The Door to You by Prem Rawat

IN THIS PATH OF EXISTENCE, we don't know what the questions are. And if we don't know what the questions are, how are we going to find the answers? There is a clue, though: Walk on this path of existence with eyes wide open. You don't know where the answers will come from. You don't know when they will come. You don't know what they will be like. And you don't even know if you had a question that the answer belongs to.

Who are you? What are you? Now, here's a question people hardly ask: What is it all about? Well, here you are. Congratulations. It's incredible that you are, because at one point you weren't. And one day, you won't be. But now, you are alive. And all your dramas, all your ideas, all the things you like and don't like, all the things that happen that you judge your life by are but a dream. Just a dream.

Dreams are not to be taken lightly. I'm sure you've had dreams where you woke up with your heart pounding, "Oh, my God!- But they are still dreams.

And in the middle of these dreams, there is a reality that is so beautiful, so amazing, so incredible. There's a place where you can truly be awake, and it's very beautiful. In that awakening, there is no judgment. There are no issues of good and bad, no issues of right and wrong. In that awakening, you are not being judged. There are no yardsticks, and there are no races. Nobody is standing there with a checkered flag saying, "You won- or "You lost.- Nothing of that kind. Nothing.

There is just a beautiful reality that you are alive. That you have the ability to understand. That you have the ability to know. That you have the ability to admire.

YOUR QUALITIES

Look at your day. Living in this world, which of your qualities get used every single day? Let me backtrack a little bit. What are your qualities?

You have the ability to get angry. And you have the ability to be calm. You have the ability to be in turmoil. And you have the ability to be in peace. These are all qualities you have. Which ones do you use the most in your life? Frustration? Anger? Disappointment? These are qualities that we use a lot.

Once in a while, under very special circumstances, you actually find yourself happy. And when you are happy, it is a big deal. You will talk about it and remember it and think about it for years to come. And when you get older, your short-term memory goes bye-bye, and what you will be left with are these little segments of long-term memory: "I remember when I was there. And, oh, that was so beautiful."

That's what this whole business of digital photography is about. Little cameras. Cameras on the phone so you can capture a moment that was just wonderful and remember it again and again because those moments are so few and far between.

You have some other qualities as well. You are able to appreciate this existence, to truly be happy. Happy as in timeless. Camera not needed. Special circumstances not required.

You can just be happy. You can be in the joy that springs from your heart every single day. People are trying to understand their mind. They have been trying to do that for an extremely long time. And they never will because the mind is always one step ahead. Make no mistake about who's the leader and who's the follower. Mind leads, you follow. Even when the mind comes along and says, "Conquer me,- and you say, "Okay,- it's like a dog trying to pull on its leash without getting ahead of its master.

PLASTIC GARDEN

People write books - trying to understand. They say beautiful things, but it doesn't change anything. It's like having a garden that looks spectacular from a distance, but on close examination, every flower is made out of paper and every tree out of plastic. Now, there are advantages to this garden. You never have to water it. All the grass is Astroturf, so you don't ever have to cut it. It looks the same forever.

The disadvantage? Flowers don't bloom; spring never comes. Birds have no business being there. Bees never fly around in it. No nectar is collected. And no flower has a beautiful aroma. The trees do not sway in the wind, and even though it all looks pretty, it is static - static as in dead. That is why it is so important to have a living experience. Living. Breathing. Existing. Feeling. Thinking. Understanding. Knowing. That's what's real.

We get used to being frustrated. We get used to being angry and upset. We get used to living in ignorance. And 99 percent of people accommodate and facilitate this. "Don't worry about it; it's okay.- What is okay?

Is being lost okay? Is ignoring my own nature okay? Is being away from myself okay? Is not recognizing myself okay?

And people will say, "That's life. Good times happen; bad times happen. It's all okay."

That's why every one of us needs clarity so desperately. We need to understand that an effort needs to be made every single day to be clear, to understand, to accept. To see and to feel what you and I have been given. From the heart. From the very basic being in each of us.

there is another door- the door to you I offer help to open that door

I call it Knowledge, a very practical way to be able to go within and feel the feeling that is inside

HOPE AND MEMORY

You have learned a lot of things. As you progress in your life, invariably a time will come when most of what you know will have little bearing. Maybe all your life you were a pilot, and one day you go to a doctor and he says, "You can't see; you can't hear - you shouldn't fly!- Maybe you were an artist all your life. The time will come when your hand will shake too much to hold the brush. Maybe you drove trucks all your life. The time will come when it will be hard to climb up that step that you have climbed thousands of times before without thinking twice.

Know that a time will come when all of that will slowly fade away. When that happens, what will remain? You will remain. And you will still be able to experience. But all those things that you experienced before will no longer plug into the same socket. The socket has changed.

Do you know that this erosion, if you want to call it that, is afoot every second you are alive? It happens so slowly that you don't notice it, but it's afoot. Everything is forging on. Every day, every second, it marches on.

Is that good news? Is that bad news? Wait a minute. Don't go there. It's all good news because you are alive. And until the day you are no longer alive, it is good news because you can go inside and feel joy. That's what makes it good news.

THERE'S ANOTHER DOOR

All your life you have seen two doors. The door you came through the day you were born is the first door. The door that you'll go through when you leave is the second door. And everything is being measured between those two doors.

But there is another door. And that door is the door to you. It's pointless to measure things against those other two doors because there's nothing you can do about them. You cannot do anything about the fact that you were born. You were born. That's it. Your life has started. And one day, you will get close enough to the other door, and you will be gone. One swing, voom, voom. You don't have to push it. It's totally automated. As soon as you arrive - elegantly, inelegantly - it opens up, and everybody says, "What happened?"

But there's another door. And maybe you don't realize this, but every opportunity that your heart gets, it knocks on this door. So, open up. Feel, see, understand, realize, know. Be in that joy, be in that feeling every moment. That's true wisdom. That's true understanding. I offer help to open that door to you. I call it Knowledge, a very practical way to be able to go within and feel the feeling that is inside. I give four techniques to those who want that Knowledge. There's a very simple process of preparing for it, and then you will have that possibility to go inside and feel that feeling.

There are people in prison who have received this Knowledge, and it works for them. There are people who have received it who have gone to war, and in the middle of the war, they have been able to experience the joy that is inside of them.

What I am talking about is within you. Always was; always will be.

I'm not saying, "Take the techniques I offer you; otherwise, you will suffer.- I am saying, "You can have that experience if you want to."

Knowledge is like a lamp. Whenever it is dark, you can light it, and there will be no more darkness. It doesn't matter how dark it gets. And there is no storm that can put out this lamp if you know how to light it.

The point of Knowledge is not that darkness can never come. Darkness will come. But you don't have to be affected. Knowledge is the know-how to be in that joy, to be in that clarity, whatever is happening.

Photos: pg 1: iStock.com, pg 2: Phil Van Kirk, pg. 3: Veer.com.

in the middle of your dreams

there is a reality

a place where you can truly be awake

with no judgment no issues of good and bad or right and wrong

just a beautiful reality that

you are alive