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So, here you are. You’re alive—and here is the situation—and this is an analogy. One day you receive this lottery ticket. And you have won! And the ticket allows you, entitles you to go to this shopping mall. And there are beautiful shops in this shopping mall; there is a grocery store in this shopping mall; there’s clothing in the shopping mall; there is everything you could possibly imagine in this shopping mall.

And you are excited: “Wow! I get to go there?” And not only do you get to go there; you can have anything you desire. If Bentley is your thing, they have them. If Rolls Royce is your thing, they have them; if Mercedes is your thing, they have them. And you get to have it!

And then you flip the ticket over; there’s a caveat. And the caveat is, "You can have anything you want, but when you leave the shopping center, you cannot take anything with you."

"Wow! Aaagh!" Would you be disappointed? I see some people shaking their head. I mean, my God, beautiful things, incredible things.... And you can have them! All yours! But you, when you leave the shopping center—which you must—there’s a time, you must leave the shopping center, and when you do, you don’t get to take anything with you.

What am I talking about? Ta-dah! Here you are—in this most amazing, incredible shopping center. There are the oceans, the mountains. And you can have anything! And one day you have to leave the shopping center. But when you do, you don’t get to take anything with you.

Now, the issue is strategy. Simply that: What are you going to do? What is your strategy going to be? Are you going to stay home, and get angry at this ticket? “How stupid! How weird! I get to go; I can have everything I want, but I don’t get to take it out with me? I mean, that’s really stupid!” Or are you going to say, "This is the divine joke. Ha-ha-ha"?

What is your strategy? What do you do? And it is precisely the strategy that you must have—you must have a plan. And you must not only have a plan, but you must execute it perfectly. Perfectly!

And in this plan, it is not about lamenting, and it is not about “I wish it was this way; I wish it was that way.” No! It is afoot! Here is your ticket; there’s the shopping center. This is the time you get in, and this is the time you get out. And there are no “ands, ands, buts” about it. That is it.

So, I’m not here to preach to you. I’m not here to tell you I am better than you. I’m not here to tell you, “I have a plan; copy my plan.” I’m not here to sell you a plan. But I am here to share with you fifty-plus years of experience, and that’s it.

Because I have seen plenty of people who go, "This is stupid. This is weird. This is strange. Why me? This is a torture!"

And I’m here to say, "But, look. One, you have no limit for enjoyment." Right? Just simple stuff, right? Simple stuff? You have no limit. Because nobody has temples or churches or any of the holy places where you go to say, "Dear Lord, please remove some of this happiness; I just can’t stand it." It’s always about sadness, "Please remove the sadness." But happiness? That was like, "Bring it on!"

We are here. "Is it afoot? Do I want to be a part of it; don't I want to be a part of it? What is it all about; where do I go; where did I come from?" But that’s not what it’s about, folks. You’ve got a ticket. And the ticket says, that’s the shopping center—and you are in the shopping center now, by the way.

By the way, you’re in the shopping center, and it's an opportunity of a lifetime, and you have no strategy, no plan! And so I say, "Keep it simple; you’re in. This is what’s been given; this is the opportunity you’ve been given. Have a blast."

Why not? Why not? You feel hungry? Go to the supermarket and eat. Feel thirsty? Go to the supermarket. Drink. Feel like sleeping? Go to the bed section. Find a comfortable bed and rest well. Feel like exercising? Go to where all the cardio equipment is; find a treadmill and go at it. Because you get to do it all.

- Prem Rawat

So it is that when one speaks of that beauty that resides inside of you, there is no clue.

There’s nothing like—if somebody says to you, “By the way, there is the Divine inside of you,” then you go, “Oh yeah, I knew that; I saw that yesterday. When I was looking at the mirror, I just saw the Divine kind of just pulse out and then go back in.”

No. You have no idea. And just because you don’t have an idea doesn’t mean that that’s not what’s happening. It is. And to see that Divinity that resides within inside of you, you would have to come very, very close to yourself.

It is not necessarily in the clues that you will find the answer. But there is a reality. The reality? The answers are within you. Come closer! If you don’t know this, of what I am saying, the reason is, you are so far from yourself, you do not see it.

Do you know how that works? When you’re far, far away, you see a lot more, but with less resolution. When you get closer, you may not see as much, but you see with a higher resolution.

You can look at somebody far, far away, and you may know that there is a person. Then, when they come closer and closer and closer, you might be able to say, “Oh, I know who that person is.”

They come closer, and closer, and closer, and closer, and they—you can get them to a point where you can see the spinach on their teeth! That cannot happen a mile away. It only happens when you come closer and closer and closer and closer.

If you do not know about what is your potential, if you do not know that inside of you are the answers, if you do not know that inside of you is the Divine, if you do not know that inside of you is the miracle taking place all the time, you know why? Because you’re so far away. Come close to yourself.

– Prem Rawat

What you know is what counts. In the desert when you are thirsty, it is not the pictures of water that are going to help. It is the water that you have in the bottle that is going to quench your thirst.

So, what do you know? What do you know about you? You! Who are you? What are you? What does it mean to be alive? What does it mean to have this breath? What does it mean to have the ability to understand?

What is your truest desire, your truest desire? What is your truest wish? What makes you happy, truly happy? Truly happy? Not entertainment-happy. Not movie-happy.

Now, the questions that I have asked are not superficial. I am talking about your core. That, if you were to lose everything—everything...cat, gone; dog, disappeared; husband, whsshht!; wife, whsshht!—and you could still be happy?

What makes you really happy—the truest happiness, the truest joy? Is it some thing? Or is it you? Your deepest desire, is it some thing? Or is it something in you? In you—in you? Because this, my friends, this, here, is the home of contentment—here! Here—not me. You, too. I just am using my body, but you can use yours.

This is the home of peace. Home, home! This is the home of true love. This is the home of kindness. This is the home of joy—joy. This is the home of enlightenment. This is the home of perfection. This is the home of all homes. This is where the reality resides.

So, I come here with all the humility to tell you what I have discovered. And I have found that for me to hear me, I have to be silent. For me to hear me, I have to be silent. For me to be present, all that confuses me has to be absent. And when I can learn to listen to myself, listen to myself, I am rewarded with gratitude: “Thank you.”
– Prem Rawat

Economic problems plague the world. People don’t feel safe. And so you wonder, “Why? What happened? How did we become like this? Is this our nature? This is…is this who we are?”

Or is something else going on…that maybe we are so separated from our true self that we don’t understand our nature anymore? Have you really grasped what it is to be human? And have you brought this to the apex?

Even a tree…even a tree tries to bring its fruit to an apex. What about you? What about you?

Or, are you caught in the same formulas of anger, fear, frustration, confusion, with peace as a hope somewhere over here, way back here—“someday”—when the peace is always inside of you?

Anger is inside of you; forgiveness is inside of you. Hate is inside of you; love is inside of you. Joy is inside of you; sadness is inside of you. Confusion is inside of you; clarity is inside of you.

Your anger goes wherever you go. Your fear goes wherever you go. Your confusion goes wherever you go. But—and here’s the good news—clarity has come along too! Joy has come along too! Understanding has come along too! Strength has come along too!

Just…the question is, which one are you willing to welcome in your life?

There are so many cuisines in this world. You have Indian cuisine; you have Chinese; you have Japanese; you have European. You have so many cuisines. But what is the fundamental thing behind each one of these foods, behind each one of these cuisines? It’s hunger!

Now hunger—does hunger have a language? No. Does hunger have a nationality? No. Does hunger have a time? No. Hunger is hunger. If you feel hungry, you need to eat.

And it’s the same way, even so far that we are looking at peace as an external thing. Yes, likes, dislikes—“I don’t like that flavor of peace; I want this flavor of peace.”

But if you’re hungry and you’re hungry for that peace that is inside of you, then all these barriers go away, and you see only the reality of peace, not the concept of the reality of peace. And that’s important, very important to recognize.

– Prem Rawat