Maharaji (aka Prem Rawat) "Birthday Program" Miami, 9th December 1983

His speeches were not written or prepared but they are certainly not unrehearsed. The speeches preceding his current one are the rehearsals and his speeches following evolve gradually using the same store of tales, premie gossip, clichés, life events, recent tv shows and stock phrases. He invariably garbles his first attempts at new "insights" and and it is these sections that were edited or removed when his speeches were published. His publisheed speeches have all been edited and give a false picture, His thinking is much more disorderd than they show. My transcripts are word for word and give a more realistic picture of his thinking.

A truly astonishing speech and one that is part of the major turning point in Rawat's career and public teaching. In 1983 he closed the ashrams without any public announcement and ended the nightly 'satsang' meetings that had been the central activity of his followers since the first 'premies' were converted in London in 1969. He ordered all Divine Light Mission publications and audio and video tapes to be destroyed (see Without The Guru page 169) even those privately owned by his followers and "went underground" renaming his organisations Élan Vital and stopping publicised recruitment. He retitled himself 'Maharaji' (the Ultimate Ruler) and later began to use his name, Prem Rawat, rather than calling himself Guru Maharaj Ji.

This was possibly caused by the imprisonment of Mary Sue Hubbard, wife of the leader of Scientology on charges of conspiracy in January 1983 and Reverend Moon, the head of the "Moonies" cult who was convicted of tax evasion and was gaoled in 1984 after lengthy legal appeals. Rawat's personal assistent, Michael Dettmers, recommended the closures as there might be fuuture financial claims made against DLM due to upgraded OH&S legislation. He has always claimed he had a positive reponse from people and that, in fact, it was his core of followers and their crazy ideas and the Indian Hindu associations and the 1970s media coverage that prevented further success after 1973's Millenium festival fiasco

Rawat's organisations have claimed that he renounced his divinity though no official announcement was ever made and his unique position as the only source of teaching, authority and worship by his followers has never changed. How can you renounce your divinity without acknowledging your career was based on a lie and apologising for your shameful actions and returning the wealth given to you because of your divinity? Indeed, he has authorised no spiritual attainment to any of his followers, demoting all mahatmas, initiators and instructors and eventually he replaced charismatic devotees who taught and "revealed the Knowledge" with computers and films of himself. In this speech he derides his "front row followers" as the dead, silent kind, something he has often done. As the pictures of the audio tapes show, he now held programs not satsang. Rawat did not explicitly state that radical changes in his teachings were occurring and presumably this was just one of a series of such speeches he made. He just began to say things that were different and sometimes completely contradictory to his earlier teachings leaving his followers to make the leap of faith and conceptual changes required. Not all of the premies heard all of his speeches especially at this time of enormous organisational changes and so the understanding that these changes were occurring took time to filter through to everybody. At the end of the speech some premies begin shouting "Bolie Shri Satgurudev Maharaj Ki Jai" the Divine Light Mission version of "Sieg Heil" but the taping is immediately cut off. They would soon learn not to do this.

Prem Rawat As Maharaji: "Birthday Program" Miami, 9th December 1983

So, (long applause) I say it's a wonderful chance for all of us to be able to come together and of course it's nice to see everyone ha ha and uh really we need to recognize and need to understand how incredible of a blessing it is that we have, how lovely, how incredible, how gracious it is to have this chance, to have this grace of life, of Knowledge, of that experience. Cause you know, in this world, you look at it, sometimes you try to understand it caught up in a, it's like a, sometimes you feel very much so that the person is like a puppet with about a million strings attached and it seems like that's okay, that's normal and many a times the analogy of that puppet is given in context to the Creator but one really needs to be absolutely sure that the strings, if one is to use the analogy of the puppet that the strings are not being controlled by someone or something but is being controlled by that experience because the way I see it there is, there is, this person who has been driving all night long, almost long and they've been driving and driving and driving and driving and driving and in the process so many bugs have gotten squashed on the window, on the windshield that by the time the sun comes up, the morning comes, they can't see. There's nothing to say except the bugs, the whole windshield has been smeared.

That view that needs to be so clear in this life because for me the way I have seen it and the way I see it is that it's a wonderful, wonderful gift and when we start to put filters in front of that gift and just try to see that gift our way, not the way it really is, it's almost like being you know it's like a cow and in an apartment ha ha you can imagine it and at first it's it's it's it's it's completely crazy because all the cow does is eats up all the plants in the house and then because you don't like that idea the cow eats up all your plants you put it in a balcony and lock the doors and then once or twice every day you take a bale of hay and drop it in front of the cow and that's all the cow can do eat the hay and be in this cold balcony and that's it and maybe here is a person saying "Well what's this cow got to worry about? It's in a very expensive apartment, an incredible view, I mean people would give their lives to be in this balcony right now and it has a bail of hay in front of it every morning, every afternoon, every evening. What's it got to worry about? But that's not true, that's really not true for the cow if only need one kind of view. Not that incredible city line and city life. Not the skyline, it doesn't impress it at all. Not all the wonderful things in your apartment, they don't impress the cow none but what really impresses the cow is wonderful wonderful green luscious grass in that pasture where it can just graze and graze and graze and graze. I mean you see these cows I mean they're really good at it you know, they just graze all day long I mean they just won't stop they'll sit down and graze they'll stand and up and graze. When they're walking they're grazing, the graze and graze and graze and they never get tired of it because it feels okay, it feels right, it's wonderful.

In some sense, human being is the same way that we take that innermost thing, inner, innermost thing, the most incredible thing inside of us and we bring it into this little apartment, this cube that we make up and say "Now, be happy. Enjoy this. Isn't it wonderful?" and then all of a sudden something inside of us constantly seeks to be free. Free from what? Because what is there in this world that somebody puts in front of us that locks us up? In fact why is it that so many people who have truly experienced that freedom say that it's wonderful, that there is such thing as freedom. Freedom from what?

When we start growing up what is that there that locks us up? I mean who ever put a handcuff on us? I mean nobody put a handcuff on me. I have put handcuffs on myself many a time and maybe in a game, that's you know used to have these pair of handcuffs, these magic handcuffs and you'd handcuff yourself and handcuff one of the kids to you, now you can't open it and play the game you're stuck with them but who else has brought any handcuffs to me and say you are now a prisoner and for that matter any of us in this life. We start in our school and we grow up and we learn our education and all of a sudden it's high school then it's college if we make it that far and then you know you're out of that and then all of a sudden the whole other scenario begins but then

Why do some why why do these people who experienced something incredible in their lives talk about freedom, talk about this desire, talk about this will to be free because there is something called freedom. Freedom from what we ourselves have created and this is what is so difficult and hard to understand that it that it is in fact us who creates that cube around us, that all of a sudden we are willing to accept the Creator, that incredible energy as the ultimate energy but being ruled and governed by a certain set of circumstances, our unique laws that we make up. God or Lord or whatever we call this incredible energy, it's okay, it's cool, it's beautiful, it's right on except it's limited on me what it can do for us or how we have to be just a certain way for it all to line up, for all to work and then somebody comes and offers this incredible opportunity, this incredible chance to be free, free from that thing because now, perhaps for the first time in our lives we can experience, experience the real beauty, experience the reality because when we say reality what do we mean? What is reality? How many things there are in our lives that we experience?

I mean huh we are here and today is not my birthday, tomorrow is my birthday and I've been kidding around with Marilyn. I said to her today "Today is really my birthday." Then a few days ago I said "No no no the eighth is really my birthday. I can prove it to you, I got a little certificate from school says." See in India people don't know what birth certificates are, technically, millions of people just don't exist, they've never been born. In fact, it's always odd, for most of the people in India if you go up to them and ask them "When were you born?" They really have any idea, they were never told and for most people birthdays are not the thing to celebrate I mean goodness gracious you can't have sugar for your tea in the morning, you're most likely not to use it for cake in the afternoon if it's your birthday and I knew of people who used to take their tea with salt and pepper. You know and somebody asked "Well why do you you take your tea with salt and pepper?" It's like that's only thing they can get, salt and pepper. They're not used to sugar. Sugar is rationed in India, well it was when I was there anyway.

So then I'm going to be very soon 26, a quarter of a century is over, finished. Now I never, I never used to think about gettin' 26 ever but in 26 years of my life, my experience and I don't see that that other people you know have this incredibly vastly different life. Life is life, it goes on. That what is it that we encounter in our life that we can even relate to once somebody mentions the word real, a reality. What? It's almost like everything we feel and touch, it's there because we made it that way not because it is that way, we made it that way, we created it that way, we preserve it that way, we maintain it that way. I mean it's it's really, it's really something to go through a beautiful, beautiful park and you've got guard rails on both sides of you and you're, you're limited on this one track and it's all very natural. Not to me. Because to be free means to be free, to be in that freedom where you can enjoy that freedom because if you cannot enjoy the freedom, what's the point to be free? Why would anybody want to be free? It's like, it's like the Abbott and Costello cartoons, Three Stooges cartoons, they dig their tunnel out of one prison and end up in another one ha ha ha ha. There's no point to that, that's ridiculous, they're not free, they're freedom from one prison, yes but they're in another one and there's nothing to enjoy and yet

So sincerely we are blessed with the most supreme blessing, the most supreme blessing for the mankind to be able to experience in this life, to be able to enjoy in this life, that ultimate freedom for man cause right from the very beginning what do we live with? How are we shaped? What is the statue? Here it's almost like the world, the society or or whatever you want to call it I mean it's not like I am totally against society you know it's like, it's like, it's like living in California. If you live in California sooner or later you will encounter a certain creature called rattlesnakes. It's just you will because they're there, they're all over the place and in fact when the incredible floods came in, in Arizona and stuff like that all these rattlesnakes started coming out of you know all of a sudden out of all these places started biting people so here you are, you live in California and you know there's rattlesnakes and what do you do, you just just just leave California because there's rattlesnakes and the chance of you getting bit by rattlesnakes is pretty good because there are rattlesnakes? No. You you you you learn that here is a creature what do you teach your child? You teach your child here is a creature, here is a snake and it can bite you, be careful, don't just go pick up any old snake ha ha ha. Be careful.

So, imagine now, here is a lump of clay as it were, not really but if you were to psychologically look at it in that sense that here is a clump of clay that's basically born on a certain, certain day and then there's a lot of artists who work on this clay to shape it, to mould it, to fold it, to color it, to to to make it into something. I mean it's like that expression you know the teachers and the parents always have for their kid. "What am I going to do with you? I wonder, I wonder where that root is, where is that rooted, is it just a expression that we always repeat because somebody always said that to us. I wonder if there is that feeling of hopelessness with a person sometimes, just hopelessness, "What, what am I going to do with you?" And yet let's, let's for a minute, not that we have been moulded and folded and shaped and ironed and sanded and painted. Let's just take a look at what were the tools used to make us. Not create us, know the Creator used a whole different set of tools and we medically can try to derive it a justification at how it all came about but we still don't have the very good reason why but anyway

Here is another part of us that is shaped and moulded and folded and so on and one has to take a look at it. Well what were the tools used? And when you look at it, even if you sit down for just a minute and start examining it and start thinking about it you realize very quickly that the tools that are really used are fear and guilt. If there is a kid who never feels guilty, he's qualified as two things, stupid, one, A maybe. Two, obnoxious, strange, weird, hopeless, brat, no good and that's maybe there is a process we have accepted through the ages and ages of seeing tons of human beings. It's, it's like a machinery isn't it? Just like a machinery, (snapping his fingers) people are born and there is a whole system just waiting and you just go through the system. You just stick the person on one end and uh about 18, 20 years later they emerged on the other end all polished, finished, ready to go and if the product is good, you'll get good use out of it, if it's no good dump it but that's a whole another process.

However it happens and whatever happens I mean of all the things that I was made to feel guilty about, of all the things that I was poked and feared into I mean how do you get a kid to do the homework? What is the, what is the I mean isn't it in all schools a very basic reasoning used. No, no teacher sits down with the kids and tries to explain why he should do homework because that's impossible to explain the logic why that person should do homework. It is utterly easy to tell the person "You'll be expelled out of the school if you don't do your homework." It works and if you're expelled out of your school you'll just think what your parents are gonna say.

What are it doesn't matter who the kid is or what it is, one report card goes home and you've got a D on it and boy or an F on it and it's just like "mmm I wanna talk" then the teacher comes out "I wanna talk to your parents" and that is just like this cool chill just shoots right through your spine "Oh my God!" Even though, even though mind you some of that fear and guilt is because you love your parents and you don't want your parents to be disappointed in you but that love is taken and re-channeled, reshaped into something utterly useless and then all of a sudden you have people who are grown-up and all they're looking for is what should they be afraid of. I mean they've been afraid of so many things in their life and all of a sudden they grow up and they wanna know is there really something to be afraid of or not and they do wild and crazy things. I mean completely nuts to try to find the real limit and yet that's not where the real limit are, those aren't limits, there's no limit to what a man can do.

So then this in this whole mess where is the blessing? Haha I mean because it, it can get pretty messy, can't it? Living with the fear and living with the guilt and I know where the blessing is. The blessing is that I don't have to be afraid in this beautiful beautiful beautiful grace and manifestation of Knowledge, I don't have to be afraid. I don't have to be afraid of anything. I don't have to be afraid and I don't have to live in guilt and I don't have to live in fear but truly experience the love, truly experience that joy, truly experience the spirit of the thing which is incredible, powerful, beautiful for us. There is a real freedom, the real freedom in which the fear is taken away, the doubts are removed taken away and simply who am I in company with? Me, me, I am at that point experiencing an incredible blessing, an incredible manifestation that this mirror that is placed in front of me doesn't show me me my face but no matter who it is as we quote unquote the sinners or not the sinners, the saints as they call them if you really don't do anything wrong become a saint after you die.

It's a very very difficult process to become a saint while you're still alive but after you die it's very easy to make anybody a saint, become a saint, enlightened soul and look at this process that everyone needs to be enlightened, that everybody needs to experience, that everybody needs to enjoy, to enjoy. I mean this is so radically different hah so radically different.

You know in this world, this morning I was driving and I turned on the radio to this one station and when I was listening to this one station the guy on it was saying and he continued to say how bad it was that whenever we see something we just go for it. Americans, he said are so different that whatever their eyes behold and they like they'll get it even if they have to borrow or beg, no matter they'll get it and that known not so many Americans really understand the value of money and then he started to throw religion into it, wrap it all up, polish it, the final polish really makes everything right because he threw religion into it, that's it, that's like if your food is really salty, take a whole bunch of heavy cream just pour it in there and it'll fix the salt, no problem because in fact what this guy was saying and it had nothing to do with religion, what he was saying in the view, in the the light of the religion that he was trying to shine on this subject what he was trying to say was that we should all not go to what our eyes behold but conserve that money (scattered laughter) and I just went like that. Nah, too much. That's just like Abbott and Costello, they got out of one prison and walk into another prison. I am not going to look at it, I will not behold anything nothing and then on the money money. If you didn't like money, would you be saving it? Of course not. So he's just out of one rut into another rut. The question is very simple. There's only one question you can ask "Where is this person really better off? Which rut is he better off in?" The answer is none, none, because the mechanism, the left mechanism (pronounced with the second syllable ) for unsatisfaction is in perfect motion, the mechanism ha ha for what I mean you have to lubricate this mechanism you know it's just lubricate it otherwise it'll burn up and the way you lubricate this mechanism is very very simple. It just needs one thing to like. Anything, anything, it doesn't matter, If it's a car, if it's a boat, if it's a puppy.

I mean some people, sometimes I have gone to purchase a dog and gone to these people's homes to get one dog and I have, I mean frankly I have never seen that many dogs in my life. I went to one time by a pup and I mean goodness you know I couldn't see any cockroaches but there were pugs all over the place I mean all over the place. You couldn't count them there were that many and and of course it was like to me was what was what was baffling was how does this lady even tell which one was whom. I mean they all look alike and and and and they're all over the place and they're constantly switching around, it was incredible.

So what are you trying to quench? See, same way in us there is something that wants freedom and what we do is like there is like this mouth you know we we shape it down, we realize it down to a mouth that if we can keep this mouth satisfied somehow it'll be all right and it wants freedom and we keep giving it this and that and this and that. How do you like this one? No no you see everything in our life may have a place and you see this is what we have to really, really understand that maybe everything in our life may have a, a religion may have a place in our life.

One time I went to this school in Dallas Texas and I offered this guy you know I mean it was a school I offered this guy a ride and he said he couldn't come because it was a Sunday morning and he had to take care of his soul and fine, see, that was okay I had no problems with that because that's how he took care of his soul, only on Sundays from from a Monday through Saturday it was a hell but Sundays he polished it up and it was all okay, perfect, that's fine and religion has a place in our life wherever it may be but it has a place in our life. (laughter)

Somebody asked me in uh Chicago, I think it was you know, one of the place, what what what what what was my religion or somewhere Montréal. I've been to so many places this year I've no idea where I was. Finally I got myself a diary I'm gonna write down where I was and a few days later I'll throw it away probably that's what usually happens but what was my religion and it was very fascinating because here was a question that nobody had asked me. The last time this question was asked was in India and it got me in a lotta trouble. The person asked me "Are you a Hindu?" I said "No" and then I explained, I said I believe in the very thing that is, which has no religion. It is real, it belongs to all who have religion, who don't have religion, it's the life source itself and it itself has no religion. I believe in that. Oh boy, whoo, this guy didn't like that answer. He was a press reporter too, he didn't like that answer and the next day you know, the title said, he's not a, he's not a Hindu which didn't bother me any cause of fine, that's okay. If somebody said to me he's not an Hindu, what's the big deal? So, I'm not a Hindu. Yeah yeah it it just doesn't click, as a relay in there that's just missing, it just doesn't click. Nothing happens when somebody says you're not a Hindu, just nothing happens (inexplicable laughter) nothing, no fear, no guilt, nothing but to answer this person's question I had to tell him that I was grown up around Hindu religion cause I was and

There's this one person I knew very well and in fact this person every time we would drive back from Delhi to where I was Dehra Dun or Prem Nagar or wherever we were going, in India there's abundance of temples and this person had a few favorite temples and every time we were the car was driving of course and the car would pass by a temple, the person would know that the car is going to be passing in a few minutes by a temple, the person would open up uh you know whatever it was, a wallet or a purse or whatever it was (laughter already) take out the uh take out the uh the 25 you know worth cents in Indian paises, get it ready, the temple approaches, boom boom boom, down with the windshield and a nice chuck out the window and roll it back up. My father asked one time what this person was doing throwing all this money out the window ha ha ha and the person said they were doing it for salvation and um he said uh "Look, give me all the money, I'll guarantee you salvation." (extreme laughter) So for this, for this person you know this is the kind of environment I was grown in, you just, you just take a took a take a look you're going 50 miles an hour, whew, aim for it. If you can make it that day, you got salvation, if you don't make it that day, tough luck and when do you find out, when you reach the pearly gates whether you made it or not. I mean it's just like it's no different and it it it it's very funny because in California when I first came to America I was in California and then and of course you you don't have any tollbooths but in in in in Miami you you are plenty of tollbooths, anywhere you go you got a tollbooth and it's the same thing you can get good at it you know you just just drive by and voomk throw it and if you do it just right, if you do it just right by the time you will be crossing the green and red light you will hit it green, if you do it just right your your quarter will go right in and you're still driving and the light will be still red red red red red red and right at that point it'll turn green and you're ???? and of course you won't hear the bell either otherwise it rings a bell at you and what does the bell do? Provokes fear (laughter) ha ha ha ha ha provokes guilt and how do you fix that guilt? Can you put two quarters at a time and fix it that way? No. That may take care of the guilt but what about fear of the big blue light that just looks at you and there it is but here beyond all those things oh there may be that family situation, maybe that belongs in our life.

There is some people who wanna get married, some people don't want to get married. Big deal, that's that's not the problem. That's not where the problem lies. Too many times we bring up this stuff right to the surface and tried to put it in the book but where does it all belong? All the things I've been afraid of, fear and guilt and everything. See that's that's that's that's that's different, that's very very different. Our religion, our family, our job but now the big question starts to evolve, where do you belong? All these things belong in your life but where does your life long. Which page, which context, which book are you going to put it in? Where can it fit? Or where's it to be fitted into anything? And that becomes quite a quest doesn't it? Where does my life belong?

And then somebody comes along and says "Look, your life belongs right here, right here and the surprise is too much, too much. Right here? This is it? This is it? That that that that this world? This earth? This is where I belong? Creator created all this which I don't like and he has put me in the middle of it, right in the heart of it ha ha and "Oh my God it's terrible, this is terrible, I don't belong here." But you do, look at it, take your glasses off for a minute, for a second, just for one second, think. Just for one second, just think. You know I mean stop thinking and then think for a flash second and then start thinking again ha ha ha ha. Stop. Start. Stop and resume and think, understand what a beautiful thing this is. To be created, it doesn't matter how.

I mean sometimes it's you or watch a doctor telling you how you were born and all of a sudden is there any reason to believe that that's not so good? That that that that that's mundane? That that that that's useless? No, you are see a pearl is still a pearl, everybody likes a pearl. You know where that pearl comes from? This funny looking animal pha what is it trying to do? Get rid of the grain of sand that it got caught in its throat basically. Smooth it over. Where does that diamond come from? It comes from a pitch dark coal, that's where it comes from. Coal. So if I told the world today that the diamonds come from a coal, the value of diamonds that falls down? Huh, just like that?

So here's this world trying to give us an explanation of how the world was created and you know it's really interesting after some of these these these vessels have gone out into outer space and send some some of the infrared pictures back I was reading a few days ago, a few weeks ago that now they've got to change the textbooks, they were all wrong about the whole thing. I could have told them that then (laughter) because what is the approach? What is the approach?

See to me technol I I personally lo-o-ove technology. I love it. (laughter) I really do. I mean when I heard that they had a TV watch, I had to get one. (Laughter) Really. I was extremely fascinated by it and of course I realized the TV watch itself was useless because there's nothing so important on TV that I need to wear it around my wrist to watch it. Nothing. However I did see a nice purpose for it that if somebody was trying to page you, they could page you via the TV. It could be a direct satellite linkup, you merely type on your computer the person's name, their identity code and the message and all of a sudden a few seconds later their watch goes beep beep which already has an alarm in it, flashes the message at you, now you know why the person wants you instead of the hysteria when the beepers go off. You just don't know mumble mumble you know doctor you when you especially when you're talking to a doctor and is not in his office and his beeper goes off beep beep beep. You see the expression on their face? They're lost they've got the feeling they utmost feeling of getting lost because they do reach and turn it off but now they don't know, the ultimate suspense. Somebody could be dying, somebody could be dying and that's why they're being paged or it could be the silly secretary goofed again and she just trying and wants to talk to you about a pay raise or some stupid thing and it's okay. I mean it's just like huh that our confusion don't know what's up and here you could have a watch, he would just look at it and you could find out if she wants a raise or somebody is dying. You know those things don't change it's just you won't be in the suspense. Sure it'll work. (end side A)

That's okay and the technology is all okay if it has a purpose you see it doesn't have a purpose. Nobody knows why people create I mean ultimately there is some companies that make the computers and its just like fantastic, computers that can do anything. I was talkin' about a robot that that the technology exists to make a robot that you could when you got really frustrated, really frustrated and it would be specifically made for this, you would kick it and when you would kick it it would go "Ouch, eeh" scream, yell, do everything and all these people who get so frustrated I mean instead of hitting your kid you could hit this computer I mean just you could even put two cheeks on either side of it and hit it as hard as you want and it would go "Ouch" and then if you wanna program it to cry you could cry or have a mute switch, just mute it while you mutilate it. (laughter) You know, sure but ultimately why? What would be the reason? Everybody comes up, everybody comes up with a little cure but the cure is for your symptom not your problem. The cure is for your symptom because this what would the function of this robot be? Well it could get you shoes, it could get you newspaper and you could hit it and it would scream and yell. It could wah its its could yell at your dog I mean if you, if you don't, if you don't like your wife's dog or cat and you just love to see something yell at it you could just program it and if you turn it on and it would just yell its head off at this dog or cat and it would be wonderful because you're not even doing the yelling but that's only a cure all for your symptom.

Why is that frustration there in the first place? Why the vengeance in the first place? Why the hatred in the first place? So really in one sense we do need to understand how to be free and what that freedom really means and I strongly feel, I strongly feel that that relationship between all of you not just the ones in this hall tonight but all of you who have had the grace to experience this Knowledge and me, that bridge that connects us together is an incredibly, incredibly strong bridge. It's really, really strong and we need to know that it's strong cause we can bring our burdens along and wash them away. We need to understand its strength, its phenomenally strong, it can take anything, anything but when that bridge is built of something else and we get the two confused then we've got serious problems. We gonna take the truck, full of our load, we gonna drive it on the wrong bridge and it'll collapse and we'll survive, we'll survive and then we will say "There is no such thing as a good strong bridge" and yet there is, there is, there is and what is it strengthened by? Its strengthened by your own experience of Knowledge, it is strengthened by our love, that's what is strengthened by. These are the nucleuses (sic) for that bridge, these are the foundations, these are the pillars that support that bridge and you can draw upon it for strength, for love and if you, if you will some people who wanna call that devotion then that's it, that's what it is all about. It's that relationship between me and you, me being that teacher who has shown you the way to see and what to see and you who has witnessed it, who has seen it. We get baffled, we get shaken, so shaken sometimes from what?

Because to me being a human being, you have the supreme blessing and Knowledge is very very straightforward, it really is. There's nothing complicated about it. What is it? It's merely eyes, hah, you just open 'em up and see it, see what there is to see, enjoy what there is to enjoy because all of a sudden you feel this thing that rips you away, just starts to rip you away. Know and see it, see what there is to see, enjoy what there is to enjoy then all of a sudden you feel this thing that rips you away, it just starts to rip you away. Now wait a minute what is the thing in your way? Think about it, is it fear?

Take your hands, you can try it at home. Take your hands and put a whole bunch of grease on 'em, Vaseline or something, grease, take an apple made out of glass, perfectly smooth on all sides, put it in your hand and squeeze it. What'll happen do you think? What do you think will happen? The more the pressure you put on it pop, it'll fly right out of your hands. That apple made out of that glass needs to be held lightly, to be held gently. The more the pressure the worse the situation gets even though everything in our life dictates you wanna hold it good and tight, hold it good and tight, the tighter you hold it the worse it gets. It's like that example you know how to make a monkey trap, a simple monkey trap. Take a cage, a small cage, very sm I mean you wanna catch a big monkey all you need is a small cage, small cage, much smaller than him and build a funnel of wire going towards the center and in the center put an apple and the monkey goes through the little hole just barely big enough for him to get his hand through it and grabs the apple and he tries to get the apple out. What a predicament. He's stuck. Why is he stuck? Cause he's holding onto the apple. Why doesn't he let go? Tell that to the monkey. I know he should let go. Tell that to the monkey, it's the monkey that's not letting go and yet in which language do I tell the monkey? Which language do I use? The monkey has to understand from within him. Let go of the stupid apple, it's not worth it. Let go and you can come out, you can release your hand and that there's a monkey trap for you, you can do it, (whispers).

So all of a sudden in this whole thing that we live in our life and maybe I to say very simply that maybe fear and guilt even have a place in our life, somewhere. There was an article I was reading you know, guilt is good for you. (scattered laughter) This doctor was very guilty about something, wanna make everybody feel guilty then everything would be normal again. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it is guilt that guides us, maybe guilt is our vectoring system, our computer, our gyro that guides us through the good stuff and the bad stuff but that's okay that's in this world and

I am talking of something that is not of this world, in it but not of it, the supreme experience. That's what I'm really talking about. So when it really boils down to it and however how strange it sounds, too simple, too easy but the more there is the experience, the better it all becomes. More there is the experience the more there is the experience and more there is the experience why more there is the experience. It multiplies in that order and we've something inside of us that needs to experience because that is the experience of that freedom.

No it's not like some cosmic portrayal that some people sometimes give of this guy sitting crosslegged, hands like this and beams shooting from him and all of a sudden his ka body rises and starts to become one with the cosmos. That's (long pause) no good stuff. See the Creator made this world, spun it, the earth, threw gravity into it, gave us two legs, definitely a top and a bottom. Do you realize that? We definitely all have a top and a bottom. You know we're not like a rubber rubber ball that you can put any which way and it's all right. We definitely have a top and we have a bottom and He just so you did it that our bottom stays glued it where it's supposed to add out top stays where it's supposed to. Everything is A-OK, everything is all right. So whatever there are in this world considerate and let it be. Fine, there's nothing, there's nothing wrong with that you know being in this world just like I mean, I mean I like to fly but I would never want to fly, fly without the use of an aeroplane or helicopter, a glider or something I mean I just wouldn't just like to fly and just flap my wings and fly I don't have any wings. I have no no no no no wish whatsoever to just do that, to just fly, just all by myself. My boy does, he evidently wants to fly, fly for real. I don't. I'm fine, I'm okay and it's wonderful to come back to it, it's wonderful to see it too. I'm going to New York from Miami, I'm going to New York and I got into these clouds and for God must've been over an hour I didn't see ground and I said "Boy, I really miss seeing that earth, really miss it, it'd be wonderful to see it again and yes of course there it is hah, it's still there, always."

Look at the consistency in our lives, the consistency that we have, how consistence we are made in this span of time and even looked at that time itself, it's so consistent. So so consistent, it doesn't speed up, it doesn't slow down, stays put. Oh it speeds up a little bit and slows down a little bit but that's due to the error of the atomic clock itself. Time itself doesn't do that, it's the atomic clock that has to be readjusted once every so often to the needy decimal 000333 to the power to the exponent of 94 or something like that you know thing goes off once every 10 years correct that much but look how beautiful everything is and really the only thing we need to do is open our eyes, look and enjoy and experience and then and only then does it become a supreme blessing for us, only then does it become. Done. Only then do we have the capacity to recognize that in fact it is a supreme blessing and not caught up in our ways and then we can be sure that those strings go to the right place and that the govern, the power that is governing me (whispers) is that right power, not some thing, not some stoopid things making me dance all around like the world does. Dance dance dance dance (stops whispering) for no reason at all. Dance because it's good for your heart then you dance so much you have a heart attack. I was reading an article about this guy who started this whole fad of jogging. Now he's not sure if he can back it up with the right kind of evidence to say it really is all that great for you. Wonderful. Wonderful.

I jogged a mile the other day, whole mile. What happened? Cosmic? Nothing. You know people always tell you when you run you get high, it's a natural high. Boy, they have no idea, what it's really really like to be high from that bliss, from that grace of that that manifestation of witnessing that Knowledge. I mean they have no idea. It's like somebody who has smelled fuel all their life and they smelled the whale grease and they go "Wow, good." Sure it does, still stinks, still smells bad but there is truly something beautiful and not beyond our reach and not beyond our imagination, made for us, for its manifestation to happen now, not 20 years in future, not 50 years in future but to live now and to enjoy that now because it's so ironic in one sense.

You know I was thinking about this and it's just incredible it so happens you know how a human being has these problems. The problems are that if you if you if your brain is being starved of oxygen it has no way of knowing it's being starred of oxygen, it's like the brain itself doesn't feel itself, it it feels everything else except itself. Little error. It so happens that there was one more problem with the human being and that is that he can only experience present and he's always either in future or back and he's never in the present to experience what really is going on but that's the only thing he can experience so when you look at a person he's got a big void when it comes to experience. (uses stupid voice) "What experience? I've never experienced anything" because what is he doing, either he is way ahead experiencing what it should be like. There is no experience of should be like, nothing, it doesn't exist. You can try to make it up as much as you want but it doesn't exist or he is chasing himself backwards in in some distance past "Wasn't that wonderful?" Huh. Sure it was. Who knows? You can't experience how wonderful it really was, you can think about it but that's not the experience but you can only experience the present.

And what is in the present? In the present is that Venturi of what even the time stops. Present and past, only two gauges against which you can put time and say "Yes there has been a motion of time" but now even then there is no time. That present, the absolute present, that's where a human being needs to be. That is right, that is cosmic. Yes, that is very cosmic because the entire cosmos is only in presents not in past and not in future. The time which changes and alters at the as is what Einstein tried to explain is is is is the field of gravity as the time passes by it just it starts to accelerate and then deaccelerate. I mean I don't know you know they they say that if somebody could travel at the speed of light then they travelled. Here they would be and they would still be one hour, two hours and here would be 80 years old, 90 years old, maybe even dead. I don't know, I can't relate to that. It's true, it probably is true nobody's tried it out and nobody's been there so it's true till somebody tries it out and then they'll change the textbooks but now, now, just now the entire universe I feel been geared so we can experience now.

The human body geared, made to experience now. Everything inside of it is made, geared to experience now and yet just wander away, just coast off in the future or the past, the future or the past, the future or the past, here comes the void. So let that experience I mean you know it's really funny because I do say this let that experience be real but the experience is real, it always is real, open up and experience (shrieks) and then enjoy it! For goodness sake enjoy it! That's what it's there for. No other value to you as a human being.

Nothing else will happen, you won't be able to fly all by yourself, do you realize that? And even if you could, what would you do with it? Probably bump into each other all over the place. (laughter) "Oh we can't even" look at airplanes you know. So many, it takes so many people to get one flight going. It takes computers after computers, your flight plans, you're this, your controllers, your ground controllers, your air controllers, your traffic centers, your traffic controllers, you have powers all over the pl god it takes a lot of people to get one flight going. Pilots, heavily trained, train train train train train. Every 90 days they're not pilots anymore if they don't do three bounces. Incredible. Incredibly complicated and incredibly sophisticated and they can't even keep those things from colliding. Us? On our own? Oh my God, it's a good thing.

Look, look at the 62nd St. someday you know, a Monday or Tuesday agh everybody walking, walking with their eyes open in New York. Agh it's quite a challenging thing, quite a challenge and what you have to do, you have to take sides. Either go on the very left or go on the very right and that's the only way you can avoid it cause then you got the wall and you don't really mind so much when you hit the wall, it's the other people. You can take the either extreme. One extreme is not so good, closer you get to the curb, more chances you have of hitting the cars. Dodge yourself, I mean just dodge. Not this time but the last time I was in New York, I went out. Whoo, was that a mistake. Somebody asked me and I was just sitting in the back of the car, just arrived you know from the airplane and we was talking I said I looked at New York I mean there is New York, New York you know New York New York there's nothing new about it but he said I I just this came out of my mouth I just looked at what was going on it was just a completely fiasco you know everywhere and I said "Uh well I sure wouldn't want to live here" and the person turned to me and said "Oh really? " I said "Are you kidding? I mean you you you could you you imagine me living here? I mean everybody who lives in New York wants to get out! You want me li li live I mean." He said "It's a great place to visit." Well. Live around New York no no no no no I mean that say this straight around New York right after you get out that city cause I hate tall buildings, I really do. I really hate tall buildings. When Creator created these mountains he created and tall, he created them so awesome, they're wonderful, they're incredible but tall buildings? No. It's uh just a bad piece of technology. It it doesn't do anybody any good. Once you're up there, you're stuck. You are on the mercy of a queue (does he mean cube?) that's riding on cables that goes up and down 34 flights, either going up or going down. Man of today would get cramps, charley horses in your legs. 34 flights down doesn't sound too bad, try it some day, it's pretty bad. After a little while you can't control your legs, they're, they're just doing it and you're speeding up slowly. You're trying to reach terminal velocity and uh you can't stop after a while your legs are just doing this and no control over it and if you think about it even for a second you'll trip. I mean I've never done it, going this down but I used to go down up those 70 stairs at this one place. 70, 75 something like that which is all right you just get going you get going but most importantly you know talkin' about New York I just wanna straighten this out. Around New York it's gorgeous, it's wonderful, it's beautiful, it really is. Upstate New York and a little bit downstate New York and a little bit west, east is all ocean you can't live there, few good places though. All around New York it's wonderful, wonderful, really nice, lush, green, gorgeous. No I have to say I could not possibly live in New York City, no way. I have thought about it and I know this is some of the people's dreams to have an apartment in New York City, not mine, no way. So whatever these things we have, whatever these things we create, hey, that's aside, has nothing to do with it.

You know maybe may a lotta times I say you know whatever your religion is I don't care. Some people get very confused by that. "Oh what do you mean you don't care?" Well because it has nothing to do with your present, it has absolutely nothing to do because that present is that moment in which you were born. That first breath of consciousness till that last breath of consciousness, the present, the absolute present, a narrow narrow track, a narrow narrow channel amongst this huge mass that we create for ourselves so fine, you have your religion. Really it has nothing to do with it, enjoy it if you can, enjoy it but don't confuse that with the Knowledge. You are married, fine that's wonderful. See I'm married too, that's wonderful, that's okay but that is not and has nothing to do with that experience of Knowledge.

It is not like if I was to get in a fight with my wife that I can just simply meditate my problems away. No sir it doesn't work like that either. You got problems, face 'em, turn around, talk, just talk or go lock yourself in a closet and think. You wanna experience Knowledge, sit down and meditate. You wanna take your problems away, take your problems away but don't confuse the two and that's where it is, that's where it lies.

Don't compare me to Jesus. I am not Jesus. If I was Jesus, my name would be Jesus, I would look like Jesus, I would act like Jesus. I don't look like Jesus, I'm not Jesus, I'm not Krishna, I don't look like Krishna, I have a moustache, I'm not Krishna. I'm not Buddha, I don't have those curly hairs, I'm not Buddha. I'm not Ram, I'm not Mohammed. You know and don't some people have that feeling of crisscrossing "Wow wouldn't that be wonderful?" I am me. (Applause) I'm not Mohammed and Krishna and Jesus and and if you want to love Mohammed, if you want to love Jesus then love, do something that will make you love Jesus more. Do it whatever it is, do it, if you want to love Jesus cause there's nothing wrong in loving Jesus and there's nothing wrong in loving Krishna and sometimes it helps to just have an idol or a or a picture or something of Jesus around. Look at all day, look at it as many times as you can. Read the Bible in which he, he says so many wonderful things.

That they bring so much appreciation about Jesus but Knowledge is Knowledge is Knowledge is Knowledge is Knowledge. Even Jesus talks about it, yes And even Krishna talked about it yes. Mohammad's talked about it yes. Ram talked about it, it yes.

So don't put me on any plateaus, I don't wanna be on any plateaus. Don't put me on a pedestal, I don't want to be on a pedestal. The only thing that I care about, the only thing that I want is that relationship with you as individuals, that love. To me that is another blessing that I can enjoy you see that that I can enjoy that. Nobody else can. I can. You can enjoy it in a different way but I can enjoy it in a different way. That love, that grace, that experience because that Knowledge is manifesting in you and that is what is real and that is what is beautiful to me. So that's what I wanna enjoy, I wanna enjoy your love. That is what's important to me and so let that Knowledge well like I was just about ready to say that that Knowledge be real but the Knowledge is real because it leads you, it shows you, it's that bridge into that reality so experience that and enjoy that and enjoy that relationship between you and me of that love because that is a grace too. You don't, you need not put me on a pedestal, I don't want to belong on a pedestal. The only reason why I'm sitting up here is so you can see me and I can see you. Much easier to talk to you that way you know.

Down there I I it'd be talking to the front row. I could not, they don't react, the front row never reacts. (laughter) Look at 'em, they're not even laughing, they're just the dead silent kind (laughter) and they're always there and no matter where it happens they're always there, the first row. After that, so far I'm concerned it should be first come first served, that's it, it is supposed to be. That first row that's always them. I mean they just sit there. If I was to sit down there and and try to talk to you it'd be terribly hard. I mean I'd be on, that's all I could say and here's no offense guys I mean you know your wonderful people but that would be like talking to a wall and supposevly (sic) there's nothing bad in that but I never talk to my walls.

So anyway, it's been wonderful to see you all and wonderful to be able to come here and I hope that finally you can start to experience this Knowledge maybe a little bit out of the realm of fear and guilt and experience it for what it is. Don't be afraid to experience Knowledge. Don't be afraid. When we start to become afraid to experience Knowledge then the experience very very rapidly goes sheeh right down the drain. That's like closing our eyes to the reality, to that beauty in front of us, to that joy, that's what we need to do. Enjoy, that's what we need to do.

So thank you very much for coming tonight and good night and I guess I'll see you sometime next year. That sounds a long time but it's not that long, next year, that's only a few more days and it'll be next year. So have a good year, you know, have a happy new year cause I won't, I don't know where I'm gonna be and you're all trying to celebrate the happy new year and you know my philosophy is will it be happy? Well we'll see when it gets, when we get there. The only way to find out if it was a really a happy year on the last day of the year when you can look back and think "Well that was okay, happy, it was good" and this year, well, it's been mixed but it's been wonderful. It's been wonderful because I've been able to enjoy, enjoy something inside of me, that's why it's been a wonderful.

Not because of all the things that happened around me. They, they have been terrible, you know, according to the Chinese sign the roosters supposed to have a terrible time in 1983. Well, maybe we'll get to fly in 1984 you know maybe that's our year, it'll be great but um need to enjoy, need, you see that's the thing, need, we ne-e-ed to enjoy. So enjoy. Have a happy new year and for all of you that are going to be celebrating Christmas, have a wonderful Merry Christmas. One's not going to be celebrating Christmas, happy Hanukkah (laughter) and ones who are not going to be celebrating Hanukkah, well good day! (laughter) Have a wonderful day haha. So thank you and goodnight. (Bolie Shri Satguru tape cut off)