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What does it mean to live, to exist? To feel every day the solidity, the firmness of this breath? To many people, breath is just air going in and out. There is more to it. There is a firmness. And within its simplicity, tremendous solidness has been placed.
What is your foundation made of? Does your house rest on that which is solid and real? Or does it rest on assumption after assumption? What is your safety net? You venture, you think, you imagine, you go out, you do things. You weigh realities, and your realities change from day to day: "Right now, this is real; right now this is what's happening, this is what's important."
Somebody said to me, "I just became a grandfather." I said, "Congratulations." And I started thinking, "You became?" One day you became alive. That's the main day. After that, things have happened, and things will continue to happen. They will be what they are. Some you will call good because they will fit perfectly into the little shell that you have created.
How many days do we live paying attention to the sweet call to be content? People talk about peace; I talk about peace. I say peace is possible. Some people like that. Some say, "No. That's not the way the world is." Why? A picture has been painted of what peace is.
There is a reality. And that reality is bright and it is beautiful. It's more beautiful than any one of those pictures you could ever make. Every day, it is fresh and real, and it is dynamic and beautiful. It has no constraints. Is there sorrow? No. Is there joy? Yes. Is there darkness? No. Is there light? Yes. Is there discontentment? No. Is there contentment? Yes. Is there complication? No. Is there simplicity? Yes. Is there hate? No. Is there love? Yes. And that is the foundation that is the reality of your existence, of the gift you are given every day.
What does it cost to have all that? Nothing. All you have to do is open this heart and let it in. That's all it takes for the sunshine to come in. When the sun is shining, open the window and let the light come in. Let that breeze come in, because it is blowing, because it is happening.
Peace is dancing inside of you, waiting to be felt. People create expectations. The world's definition of peace is: "Everybody's always smiling, nobody's fighting each other, they're saying only polite things to each other." If that really happened, this would be a weird place.
What about the heaven here? This is where heaven makes the most sense. This is where I have the simplest ambition from my heart to be content. This is where I have the opportunity to build my house in which I can be content. It is not a house of imagination, but a house built on very, very real foundations.
That safety net is made out of breath. When even your power to speak goes away, this is the only thing that will still rumble through you, and it will be the last thing you know as it fades away. The challenge is to be in peace in the middle of all the turmoil. For as long as you are alive, you can experience the joy that is within you.
Maharaji
in Maharaji: Life, Maharaji: PeacePermalink
(translated from Hindi)
Why are you here? Who are you? Where did you come from, and where are you going? How many days are you here for? What is pain? What is joy? What is the soul? As human beings, we have these questions. And we look for their answers on the outside. We look everywhere: we read the paper, we go to the movies, we travel to different countries. But have we ever looked within ourselves: What have I been given?
All those questions are telling us that there's one thing missing. There's one thing we have not understood. What is it? It is what is within.
When will peace happen? Where is peace? Why do people fight? When a human being cannot understand who he is, what he is—when a human being becomes a stranger to himself, then everyone else is a stranger, too. And when everyone is a stranger, who is he going to become friends with? Who is he going to love? Who is he going to look at and say, "This is a human being, and I'm a human being, too"? Everything becomes separate.
Every human being is one—no matter who you are, how you are, where you're from. Even in pain or happiness, you're one. You've come here as one and will have to leave, as well. In the life of each human being, there is the possibility to experience supreme joy. The greatest potential is the possibility of that joy in a human being's life.
When a human being is born, it is their opportunity to experience peace and joy, to fulfill this life. Everything else they can attain and let it go. But peace is one thing the human being can attain and hold onto.
It is because of the calling of our heart that we want to complete our life, to capture what has been given. We can catch onto something that will be with us throughout our entire life, that will support us.
Fulfill this life. This is your life. It's been given to you. What you do with it is completely up to you. You can throw it away or save it. You can attain joy and fulfill your life. Every day is precious, priceless. Will tomorrow come? Nobody knows. All we can do is hope it will. Every day that is given is a blessing.
We talk about miracles. What is a miracle? When the sun rises, isn't that a miracle? The miracle is what is going on within you. The fact that you exist is a miracle. This life that comes day after day is a miracle. And when you start seeing that, your life will be filled with joy.
So if you want that, then accept it—not with blind faith, but from an experience. Only through experience can a human being move forward and take the next step.
The story is still being written—yours and mine. It's not finished. What the ending will be like is up to us. If we want the story to be that this person understood the supreme joy, fulfilled their life, and spent their life in joy, then that story can be written. It's up to us.
Maharaji
in Maharaji: Life, Maharaji: PeacePermalink
(translated from Hindi)
Is there a human being who doesn't want peace? Everyone wants peace. But today, people have complicated things so much that nobody knows what peace is. People say if there is no war, there is peace.
What is true peace? It is a peace that can be experienced even in the middle of a battlefield. It is not the peace that people talk about, that if this happens or that happens, peace will come. True peace resides in the heart of every human being. It can be experienced not just once, but again and again, just as we eat again and again. We don't just eat once and never need to eat again. When we are hungry, we need to eat.
Do you want true peace? It is up to each person. True peace can only happen when a person learns to stand on their own two feet and understand what is within them.
Our culture says, "Look outside." People want to find the truth. They search and search on the outside. There are so many books written, some just to criticize other books. The more a person reads, the more confused they get.
You have to look for peace in the right place. You don't need to search for it on the outside. If you search the whole world, you won't find it, because it is within you.
Experience that for yourself. It is not selfish. Being selfish is doing something that benefits you but harms someone else. When you do something that benefits you and no one else is harmed, that is not selfish. If you steal someone else's food and eat it, that's selfish. But if you eat your own food to satisfy your hunger, it isn't. So, experiencing peace is not selfish. When you experience peace, you experience it for yourself. It is a very personal experience.
Who are you? This mind, this intellect, this body, this life, this experience—you are a compilation of all those things put together. You are who you are because of all of those things. This life that you've been given is an opportunity that won't come again and again. What do you need to do with this life? Be fulfilled.
The day will come when you have to leave. So fulfill this life now. What does it mean to fulfill this life? It means that your garden can be beautiful and green and lovely. For that, I will give you the seed. If you plant it and give it the water of trust, then definitely that seed will grow, and your garden will be beautiful. This you can experience. As long as you are alive, your garden can be beautiful. You can live in that peace. It's not just something that you heard or that was written somewhere. This is something practical.
Maharaji
