In this life, we hear many things. We hear about the road of life, about what is the purpose of life. But the fact of the matter is, no one knows. Each one of us, because we are alive, will make a voyage. What will it be like? No one knows.

You are given a vessel—this human body. By the very fact that it exists, it will make a voyage and go where no one has been before. You might think it will be similar to another person’s voyage. No. There are infinite little changes, variables that will make your voyage unlike anyone else’s. How you perceive, how you understand is completely unique to you.

Every day is different. Even if you do the same thing every day, no two days are alike. It is not just a question of good or bad; it is how you view it. One day things could be really bad and you’re feeling good inside so, “It’s not so bad.” There could be a day when things are really good but you’re not feeling good inside, so you think, “Oh, no. Everything is bad.”

How do we make this voyage? What is the purpose of this voyage?

To understand this, you have to begin at point zero. Why? Because you’ve heard a lot, read a lot of books. This is all information floating in your head. You need to begin at zero—no information. Let’s look at the facts, not ideas.

You try to make this body comfortable. You want a soft bed, a soft pillow. When you buy shoes, you walk in them to make sure they’re comfortable. We spend a lot of time and energy to make sure our body is externally comfortable. Do we also spend that time to make sure that our existence, our life, is internally comfortable? Or do we learn how to live with disparity, with anger, with confusion?

You start out as a baby. As you get older and older, the body deteriorates. You know it’s going to deteriorate, but you try to take care of it, preserve it. You want to be comfortable because this is how you are made. This body does not like pain; it reacts to something hot. It wants to see and hear that which brings you enjoyment. This is how you are.

So, is it any different for what is within you, that the heart also wants to enjoy? Your existence wants to be fulfilled.

What is the ultimate experience? Without being a rocket scientist, I would have to say that the experience of the ultimate would be an ultimate experience. The ultimate would be that power that makes everything possible. Powers it. Moves it. In the whole universe. I’m not going to try to define it because one of the definitions of the ultimate is that it’s indefinable. I’m not going to try to explain to you what infinity is; we cannot understand what infinity is.

This universe is amazing, but the fascinating thing is not understanding the universe, but understanding that what powers the universe happens to be within us right now, and we can experience it. And when you do, you are filled with peace, with clarity, with joy. This is when you experience the truest, truest happiness.

How beautiful is this opportunity to make this voyage of life. What do you need to take with you? Do you need anger? Do you need fear? No. These have been given to you, but so has kindness. There is confusion, but there is clarity. There is pain, but there is joy. Pain is the absence. Kindness and joy are the presence.

Your life is about absences and presences, and you need to know the difference. To make doubts go away is impossible, but to bring clarity into your life is very possible. This you can do. In your life, have you put on your list what you do not want or what you do want? For most people, there are all the lists of what they don’t want: “I don’t want confusion; I don’t want poverty; I don’t want pain. I don’t want this; I don’t want that.”

Let me help you prepare for this voyage. You try to pack everything, and your back hurts from carrying all those ideas. You don’t need everything. Lighten your load. Carry the essentials; that’s all you need. Pack clarity. It will see you through most problems. Confusion weighs a lot; clarity weighs so little. Pain weighs so much, and joy so little. These are good things to carry with you because they hardly weigh anything and they make you lighter, too.

Take the voyage. It’s a good voyage. Feel the heaven here. This earth was designed for you. Be in that peace. Be in that joy.

Prem Rawat

Washington, DC, August 7, 2007 — The television series “Words of Peace” won first place honors in the 2007 Community Access Magic (CAM) Awards sponsored by CTV in Prince George’s County, Maryland, a community near Washington, DC. The series features talks by Prem Rawat, known worldwide as Maharaji, a leading voice for peace who shares his message with audiences around the globe. The award was announced by Sandra F. Peaches, Esq., the interim executive director of CTV, which is one of the most widely recognized community access organizations in the United States. A number of distinguished public officials attended the award ceremony, which was held July 31, 2007 at the elegant Newton White Mansion, managed by the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George’s County. The awards were distributed by Gina Jordan, Programming/Training Coordinator of CTV.

A CTV awards committee selected “Words of Peace” as the winning program in the “Interview/Talk” category. The prize was awarded to Prince George’s County resident Jimi Jones, a city planner who has been volunteering the past year as local producer of the show. “I’ve been listening to Prem Rawat's message for many years,” Jones explained. “It helps me enjoy life at a deeper level, and I wanted to share it with others in my community. I hope this program can touch other CTV viewers and maybe get more people to recognize that peace is possible.”

This is a metaphor, but it’s true: when we come into this world, we’re given seeds, and the opportunity truly is what we do with these seeds. What are they?

We can begin with very simple stuff. One of them can be the seed of anger. There is a seed of doubt and a seed of confusion. But there is also a seed of kindness, a seed of love, a seed of understanding. Whatever seed you sow in your garden, in this garden of life, ultimately, this is the tree you will rest under. How restful it will be directly depends on what kind of seed you sow.

There are certain trees that have beautiful flowers, but they produce a sap that does not allow grass to grow underneath. Every seed has a particular quality, something that it offers. But when it is sown, when it grows and becomes a tree, it will have very particular characteristics that you may or may not like.

I’m not here to pass judgment or say what kind of seed you should have sown. I merely point out some of the characteristics. You are capable of making that decision for yourself. You have enough intelligence to choose from a place of clarity what will benefit you the most. Human beings, given the circumstances that they can see clearly, will make the right decision.

What is it that you have planted? If you want to know what you have been nurturing, just open the window and look in your garden. You will see all the trees that are there.

Most of us have sown the seed of anger. There seems to be no hesitation to go near it, but what you end up with—the droppings from this tree—you don’t like. And you promise yourself you will never go near this tree again. But either you forget or you have become so used to living this life unconsciously, there is no hesitation to go right back to that tree and get that sap all over you. It’s disgusting, and sometimes this sap is so nasty that it can take a lifetime to get it out. Two people love each other, and then each one in turn visits their own little tree and gets sap, and then it’s, “I hate you. I wish you were never made.”

People plant the seed of doubt: “Is it really going to happen?” The tree of doubt comes. It’s also disgusting, because this tree has a dust that comes out of it that gets all over the place, and it takes what could be beautiful and turns it into nothing. In life, one of the biggest lessons to learn is to give every new day the benefit of positive doubt, “Maybe today is my day. Maybe today what he will say to me will be different.”

What about understanding? That seed may never have been sown, but it doesn’t matter. Whenever you sow these seeds, they will sprout, so it’s never too late. But what is the tree of understanding? We are taught to believe—”leap of faith.” That could be highly risky, and you don’t have to take that. You can replace that with understanding, understanding what it means to be alive.

Most people think, “I know what it means to be alive.” But your life is associated with your job, the things that happen around you. That is not your life. These things exist because I do, but they are not my existence. They will change; they may appear and disappear, but I will be. At the hub is your life, your understanding, your steps, your journey, your elation, your filling of heart, and the process of utter and total contentment.

What is it to be content? It is a feeling that emanates from within you, your basic core. Somebody asks you, “Are you satisfied?” You can say, “Yes, I have a good job, a good family, a good car, great friends, and even my pets listen to me, so I must be satisfied.” But are you content? Did you sow the seed of contentment?

Look and see what kinds of trees are in your garden. Did you sow the seed of understanding? We breed unconsciousness and then wonder what happens to us in our life. It cannot be. Take a look again at those seeds that you have been given and make some simple decisions, especially if you look in your yard and find a few trees that you assumed should have been there but are not. No problem. Seeds are in hand, sow them. Take care of them.

Nurture kindness in your life and you will be rewarded with the gift of kindness. Sow the seed of love and you will be rewarded with that most incredible feeling of love dancing in your heart. Sow the seed of understanding and you will be rewarded with understanding. Sow the seed of clarity and you will be rewarded with clarity.

Why should you do it? To feel kindness. To feel that true love. To feel that true understanding. To understand what it is like not to be in doubt. To understand that there is a place where there are answers—not for other people, but for you.

Prem Rawat

Los Angeles, July 24, 2007 — Nearly 40,000 destitute Ghanaian villagers are enjoying clean fresh water and marked improvement in their living conditions due to support by The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF) for the United Nations Development Programme’s Community Water Initiative (CWI).

The Ghana project was started in 2006 to provide potable water facilities and sanitation to “rural, poor and marginalized communities in high parasite-infested areas,” according to CWI.

For the nine Ghana communities impacted, the results have been life changing. Previously, these villagers often spent entire days searching for or hauling contaminated water. Many places had indiscriminate toilet practices due to lack of facilities, and guinea worm parasite infestation was common. 

Now, integrated water supplies, sanitation management and renewed water sources (including 22 wells and some dams) are providing safe, potable water year-round, enough for dry-season gardening. Each resident has access to at least 20 liters (5 gallons) of water a day.

In one community, Kwasilansa, women and children had drawn their water from a remote seasonal stream that tests showed to be teeming with bacteria. A seven-member Water and Sanitation Committee was formed, and the members were taught how to hand-dig four wells and construct a water treatment house using communal labor. Seedlings were planted and cared for to establish 5 hectare acres of riverside forest to act as a dry season catchment area. Today, all 2,000 people of Kwasilansa use the water from the new facility. Two neighboring communities of 100 tree farmers and 200 women, who process and sell palm oil, use it as well.

Nana Takyi XI, Chief of Kwasilansa, reports, “Kwasilansa has come out of the doldrums of underdevelopment. We have good drinking water and excellent sanitation conditions. We have said good-bye to guinea worm infestation.”

Magazia Saratu Mamuna, a resident of Sanga community, one of the nine in the project, agrees. “I can’t believe that we have good drinking water during the dry season,” she says. “It has never happened before. It’s a miracle. We thank the people who have changed our lives.”

Due to TPRF's funding of CWI's first water projects in Ghana and the success gained, additional support was obtained through UNICEF, the Netherlands, and H20 Africa to expand CWIs in Africa to cover 10 countries by undertaking similar water projects in three more African countries — Mali, Niger and Senegal.

The approach has been to mobilize and empower local groups to build, own, operate and maintain low-cost, affordable water technology, using locally made materials. Each of the nine villages now has its own trained community water and sanitation committee. Technical support is provided by the District Community Water and Sanitation Units.

The Prem Rawat Foundation is a non-profit organization founded by Prem Rawat, an internationally recognized ambassador for peace often referred to as Maharaji. A main focus of TPRF is to help provide clean water and nutritious food to further the quality of life for those in need around the world.

Photos courtesy of GEF/SGP CWI Ghana Country Office

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The Prem Rawat Foundation was founded by Prem Rawat, known worldwide as Maharaji, whose aim is to improve the quality of life for people in need by providing food, water, medical care, and disaster relief.

Discover more about Prem Rawat, his message of hope and peace, and the humanitarian activities of The Prem Rawat Foundation

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