Prem Rawat: "Every Breath Can Be Filled with Peace"

Regardless of the circumstances in which people may find themselves, Prem Rawat says, everyone can be at peace now, and the way to find inner peace is to look within. "To make this life successful is not about tomorrow," he says, "not about retirement, not about ten years from now. It is about this time, in this life. But for that, we need inner peace. And inner peace is not a matter of words. Peace needs to be felt. It is a matter of experience."

Prem Rawat started speaking to audiences at the age of three and gave his first published address at the age of four. Since that time, millions have come to hear him in more than 250 cities in 50 countries. Today, he speaks to people around the world about the possibility of knowing inner peace and contentment. His message is profoundly simple: "The peace that you are looking for is within you, and I can show you how to get in touch with it."

Prem Rawat's focus is on helping individuals find peace and fulfillment within: "It is not the world that needs to be fixed, it is people," he observes. "When people are at peace, there will be peace in the world." While many people speak about peace, Prem Rawat offers a practical pathway to inner peace, which he calls Knowledge.

Those interested in Prem Rawat's message come from all walks of life. For Yaso Sinnadurai, a lawyer with a successful practice in Toronto, Canada, Prem Rawat's inspiration and guidance have made a significant difference in her life: "I was a law student in Jaffa in 1974 when I was introduced to Prem Rawat by my father, who had just heard about him. As I listened to his words, I started feeling a peace, a contentment. I soon thereafter was shown the techniques that Prem Rawat teaches for connecting within. Since then, my life has changed in invisible, yet profound ways. I see the good in everybody, and because of that, I bring the good out in people. I feel love, always. I brought up my children sharing with them the love I felt. If it were not for this, I do not think I would have brought them up in the same way. There is a lot of love in my life and I share it with them. They have grown to be beautiful adults because they have been loved that much. When I am in the office, much of the twelve hours there is spent enjoying the peace that he has shown to me. And because of this, I can successfully face the issues of running a busy professional practice."

Balan Mylvakanam, a certified financial planner in Toronto, went to hear about Prem Rawat without knowing what to expect. He only wanted to improve his English. He soon developed a keen interest. "I used to see everything in black and white and behaved as a bully. As I discovered Prem Rawat and his Knowledge, I started feeling peace, feeling joy. People around me told me they could see a big difference. Clarity started coming into my life. I started acting with consciousness, which has proved very valuable in my profession. Now I can truly help my clients. I see Prem Rawat as a unique person with a lot of love in his heart to help people."

Prem Rawat's addresses have found growing audiences in the Indian subcontinent as well as on all the other continents. His message is now heard in 80 countries in over 60 languages. He recently returned from a tour of ten cities in India, where hundreds of thousands came to listen to him.

The world is filled with turmoil. Conflict prevails. Are all people looking for different things, or are we all searching for the same thing?

Prem Rawat: "Everybody is searching for something or other. Some are looking for wealth; others desire property; some want to have a family. But what is that one desire which is common for everyone, whether in America, or in India, or in England, or any other country? There is a thirst that is within everyone, in everyone's heart. Unless we recognize that thirst in our lives, unless we recognize the value of this breath, a chance of a lifetime will be wasted."

Can every human being have a life fulfilled?

Prem Rawat: "We came here to learn something and I tell people we do not have to go empty-handed. Every breath can be filled with peace. Every breath can be filled with joy. We can quench our thirst and make our lives successful. We can fill the cup of the heart. When there is joy within the heart, when there is satisfaction in the heart, when there is peace in the heart, then we can go anywhere."

Are you saying that what we are looking for is already inside of us?

Prem Rawat: "When we think about peace, when we think about happiness, we think we will find it outside. In this search, we go on top of mountains; we go to the moon. Throughout our lives, we believe that we will find what we are looking for when we get older. And when we retire, we are still searching. Did this small child find what it was once searching for? Did we find the door that we were searching for? Did we find the key that we were looking for? We found many keys, but what use are the keys we are not searching for?

What we are looking for, we are looking for outside. And where did so many say it was? Within. This is not a small thing. That which we are searching for is within us. We may call it God, we may call it happiness, we may call it peace, or we may call it true love. All of these things are names of only one thing. And this thing can be found within."

How do you help?

Prem Rawat: "The first step is to find that thirst for that happiness, for that joy within. And once you have found that, then the steps are to listen - to listen to your-self, to listen to what I have to say, and then, hopefully, you can proceed along a path toward self-discovery and

How do we even get started?

Prem Rawat: "How do we approach this? With the heart of a child. Some people say, 'But I'm fifty or sixty years old. I don't have the heart of a child.' But they do, because the only thing that has not aged and will never age is that inner heart. Never. Memory will go. Eyes will age. Everything will age, but the heart and its quest will never age. We were children once, and that child within us will always be a child, with the heart of a child. Approach this subject of life with the same simplicity."

Can lasting fulfillment and joy truly be found from within? Prem Rawat: "Someone recently brought me some fresh mangoes - the juicy kind. When you knead them, all the juice comes out from the inside, and it becomes like a soda can. All you do is extract the juice. You don't need a straw. You pull off the top and drink. 'Ah. That tasted good.'

When you drink and you're really, really thirsty, there is a natural thing that happens when you are done: you say, 'Ah.' Who is that 'ah' for? Is it for you, for the bottle, for the water? It can't be for you; you already know. And yet the 'ah' comes out. It is the sound of fulfillment.

Knowledge. Knowledge is what I give to people. That is what is remarkably different about my message. It is not just words. There is something more."

How different is this Knowledge from other kinds of knowledge?

Prem Rawat: "There are all the other kinds of knowledge on one hand, and on the other, there is a Knowledge which lets you know of that which is within you. All the other knowledge is of all the other things. This is the real thing. I am talking about the real thing. One day a person asked me to compare the value of this Knowledge with the value of other things. And I said, 'You can consider that the value of all the other things in this world is zero and that the value of Knowledge is one. If you put the zeros before the one, the one will remain one and the zeros will remain zeros. But put the one first and the zeros afterwards, and the value of every zero will keep increasing the whole.' It does not mean that other knowledge has no value. No, other knowledge does have value. But this is the King of all knowledge. This Knowledge takes your senses from the outside and turns them inside so that you may, like a bee, take out the nectar from each and every flower and fill the cup of the heart with it so that this life may be successful."

We can experience this 'ah' in our life, we can experience real fulfillment. I point to the oasis again and again and again, so that we can drink and quench our thirst. I remind people about the essential water, which makes the inner soil fertile. I remind them again and again and again about the preciousness of this existence. If we can understand the preciousness of this existence, we have found forever. From every moment we can extract fulfillment. We can extract joy."

Prem Rawat's efforts are supported by The Prem Rawat Foundation (www.tprf.org), which derives its income from voluntary contributions and from the sale of materials. He is a successful private investor and does not receive any compensation for his work.

For further information:

www.tprf.org www.maharaji.net www.contact-info.net

This article first appeared in Elanadu magazine, Canada. It has been edited and reformatted for reprinting purposes.