Who are you? Let me give you a bit of an economy lesson here. If I were to say you were going to receive $25,550, is that a lot of money? For some people, it’s a lot. For some, it’s not. It won’t buy you a house, a car, a refrigerator, a washing machine, and pay for your food for too long. These days, $25,550 is just not that much. If this is all you had, it’s not going to last that long.

What does the number 25,550 have to do with you? Well, if a human being lives for 70 years, which is an average, that’s how many days you get. That’s it. That’s it? Only 25,550 days?

That’s what my calculator says. A measly 25,550 days, some of which just blew past while walking around in diapers and trying to learn how to walk. Then others blew past me as I was trying to learn how to count up to 25,550. Then when you get to the last 550, it comes in nickel and dimes. You just go day by day, and that’s it. And every day I lose a dollar. There’s nothing I can do to hang onto it. All I have is 25,550.

When I speak, I don’t want to make people feel guilty. I just try to give a sense of urgency because people have so much going on that I want to call their attention to themselves and their existence. After me, will this world go on? You bet. Will flowers bloom? Yes. Will rain come down? Yes. Will the sun shine? Of course. But the thing is, I won’t be there to enjoy it.

And so, 25,550 is a good way to bring it to a point where you can start to see the urgency of this life—how precious, simple, and beautiful it is. Whether you decide to spend it or not, the dollar will be gone. What do you want to buy with the dollar that you get every day for 25,550 days? Me? I want to buy the truest joy, the sincerity that only a human being can have towards the infinite that resides in me. I want to be free.

A person who is happy can spread happiness. If you want to do some good, learn how to be fulfilled. Finding a way to be fulfilled is the most incredible art there is. Why? Because what you are looking for resides within you and always has. That’s how the 25,550 came to be. And the departure of that thing will be the end of the 25,550. But though you never lost it, you search for it.

Many people tell me, “I’ve been searching for a long time.”
I say, “But you never lost it.”
“Oh, good. Then show me where it is. Is it in that drawer? That cabinet? The glove compartment?”
“No. No. No.”
“Is it in my bedroom? Is it in my car? Is it over there?”

The more places you have searched, the longer your list is because you want to verify that it’s not there, not there, not there—because you want to be able to say, “Well, I’ve already looked there.”

Where is it? Within you. And what I am saying is you need to know it. In this life, you have to know. There are no other alternatives. You are like an amplifier. Amplify the knowing. Amplify the fulfillment. Amplify the joy of this heart. Bring into your life the beauty of existence itself.

Your life cannot be just for the fulfillment of the ideas of what life is about. The show that you are attracted to will go on. You are walking in this fairground of life. When you are gone, others will come, and they will continue to come for a long, long time.

Understand the opportunity that you have been given. In this vessel, the most amazing gift of breath comes. What will tomorrow be like? In one sense, it will be no different than today and no different than yesterday, but if you are fulfilled, it will be unique. And then you won’t have to count the 25,550 because it won’t matter. Each one is making you infinitely rich.

To have lived a lifetime and not know is a tragedy. In your life, know and be fulfilled. If you don’t find it, I’m here. But the main thing is to find it. What you are looking for is inside of you. If you are alive, that’s your lottery ticket. You won. On average, it’ll come in 25,550 times. You don’t ever have to be poor again. This is the gift: 25,550. It still gives me shudders every time I think about that number. That’s all? It’s not enough! But whatever you have is the ultimate blessing in your life. Kindness has been given. Capture it. Be in joy. Be fulfilled.

Prem Rawat

Have you ever heard someone say, “You won’t believe what just happened to me”? We hear this and think, “Somebody’s going to tell me something that happened to them, but why are they saying, ‘You won’t believe what just happened to me’?” The keyword is believe because if you had been there, you would know and not have to believe.

Now, belief is okay, but you give it much more credence than it deserves. Knowing deserves the credence you give to belief. Knowing is certain. It’s clear. There are no ambiguities, no hypotheses. This is what happened. But when you don’t know, is belief sufficient?

I can just imagine a long time ago, a person standing on a ridge, looking at the stars, wondering: “Who am I? Why am I here? What is this all about?”

I call these the questions. Even though since then there have been a myriad of religions, textbooks, stories, ideas, philosophies, wars, contemplation, inventions, exploration of outer space, these questions still exist. They are asked in one way or the other by every human being. Maybe they’re asked in times of trouble or in times of plenty—but they are asked.

Until these have been answered for you personally in a clear, concise way, you will not understand the need you have for peace, the need you have to be happy. And once you understand that the desire for peace is innate—not learned—you will pursue it.

Ultimately, you came into this world and you’re going to leave this world. And you have a belief system. You do. And whether you have courage to hear it or not I have the courage to tell you that you are here to experience heaven. You have always believed that heaven is something you’re going to get to after you die, if you are good. You learned this. The desire for peace, to be happy, to be in joy—nobody had to teach you. You have had this since you were a little baby.

You have been given this body—the ultimate experiencing machine. That’s all it does all day long: “Wow. Beautiful. Hot, cold, soft.” If you were to make a list of the sounds, the smells, the tastes, the touches that it can appreciate—that list would be huge.

You have this most incredible thing called life. All of a sudden, you can move. You can understand. You can dance. You can smile. You can cry. You can think. You can feel. All this has come together, and while you are alive, you can know. And when you know, peace comes, the truest joy comes. Your life has to evolve around knowing—not just believing. Clarity. Your life has to evolve around this desire from your heart, from within you, to want to know.

What does your life want? People make all kinds of effort, “I have to do this, and I have to do this.” Then tragedy strikes, and they lose everything. Then they say, “I just want to be happy.” Maybe that’s how it is supposed to be. The building block of your achievements needs to begin with the achievement of peace, of joy. Build on it a tower as high as you want, and it’ll never fall down because it is built on solid ground. It is tied to the most stable thing in your life. You have taken care of the essentials in your existence. And then, having gratitude is natural. It’s not a belief, “I believe I’m happy.”

Truth isn’t some mysterious thing sitting on top of the mountain. Truth dances in you. Clarity is not something you dig out of a goldmine. Clarity and understanding are not buried somewhere; they are inside of you. They need to be evoked. They need to be invited into your life. They need to be called upon; they need to be nurtured, they need to be truly invited and welcomed. All the answers you want are inside of you. All the wealth you want is inside of you. All the wisdom of the ages is inside of you.

Understand, accept—discover those things that are inside of you. When you experience that joy in your life, it is something special. And when you experience peace, it is the triumph of a human being. You have won every war. You have succeeded. The moment you feel peace, you have fulfilled your destiny.

Prem Rawat

I hope what I have to say is going to help you in this journey of life. If it could simplify your life even a little bit, that would make me very happy. I’m talking about something that is so simple—your life, your existence, the gift of breath that comes into you, leaves, and comes again. The fact that you’re alive is so simple.

How did it get so complicated? Even though I can say it’s simple, and it is simple, how is it that it doesn’t feel simple, that it feels very complicated? There are all the things that you have heard, that you think about, that you look forward to or don’t look forward to. How does it get so complicated?

Look at the simplicity, and it’s there. The breath comes. You wake up in the morning, and you find yourself alive. It’s not like you have to put in a bunch of coins: “Let me be alive, I’ve got the money.” You find yourself awake. Then you start thinking about all the things you have to do that day, all the schedules you have to keep, all the things you have to remember, all the things that are important and not important. Thus begins your day. And somewhere, the simplicity of being alive is lost.

Make it simple. Exist, accept, understand this moment now. What’s going to happen, what’s not going to happen—just take it one moment at a time. Begin with the basics of who you are.

Look around you. Do you realize there is no other planet like earth for light years around? There are planets that are full of dirt, too hot, too cold, too far, too strange, too violent. The one you live on is magnificent. This one glows blue, has beautiful clouds, lightning you can see from outer space.

Can you ignore and not be thankful for even one minute, one day, that you exist on this beautiful planet? That you are who you are? On this beautiful earth you are alive. See the goodness in you; recognize the goodness in others. You and I get to be alive. People say, “Nah, I’ve got this problem, that problem.” You are devotees of your problems. This is what you think about.

We are on this magnificent earth, with technologies you cannot imagine: vapor rising from the salty ocean, wind blowing it and carrying it over land, then sweet fresh water raining down. A planet so incredible that all you need is a few seeds and a little water, and it’ll feed you. It’ll take care of you.

Here, the perfect distance from the sun is a beautiful light for night called the moon; the breeze, the ocean, the birds, the fauna and the flora—divinity dancing in the wind. Beauty. Out of nowhere. A show of all shows. And for me to exist in this time, I cannot help but to feel gratitude. Don’t ask me for whom. The gratitude wells up, a letter that needs no address. It is a matter of the heart from where this letter comes and to whom this letter will go. But it is my letter to express my gratitude every single day. We have forgotten what it means—the opportunity to be alive, to have the privilege to be able to take this breath.

A lot of people say, “That’s too simple. Talk to me about something my brain can dig into.” I don’t want to. Your brain has already done enough damage in your own life. You have forgotten what you were searching for. You look, and every day you hope. Then all of a sudden, everything comes tumbling down. This is what is going on right now. Optimism and dire panic. Failure and non-acceptance of failure. Greed. Economic crises happen because of greed. As long as there is greed, there will be crises happening again and again and again.

When you recognize this breath, your heart will fill with gratitude, and when it does, you will be successful. That’s true success. Not doubt, not fear. But clarity, simplicity, understanding. I want to enjoy every day I have, all the days I can.

Prem Rawat

Non-profit organizations Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre and ActionAid International USA both receive funding to help Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) during the country’s post-conflict period.

Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan — The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) has granted over US$65,000 to provide food, medication, cattle and livestock provisions, and fruit plants to aid over 10,000 persons affected by the country’s recent internal conflicts, which have displaced over 650,000 people. (World Food Programme, July 2009)

Thousands of families were displaced in May and June of this year due to the escalation of conflict between the Pakistani Army and the Taliban. Now they have returned to their homes to find waterways destroyed, crops and livestock gone, and no seeds to plant for the next harvest.

TPRF has given a US$30,000 grant to Shirkat Gah Women’s Resource Centre to provide food and medication. In the village of Kahzano Dheri, Marden, 2,600 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) will receive rice, beans, rice tea, and oil for one month. In the IDP camps in Kachi Garhi, Peshawer, in the Swabi and Buner districts, 5,000 women will receive medication and supplements for two months.

A second grant of US$36,800 was made to ActionAid International USA to provide long-term food security and livelihood rehabilitation. Nearly 3,000 people returning to their devastated homes in three areas of the Buner district, North West Frontier Province, will receive seeds to replant their destroyed crops, construction and rehabilitation of reservoirs for crop irrigation, livestock, and fruit plants to help them rebuild their lives.    

Both foundations expressed their appreciation. Dr. Saman Yazdani Khan, Regional Director for Shirkat Gah, states, “[Shirkat Gah] is delighted that The Prem Rawat Foundation has been able to respond quickly to its appeal to help the IDPs and assist its effort in providing much-needed relief. It will ease the discomfort and desolation of their unwelcome situation.” Peter O’Driscoll, Executive Director for ActionAid, said, “This work is powerful. And, without your support, it would not be possible. Thank you.”

This is a fact: today is whatever date it is. Here is another fact: it will never come back—never, ever. It cannot happen.

What does that mean to you? You woke up; it’s another day. We look at our calendars—the years, the months, the weeks—like it doesn’t mean anything. I talk about “the moment called now.” Well, by the time you finish saying “the moment called now,” it’s not “now” anymore. It’s gone. Time is a force that is so powerful, it just moves, moves, moves. And it touches you. But the question is: what do you do in this time?

Do you act like a human being? Or do you try to be somebody else? A robot. Acting. We are all actors, acting someone we are not. You might think, “I’m not an actor. I’m a responsible person. I have my duties, my schedules, my agendas.” But we pretend, “I am so-and-so.” On the scale of this universe, you are nothing, absolutely nothing. And yet, in your universe, you are the supreme leader. You want to shape, understand, and control your destiny.

What is your destiny? If you want to know your destiny, you can. But the destiny you have is the destiny of a human being, and you will have to become a human being first, not an actor. Not the imaginary king of an imaginary kingdom in an imaginary time far, far away from the kingdom of reality.

What do I do? I’m not here to preach to you. I have some tickets to the greatest show on earth. I look for people who want the tickets, and they look for me. You are the venue, but you need a ticket. I have one. I’m not selling them; I’m giving them out—compliments of one human being to another.

Who’s playing? The most magnificent is playing in this theater for a limited time. How long? As long as you are alive. When can you see the show? Whenever you want. Will you like it? It is a performance of performances, the impossible drama playing out. The infinite, the Divine, has decided to come and join you on this journey.

Recently, somebody asked me, “Why is life difficult?” I said, “Suppose you have a brand new car right out of the factory that runs fine. Then you take the tires and put them on the roof, take the engine and put it in the trunk, take the gas tank and put it where the engine is, and ask the dealer, ‘Why doesn’t this car run?’”

What have you done to your life? Please, come down to earth. It’s not a bad place. Being a human being is not so bad. It’s actually very good, very profound. You can accept. You don’t have to live in a world of make‑believe.

Sometimes I give this example. Make believe there is a cow—black with white spots, cute, small. Does this cow have problems? Yes. It’s there, but it exists only through a belief. Can this cow give milk? Yes, but you have to believe it; you can’t drink it. In belief, it even moos, winks, has big eyelashes. In belief, this cow is just gorgeous, and she gives a lot of milk, but not any that you can put in your tea. And her milk makes a lot of butter for toast, as long as you believe it’s there. But you and I have no use for an imaginary cow. It can’t give milk that we can drink.

If this is the only place you’re going to live all your life, what’s the point of the rest? You are so fortunate to be alive. This is the grandest of all blessings. Make-believers don’t understand this. They’re looking for the make-believe toast so they can have the make-believe butter from the make-believe cow that gave the make-believe milk. They dream of heaven when they are already in heaven: “I have to work really hard. I have to do this, and I have to sacrifice this, so when I die I’ll go to heaven.” You know what the big problem with that heaven is? You have to die.

The beauty of this heaven is: You don’t have to die. All you have to do is open your eyes. Stop dreaming, start looking, and you will see what a heaven this is. You don’t have to make believe. Truth, joy, is within you. Inherent kindness is ever-present. Every day. Explore the gift you have. It’s about discovering, feeling. You really should consider that ticket. It will take you to an incredible show of shows. Within you.

Prem Rawat

I’d like to talk about something very beautiful: you are alive. That’s incredibly beautiful. And when we talk about the self, we are talking about recognizing, understanding who you are. When you think, “I am an Australian; I’m a New Zealander; I am English, Scottish, Irish,” you are forgetting who you are. You are a human being.

We hear about superheroes who have reached the ultimate state of being. What if I said that you have reached the ultimate state of being? You are alive. That’s the ultimate state of being. There isn’t a higher state than being alive. This is it.

People go to the movies to be entertained, for some action, some drama. They have a whole ritual of getting their popcorn, their candy, their soft drinks. Talk about planning! The army could learn a thing or two about discipline from these people. They know exactly what and how much to get. Then they sit down in their chosen seat. The movie starts, and the line between reality and the artificial blurs. Some people even start crying. If they could see the real shoot, they’d be laughing, because what they’re looking at is maybe the fifteenth take of the same scene.

We believe. Let’s believe for a minute that there is a cow in front of you, and the cow moos. Maybe there’s no harm in believing in it, but when you need milk, remember one thing: If this cow does give milk, it’s only make-believe milk. It’s not real. You won’t be able to drink it. You can imagine it, you can pretend you’re drinking milk, but it won’t satisfy your thirst. Everything about it has to be make-believe, because it’s all a fantasy.

In the arena of knowing, there’s no make-believe. You experience. This is what I talk about. It’s not a fantasyland. There is a longing within a human being so deep that it leaves you dry and, in the same moment, fills you up. It’s a magical dance of quenching the thirst within.

Have you ever had water when you were really, really thirsty? Water becomes sweet. The focus is on nothing else but to take that water and drink, drink, drink. After you finish drinking, you say, “Ah!” You’re satisfied.

What is water? It’s something that has no identity. It isn’t square and it isn’t round. It takes the shape of whatever contains it. It has no color. It flows out of the ground, sometimes out of rocks—unbelievable places. If you were to try to describe water for its physical appearance, you could not do a good job, because it would always sound insignificant. Yet its power is so incredible that nothing can stand in its way—no mountain, no rock. Over time, water will carve what we think could never be carved. Yet water has tenderness, gentleness, softness. It’s the softest feeling, and it can destroy mountains.

The lack of water has wiped out civilizations. Yet water has a clear understanding and sense of purpose. It comes from the ocean, it travels through the land, but water clearly knows its destination. It knows it has an appointment, a love affair with the ocean. When it merges with the ocean, its identity is gone. It’s stripped of all that it was. It’s home again.

Why am I telling you all this? How is this going to help you? Because you can learn from it—about the passion, the desire, the want in your life. You have a thirst in you. You have a thirst to be fulfilled, but many people don’t acknowledge it because they’re afraid. Why? Because they don’t know what will happen to them. They have some concept that if they really acknowledged this thirst in their lives, they might become a vegetable, they might become irresponsible, or they might not be able to hold down a job.

What you do in this world, you do. It has nothing to do with your inner passion, because it will never satisfy that inner passion. They are two different things.

I’m here to tell you to listen to that sweet thirst. How could you not desire true peace in your life? Understand the passion for peace and satisfaction in your life. You have been thirsty. Throw your bucket in the well. And when that bucket is full, reel it in, and you will have a reward. Your reward will be satisfaction.

Prem Rawat

Life is simple. This existence should be simple. True love is simple. All the things that are good—in you, about you, and around you––are simple.

Peace is also simple, but if I ask, “What is peace to you?” everyone will give a different answer. If I ask, “What is God?” the answer will be based on your religion, your upbringing, what your parents told you, what your friends and other people told you.

You have always wanted to feel good. Your desire to feel good goes back a long way. In fact, it goes back to when you were an infant. You wanted to feel good—that was it. You didn’t have big agendas. When you didn’t feel good, you cried.

Who taught you to cry? This started from day one. When most people are born, the first thing they do is cry. If you didn’t, a doctor held you by the legs and gave you a little slap until you did. And most importantly, who taught you to be quiet when all was well? When you are satisfied, nothing needs to be done or said or expressed. All is well. This is you.

This is essentially the way you still behave. When all is well—great. When all is not well, it’s, “Why did you leave that door open? What’s wrong with you? Why are you looking at me? Why are you talking to me?” The very existence of another human being whom you actually may love can irritate you, just because all is not well. When all is well, everything is very simple, because life is simple.
Some people say, “You cannot say my life is simple. I have all these problems. My cat has left me, my wife is threatening to leave me, my kids keep sending me their bills…”

The complications that we bring into our lives—the good and the bad, right and the wrong, love and hate, doubt—are what make our lives so complicated. We all want simplicity. We have a relationship with joy, and simplicity has a unique way of bringing joy. The question is, how do we get it?

There is a joy that comes from the outside, and there is another joy that comes from inside. I’m not ignoring the joy that comes from outside. But there is a joy that comes from the inside, and it only comes when there is simplicity in your life.

It’s simple because since the day we took our first breath, this energy resides in us. All this time, even if we don’t know about it, it continues to reside in us. How utterly simple is that?

Life wants to be content. Life wants to be happy. You want to be happy. Something is going on here, isn’t it? You can move, you can talk, you can think, you can smile, you can cry. Something is going on here, and one day it won’t be. What is this thing that is going on? Is it your appointments? Is it your job? Is it all the things you do? Is it all your likes and dislikes?

There is something that keeps happening in my good days and in my bad days. All the things that I call good or bad are irrelevant to the fact that something else is going on. The coming and going of this breath is automatic, and due to this magnificent thing, I am alive. All the complicated will one day go away. So will you. The challenge seems to be to find the simple and hang onto it for dear life while you are alive.

Does this sound like a challenge––to find it and hang onto it for the rest of your life? It is possible. The joy that you have in you needs to be honored. The love needs to be honored. The greatest of all gifts, this most subtle and most beautiful breath, needs to be honored. Recognize it for what it is worth. Acknowledge this most magnificent but simplest of things in your life.

What happens when you honor this life within you? The energy within returns those honors, and the homage that is paid to you is called peace. Peace is your reward. It’s also called joy, understanding, clarity. This is how simple it is.

Prem Rawat

This life, in a way, is too short. It would be nice if you could make all your mistakes, get it all together, show up somewhere, and say, “Okay, I’ve figured it out, and I’m ready.”

But it doesn’t work like that. We’re given some time, but we don’t know how much. In the beginning, we just want to be happy. That’s all we know. We don’t know about responsibilities. We don’t know about right and wrong. We don’t know about being human. But we know that we have the thirst to be happy—whatever that means.

Good things happen; bad things happen. As a child, the level of optimism is at an all-time high. Whatever happened yesterday happened, but today is today. No memories are kept, no blame. Whatever we did in that state was not pre-planned. We call this innocence, and to each one of us, this state of being is very beautiful.

And then we go through the period of learning—the grinding, pounding of information into our heads. The alphabet—A, B, Cs. You don’t know why A is A. It just is. You don’t know why one is one. It just is. And you are tested on it.

This keeps on going; you are being prepped for this world. What does that mean? It means that you have given up on your ideas, and you are now ready, willing, and able to take on the ideas that the world will give you, including how you believe in God. This is defined as responsibility. I call it “the giant leap of faith.”

And then an amazing thing happens. It doesn’t happen to everybody; it happens to some people. They meet someone who says, “No giant leap of faith necessary. You don’t have to jump. Just feel—feel your own thirst.”

“What?” They find this idea to be novel, but they see in it their own innocence.

“The happiness, the joy, that you want in your life is within you, and the thirst for that feeling has to be within you, too.”

Then they ask, “Could something really be so simple?”

Yes, it could. Because you need to hear, you have ears. Because you need to breathe, you have a nose. You need to be able to see, and eyes have been provided for you. If you need this fulfillment—not want, but need—the thirst for it has been provided for you as well.

Find the thirst. That is the first chapter—recognizing, understanding your own innocence. And not by concept, thought, ideas, or prompting from someone else. The need for fulfillment is embedded within—not in your logic, but in the innocence of the heart. That’s where you will find it. And that’s where you have to begin. If we are thirsty and go looking for water, we won’t get distracted: “Did you see that bird? Did you see that rock? Oh, look at that contrail in the sky.” No. Water, water, only water. It is a need, a passion.

A human being’s true passion is to be fulfilled. And that passion has survived all our discoveries, turmoil, successes, failures, disasters, catastrophes. However fragile it may seem, it has survived. As human beings have become busier and busier with weapons of destruction, going to the moon, mapping the earth, inventions, discoveries—you might have thought this would have been forgotten. Languages have been forgotten; customs that survived for thousands of years have been forgotten. But somehow, the quest to be fulfilled has survived.

Why am I telling you this? It is a bigger need than you realize. It’s huge. And you get to try every day, consciously, to be fulfilled, to be happy. There is no rewind button.

When I have come home to this moment called now, I feel my heart dancing with gratitude. Perhaps tears come, but they are of joy, not sorrow. Every fiber in my being rejoices to be alive. I have no quest for tomorrow, or even the moment yet to come. And that’s good, because it is a moment that I could live in forever.

Prem Rawat

I have been traveling with the message of hope for people—that you exist, that you’re alive, that you’ve been given something that is so precious. I tell people that what they have—not what they need to achieve, not what they need to create, not their need to climb a mountain or swim an ocean—but what they have is the most beautiful thing.

For most people, the hardest thing to understand is that they already have everything they could possibly want. On one hand, there are desires, expectations, aspirations. We are told, “Do this, do this, do this.” Remember when you were young and your mother or father would tell you, “Study! Study hard so that one day you can become something”?

I understand the intent behind that statement. The intent is that parents want their children to succeed. But it also implies something else, which is: you are nothing. And that is simply not true.

I don’t really want to tell you that your mother was wrong. I want to be able to say that your mother was right. And maybe she was right about everything, except for that one thing—you are something. Not only that, but you are, in fact, something divine. And so, my message brings hope—not just making something up to give you good news, but real hope.

What is the reality? The reality is that within you the blessing of breath is coming and going. What does that mean to you? You judge yourself by what you have accomplished. You judge yourself by what you think your world is. Everybody is proud of something. There are mothers and fathers who are proud of their sons and daughters, children who are proud of their parents—and it goes on and on. Everybody’s proud of something.

But go beyond the expectations. Right now your bucket is full of ideas. It’s your bucket, but it’s full of ideas. And these ideas are not yours. It’s your bucket, so if it’s full of ideas, at least they should be your ideas, right? But that’s not how it is. It’s full of other people’s ideas.

We buy into the idea, “That’s how it is.” In this life, it’s important to put in your bucket only that which is tried and true—and good enough to bear your stamp. Only what you want to put in, not what somebody else wants to put in.

You think this only happened when you were young? No, it happens every day. You walk around with that bucket and people keep chucking things in it, keep chucking things in it—every day. That’s why this bucket is full of nothing—nothing that will help you.

What am I saying? Just walk this life on your feet, not somebody else’s. Understand its value for yourself, not because somebody else said this life is valuable.

What is really yours?  I’m only pointing this out because I think you should take care of it. What is really yours? This breath that just came, is really, really yours. It didn’t go into someone else. It came just for you. From the workings of the universe, something stirred, and this breath came exclusively for you. That’s yours.

So, are you going to keep what’s yours? Or only keep what’s borrowed? People who keep borrowed things end up without anything. Because it was all borrowed, one day it will be taken away. Those who keep what is truly theirs will be rich beyond belief. Keep it. It brings with it life. Live it. It brings with it joy. Grab it. Fill yourself with that joy. It brings with it hope. Squeeze out all of it. This is for you, and you get to keep it.

Prem Rawat

There is a lot to appreciate. One life, and in this one life, to understand what is real, to understand the quintessential, important thing: the value of this existence. Life is life. Breath is breath. To wonder is to wonder. To wander is just to wander. And when people wander, I ask them, “What are you looking for?”

I know that we seek to quench our thirst. We may never say to ourselves, “I’m thirsty.” But we are. We might say, “I have everything,” but we don’t—not unless we have found the water that quenches our thirst.

People ask, “If I acknowledge that I don’t have everything, does that make me weak or incomplete?” No. The water you search for is inside of you, and the thirst that causes you to search for it is also inside of you. You do not become dependent on something outside; it is within you. Understand what that means. You do not create anything; you come to know what is already inside of you. And not only know that, but fall in love with it.

When you know and have fallen in love with that one thing, you will be rewarded with peace. Many say, “Oh, when we stop fighting, we’ll have peace.” No. You will have exactly that—no fighting—but not peace. There have been times when people have not been fighting, and then they started fighting with each other, so could you say that peace leads to war, and war leads to peace? That would be a dangerous statement to make. What is peace? Is peace an absence of the external war or the internal war? You see, the peace you are looking for is from the internal war, the war that rages inside of you.

A lot of people read a beautiful book and say, “Oh, it brings me so much peace.” What did the writer read? The writer couldn’t have read that book till he had written it. I’m not against books, but books are not enough. That’s like hanging a picture of a well on a wall and saying it will suffice. You would never say, “I don’t really need a kitchen. What I need is some wall space where I can hang a picture of food, and every time I get hungry, I will look at this picture and be satisfied.” Yet, when it comes to peace, people do exactly that. “I don’t need anything. All I need is this little place in my house. I will hang this picture, put this book there, do this, do that. And then I will come and spend a few quiet moments.”

You have two ears that let outside noise in. But this mind has its own set of ears. It listens to things that were never said, sees things that never existed, talks to people that were never born, and goes to places that don’t actually exist. So, when you talk about being quiet, are you talking about a quiet room or real quiet, even here inside?

You have a thirst to be fulfilled, a thirst for peace. If you ask why, then may I give you my observation? There is all this dirt floating around in space. It’s compressed and brought into this beautiful planet called Earth. Then it goes through an amazing process. From dirt, dinosaurs come and go, this comes and that goes, and from this dirtcomes another dirt. And thisdirt is a little different, but it’s basically dirt.

Dirt makes goals and says, “This is what we should all achieve.” It says, “I have gone to the deepest ocean, the highest sky.” But there’s dirt out there much higher than you. It says, “I have ten degrees. I am the youngest at this, the oldest at this.” Amazing what dirt thinks. So, what is the point of this dirt being able to think, perceive, recognize, feel—when it will just become dirt again? When somebody will outdo you in whatever you do?

One day, my children wanted to go on an amusement park ride. I asked, “Why do you want to go on this ride? It goes round and round, and it’s just going to come right back here.” And the answer was, “To have fun.” I remember this, because it had a profound impact on me. I started thinking, “From nothing came this body, and to nothing it will go. What is the point?” Well, I will give you the same answer that a very youngperson gave me a long time ago: to have fun. It’s just my observation.

To me, fun is where truly the heart is entertained, where a person is filled with gratitude, where the dirt is filled with joy. Turn within and feel this blessing of breath. This is the most incredible miracle there is! Dirt can dance. Very unnatural, but with so much charm and grace that it is completely natural—the dirt can speak, the dirt can think, and the dirt can feel the ultimate.

Prem Rawat