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Prem Rawat: Divine Times magazine "It's just becoming so important now, more than ever, to practice meditation in the way that we first received this Knowledge. We have to sit down and make that time, and really practice this Knowledge. Because it's something that we're all really young in."

Durga Ji gave this satsang at the Sunday Community Meeting in Denver, Colorado on 7 December 1975.

You know, I really felt like coming to satsang tonight. It was a very strong feeling. I asked Maharaj Ji, "Do you think it's alright if I come?" He goes, "Well, what do you mean? What do you want me to think?" It was such a silly thing to ask him. But he goes, "I'll chauffeur you there," and he drove me here.

It's like, Maharaj Ji is always ready for us. He's always ready for us. We have to be ready for him. I see Maharaj Ji in so many different ways, and all the time I see him, he's doing something very vigorously, like maybe working on a stereo. To me, Maharaj Ji has so much energy that he wants to release, but we're his channels, and we have to be really, really clear in order for that energy to flow through us and go out. I really feel that we're not capable of handling that yet. We're still not really clear. We're still not the way Maharaj Ji needs us to be to be able to take this Knowledge and have it flow through us so that whoever we come in contact with, it's very clear to them.

It's important for us to be really, really clear so that this incredible energy that Maharaj Ji has can flow through us. Maharaj Ji plays with the stereo for hours, or he gets into a car and drives really fast. He does these things, and it's becoming really obvious that he's just bursting. It's like he's holding back so much. And why is he holding back? Because the instruments that he has are not ready to take it. You know what I mean? We're not really clear enough to have him pour through us.

I know when I feel really, really blissed out, really, really just so overpowered, the most beautiful thing to do is to give sat-sang, to release that love, that feeling that's just so powerful. But who is Guru Maharaj Ji? What is Guru Maharaj Ji? What power, what energy is that that is holding it and containing it, waiting until we're ready to be able to project it out?

Maharaj Ji has said in so many of his satsangs that we're his hands. We're the tools that Maharaj Ji needs in this world. Until that tool is perfected in a way that he can really utilize it, then what has he got? You know? We say, "Oh yeah. Everything's really beautiful. Everything's really fantastic. Isn't this life wonderful, isn't it beautiful, isn't it fantastic?" But this is not something that you get to and then you just go, "Oh, it's wonderful," and that's it.

This Knowledge is something that is always, always, always growing. We can take this Knowledge, we can really practice it, and we can keep it growing. But if we get to a place and we think, "Oh, this is it. Everything's fine. I'm happy. I can just do my trips and do my thing and I've got Knowledge here in my back pocket," it just doesn't work like that.

Some premies and I were having sat-sang today, and you know, I don't even know what devotion is. When I first received Knowledge, someone would talk about devotion and it was like, "Oh, that sounds really beautiful." But devotion is us becoming devotees. And to become a devotee, we have to really just devote ourselves to Guru Maharaj Ji in every single way.

Maharaj Ji is always there. He's always there just waiting for us. He's got his arms out open to us, waiting for us, and we turn around. We turn around and look the other way. We just turn our backs on him. He's waiting with his arms outstretched to us, just waiting for us to come to him, and we turn around and look over here, or look over there, and get distracted by all the things that are around us.

Then for a flash, he'll take us there and we'll go, "Oh my gosh. This is it. How could I be anywhere else? This is where I always wanted to be, just with Maharaj Ji." Then five minutes later we're just distracted by something else. It's okay for a baby to be distracted because that's all they know.

They're just experiencing one thing, and another, and another, and another. We've been through that, we've all been babies. We've all gone through that whole thing. That's really beautiful, to experience this world in so many different ways, but then we came to the point where it was like, "Okay, I can keep experiencing things, but there's a limit to it." So we receive Knowledge. But we receive Knowledge, the everything, and we still get distracted -just by the paper flowers, the material things, the plastic things. We still get distracted by them. And Maharaj Ji is still waiting.

All I can speak from is what I really experience, and I know that Maharaj Ji has incredible patience with me. He is with me all the time, and I still get so distracted by so many different things - like each one of us do. We say, "Oh well, all we have to do is remember the Word all day long, and we're right there." That's really beautiful, but how many of us really are remembering the Word all day long? How many of us are really in that place all the time? Some people can say, "Oh yes, I'm there." But who are we kidding?

It's just becoming so important now, more than ever, to practice meditation in the way that we first received this Knowledge. We have to sit down and make that time, and really practice this Knowledge. Because it's something that we're all really young in. None of us are at the point where we can say, "Oh, I've got it made." We all really need that practice. We each know that whatever thing in this world we practice, if you practice and practice and practice, it becomes really easy. It becomes like second nature. And this is where we are. We have to just keep practicing this Knowledge. And that means making that time, sitting down in the morning, and practicing meditation.

When I sit down in the morning and practice meditation, or in the evening, it's like this time has been given to me by Guru Maharaj Ji. And it's such a precious time, premies, when we have that opportunity to really do meditation. Because Maharaj Ji's given it to us. It's a time when we can really become one with our Lord.

You know, this whole world is into this thing like, "Oh love … Love is the way, not war. Make love, not war." You talk about making love, but who's making love all the time? Who is the maker of love? It's Maharaj Ji. Maharaj Ji is always making love - pure love. And when we sit in meditation, premies, we can really make love with Maharaj Ji. We can make love with him, be one with him. And that's a very, very precious time.

We can kid ourselves, mind can come in and say, "Oh, you don't need to do this. You're okay. Just go ahead and go into service and do this or do that." The only one we're kidding is ourselves. Maharaj Ji's giving us this opportunity. We have these physical bodies with eyes and ears and a mouth to talk and the whole thing, but he gives us a special time to really tune into that vibration within us.

Maharaj Ji likes to play a lot with stereos. I mean, he really likes them. When he turns one on, he blasts it really loud. Then he turns it off, and you can still hear the current running through the speakers, even though there's really no music coming out. It's just like a "ssssshhhhh 11 that's kind of going on in the speakers. And what are we? What do we have within us that at any moment we can sit down and really tune in to that vibration that is keeping us alive right now? To just ignore it, we're ignoring the precious diamond that Maharaj Ji's given us.

I look back on this whole life, and especially since I received Knowledge, and I see how … I mean, I feel like I've completely blown it being with Maharaj Ji. I just don't realize him. And he's there all the

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Prem Rawat: Divine Times magazine "All I can speak from is what I really experience, and I know that Maharaj Ji has incredible patience with me. He is with me all the time, and I still get so distracted by so many different things - like each one of us do. We say, 'Oh well, all we have to do is remember the Word all day long and we're right there.' That's really beautiful, but how many of us really are remembering the Word all day long? Some people can say, 'Oh yes, I'm there.' But who are we kidding?"

time. Maybe for a little bit I'll realize him and I'll think, "Oh Maharaj Ji, this is just where I want to be all the time." But how often am I there?

He's always in our hearts. We just have to realize it, and really remember it. Because we forget. We just forget. It's so incredible. To each one of us, if we ask ourselves what does Guru Maharaj Ji mean to us, Guru Maharaj Ji means everything. He's my everything. I just live for him, I die for him. And yet, when it comes down to it, what do we do?

So it seems like it's come to the point where we just have to really, really make that effort. Because Maharaj Ji is ready. I completely, completely know that. I experience it. Maharaj Ji is ready. He's just waiting for us.

We talk about world peace, we talk about the situation in the world, and we say, "Oh, I want to go out and do prachar. I just want all my brothers and sisters to feel this love that I'm feeling." Yet how is that ever going to happen until each one of us gets ourselves really together, gets ourselves really clear? It isn't going to happen until that happens. This whole world can't experience this Knowledge until we experience it. It's like a light that starts at one point and spreads. If the people that Maharaj Ji's brought so close to him and has given this precious, precious Knowledge to, if we aren't experiencing it, if we're not really manifesting it and projecting it out, then how is anybody else going to?

The more we meditate, the more we realize that we need to meditate more. This is the way it should be. Because, what is practice? Practice makes perfect. Maharaj Ji's given us something, and it's not something that we can take and say, "Oh well, I can take it here and I can leave it at this level. I'm sliding, I'm okay, I'm happy, everything's cool," and just kind of stay there. That's not the way it works. When you're in the game of perfection and that's the game that Guru Maharaj Ji is playing - you've got to take it all the way. Each one of us has to. Every single one of us. It's not like, "Well, he's gonna do it," or "She's gonna do it," or "Everything's cool, everything's fine. Maharaj Ji's here …"

The other night Maharaj Ji was playing pinball - because we have a pinball machine. I was watching him play, and he was perfect at it. He was really, really so beautiful. It's like each one of us is that little ball. Maharaj Ji's built the pinball machine, he's built the ball, and he's playing. It's not like he needs that pinball machine or that ball. He doesn't need it. He just made it because he wanted to play. But if we're that ball, we have to be so pliant and so submissive to the way he wants us to go, so that we can go and do exactly what he wants, so that we can hit those points and score those points just the way he wants it. If we do it the way we want, then we're not going to realize, and when we hit something we're just going to go, "Oh, that hurts," or "Oh, this isn't the way I wanted it." Then it's not going to go right, we'll go right down the center, and we won't score anything.

Maharaj Ji has made this creation. He doesn't need it, but he's made it. This is his play, and he's chosen us to be a part of it, to share it. If we can be in that place where we can realize that we are his pinballs, his puppets, and that he's directing us, and just be completely submissive, completely surrender to whatever he's doing, then how beautiful it is. Because he's going to win. And he's going to win with us. We're going to be the thing that he's going to win by.

This is the play of life, and we've been told the secret; we've just been shown who has the winning secret, who has the winning key, who's the winning combination, who's the one that's going to win. If we can really be with him, we're going to win with him and watch him win. That's pretty fantastic, because Guru Maharaj Ji is really going to win. And we have the choice whether to be with him and win with him, or just get distracted, leave the whole game, and go, "Well, what about this piece of lint on the rug here?" We can get completely sidetracked in it and not even realize the whole game.

It's just so beautiful right now. You all know who's back there. But even though Maharaj Ji's here, he's always here. He's always really here all the time. We just have so many conceptions about everything, and Maharaj Ji's here to break those conceptions, to melt them down. I really feel, premies, that this Knowledge, and really meditating, really practicing each technique, is the way to break those conceptions.

We're full of poison. We've lived in this world and we've accumulated so much negativity, so much jealousy and pride. Maharaj Ji said it at Hans Jayanti, we've built a monster. We've built this ego ourselves. And the only thing that's going to get rid of it is to really practice this meditation, to really completely, completely surrender to Maharaj Ji all the time.

When we really, really practice Knowledge and really meditate, it's like we're squeezing out the poison. He's allowing us to squeeze this poison out of us, and when we squeeze it out, he fills us with love. He cleans out the poison, fills us with love, and then brings more negativity, more poison, to the surface so that we can meditate and just squeeze it out. So if we think that we can just sail along smooth, okay, we can go ahead and think that. But that isn't the way it's going to work. This is something that we have to really, really become dedicated in.

In one of Maharaj Ji's satsangs, he says that Guru is the only one who is true; Guru is the only one who is faithful. We are always unfaithful to our Guru Maharaj Ji. We love him and yet we leave him. We deny him. If we really loved him, how could we deny him? But we do. So we really don't even know what loving Guru Maharaj Ji is. We're just tasting it, just starting it. Yet we know that this is the most beautiful and powerful thing we've ever felt.

This tie of devotion that Maharaj Ji has between each of his premies and himself, this is everything. Because devotion will carry us through, completely. If we're really devoted to Guru Maharaj Ji, it's not like, "Well, should I meditate?" or, "Well, I mean, I've really got to get going." That doesn't even happen.

So, it's really been wonderful coming here. I'm glad that it happened. Sometimes there's not too much to say. I just know that everything that happens in our lives is Guru Maharaj Ji showing us something, teaching us something. We have to remember that, and be conscious of it.

I know we aren't always faithful, but what we have to really try is to be faithful to him, to really always be in the place where we can be experiencing that love and giving ourselves to him. No matter what the situation is, we need to surrender to him. I know Maharaj Ji has put me in some situations where I think I'm right. Something happens and it's like, well, say one and one is two - right? - and two and two is four, and I know that. Okay? So Maharaj Ji comes out and says seven and four is twenty-eight. I'll go, "No it's not." I start arguing with him about something that's so fine a point. But it doesn't matter what the superficial things that are happening are. It's like, are we ready to surrender to whatever he's giving us. Because everything that happens in this life, every experience that we're experiencing is a gift. It's really a gift that Guru Maharaj Ji's giving us. But we take it as being a difficulty, or a drag, or whatever. We take it as being that. Why don't we see that everything he's giving us is a gift?

It's like Maharaj Ji is the Swan of Love that's come to this world to rescue us, and he's teaching us how to fly. He can show us how to fly, but we go, "Sure. I know how to fly fine," and we just keep on going on our merry way. But we're not flying - even though he's showing us how to fly. If we really do it, we can fly with him and just soar above this whole illusion.

We kid ourselves so much in thinking, "Oh, I've got it made." But it's something that takes our constant effort, our constant involvement. And it's up to each one of us. I mean, we can sit in the closet or sit with everyone else and put a blanket over our head and say, "Oh yes, I did an hour of meditation." But we know what's happening.

Maybe it's hard for some premies who haven't been meditating for a while to get back to that place. But it's really not. That's just the mind saying, "Oh well, you've been away for a while. You should break into it easy." Just surrender that, and let Maharaj Ji do it. Let him direct us. Let us be that pinball that he's shooting. If we try to do it, we're going to go right down in the zero mark. But if we let him do it, there's just no end. We can be the ball that keeps scoring and scoring and scoring. That's his game, that's his play.

But that means that each moment we have to surrender to him. And when it comes that time for us to really meditate, then we have to just let go of everything and really sit down and be a lover of Guru Maharaj Ji, be his premie. Maharaj Ji said, "Listen. There are people that call themselves premies, but if they're not meditating, they're not a premie. They're not my premies." Premie is lover, and a lover is one who loves Guru Maharaj Ji. To love him, we have to really practice this Knowledge, because that's the only way we can ever know the slightest bit of who Guru Maharaj Ji is, and what he's doing, and what he's doing for us. It's become so

You know, we had such a beautiful festival in Hans Jayanti, and everyone comes back with so much. But don't lose it. Don't just say, "Oh, isn't it fantastic. Well, I'm gonna get back into my thing." Don't, don't lose that. Just let that Grace that he's showered on us stay with us, and let us really manifest it and become really strong and clear. When Maharaj Ji has come to the point where he just cannot hold everything within him, we should be so clear that he can flow through us. If we're clear, then everything else is fine. If we're not clear enough to go out into the world and tell people about this Knowledge, then we're only going to confuse them. And that isn't what Maharaj Ji's here for. He's not here for confusion. It's up to each one of us - every single one of us - to be really clear so that Maharaj Ji can come through us. I hear him.

So I think I'll let you go ahead and have your community meeting. It's wonderful coming … Maybe soon we can have another one. That would be really nice, and then everybody could come.

Thank you.