that goes from England, so a lot of people from England hang out there.

So like, and well, why do the English come here? It’s a pretty place. Oh, when people get divorced or something like that, or their boyfriend dumps them or something, they come looking for romance, and they come to Mauritius. I’ve seen them on the beach; they bring their problem with them.

So, people go all the way to Mauritius and the problem is still there. People go to Australia. The problem is still there. So we try to run away from our problems, but we can’t run away from our problems.

Have you tried that one place where it says, “You are here”—to see if your problems go there too? Because that’s one place your problems don’t exist. Only you do. Only life does. Only life. Only this moment—its pure magic of being alive, being able to feel—the joy. The greatness, the beauty of existence. Existence!

This is the realm of the heart. A lot of people will go, “Well, where is the heart?”—right? And rest assured, there is a place inside of you—somewhere; doesn’t matter—where the courage in me resides—the courage to be in that place called, “You are here.”

– Prem Rawat

No? You’re not thinking about tomorrow? You don’t think about tomorrow? And do you realize what the fact is? Tomorrow can never come. Because if it decides to come, it has to change itself from tomorrow to today.

In fact, think about it. You have been living in today all your life! It was always today! Today, today, today, today, today, today, always. And you’re not trained for today.

So, this is what I do. I go talk about peace. But the only way the peace is going to come to you is when you start living in today. Because that’s where peace is. Not in tomorrow, not in yesterday. Today.

Peace? Not a problem. Where is it? Inside of you. Was it there yesterday? Yes. Will it be there tomorrow? Yes, if you’re there tomorrow, it’ll be there tomorrow.

You want to feel it? You won’t feel it tomorrow. You want to feel it? You won’t feel it yesterday. You want to feel it? You’ll feel it today.

– Prem Rawat

Do you know what today is to you? It’s the day that goes by too quickly—right?

People say, “I don’t have enough time during the day.” It’s not that you have enough time or not—because the days are exactly the same. It’s your wants, your wishes; they keep multiplying, multiplying, multiplying....

It is what takes you to the shop, “I want to see the dresses. Oh, yes, this blue one would look perfect.” You buy the blue one. By the time you get home, “I wish I would have bought the red one.”

How many of you have closets that are overfilled? Why? (Oh, me too, believe me.) But, yes! All these, all these, all these keep rotating and rotating, and the desires keep going: “The days get shorter.” Not the days get shorter; the desires get longer.

And all you have to do is then remember that which is important, that which will produce gratitude—not confusion and anger and fear and doubt—but gratitude, because a heart filled with gratitude will dance. And as a consequence, peace will reign in your kingdom. The drought will be gone, and prosperity will come.

There’s prosperity on the outside, and there’s prosperity on the inside. A person who prospers on the outside but not on the inside, that’s a house that’s going to fall one day. (Physics!) Termites, they eat the inside; then that house falls.

But when there is prosperity on the inside, then there will be prosperity on the outside. And when there’s prosperity on the inside and the outside, everything goes fine. Everything goes fine.

This is not about sacrifice. This is about discovery. This is not about confusion; this is about clarity. This is not about believing; this is about knowing—because that is the only way that peace will ever come to you—ever.

– Prem Rawat

You know, today, if I got up here and said things that nobody could ever understand, believe me, I’d be much more popular. Actually, speaking very, very simply, people probably think, “Well, that was too simple! That’s it? That’s it?”

But to me, the topic of life is simple. What do you feel in your life? What…what is it like for you when you wake up in the morning? Do you feel gratitude or do you feel a burden of responsibilities? What do you feel?

Once there was a man—a young man—he was walking down the road. He was about to, you know—he had been educated; he was about to start on his journey of life. He saw an old man carrying a whole bunch of load on his back. He went up to the old man and he said, “Hey, old man, I’m starting off new; you have been around for a long time. Tell me, what is life like?”

And the old man stopped; took the bundle, put it down, stood up straight, and then he took the bundle, put it back on his shoulders and hunched over, and walked away.

Yeah! When you wake up in the morning, are you thankful for that day? When you wake up in the morning, do you feel like saying, “Today, I want to embrace today. This is the gift that I have; it will never be repeated.”

Do you know that? Today came and went. And what did you get of it? What did you capture? What did you keep of today? And tomorrow will come again. In this life, of all the things you do, one of the things you have to also do is be fulfilled.

– Prem Rawat