Prem Rawat in Ipoh Malaysia, 2014-04-02

Prem Rawat in Ipoh Malaysia, 2nd April, 2014

Well, thank you for a warm welcome in warm, warm Malaysia. And I'm really here to talk to you about something very, very simple, very profound. It's about life. It's about your existence. And yes, it's important. The fact that you could be here, alive, today, was in the making for 4.54 billion years. Not million, billion. If you were here four billion years ago, you would instantly die. You would not survive. You'd burn up. But the earth cooled. You evolved. And you are alive. This was in the making. This is not spirituality. I'm allergic to that. I finally realized I'm allergic to spirituality. I like to know, not believe. There was a time people believed earth was flat. Did they believe that? Yes. And did they do everything based upon the earth is flat? Absolutely. There were stories don't go too far, you'll fall off. But earth wasn't flat. Not then.

Not now. You see, all that seems to be, it is not as you see it. It's different. You're sitting in your chair. I hope it's semi-comfortable. Usually they're not, but semi-comfortable. You're not going anywhere, are you? You're not moving around too much. I mean, how much can you move? You've got somebody next to you here. You've got somebody next to you here. You've got a chair in front of you. You've got a chair behind you. So here we are in this room. Not much is going on except I'm sitting here. I'm talking to you. Seems pretty tranquil. Is it? No, it's not. No, it is not. This earth is spinning. Spinning. Right now, spinning at the rate of 1,040 miles an hour. Now, how fast is that? A nine millimeter bullet travels at only 900 miles an hour. You're going faster than a bullet. It seem tranquil to you? You are moving. The next time you get caught in a traffic jam and you feel bored, remember this.

You're going faster than you realize. There you are, spinning around the sun at an outrageous speed of 67,000 and a few miles an hour. A windy day? Not a windy day. And then what is happening is even more fascinating. Somebody is preparing to go. Somebody is preparing to come. You know what I'm talking about, right? Birth. Death. Somebody is preparing to go. Somebody is preparing to come. Somebody is celebrating. Somebody is sitting, shedding tears of sadness. Somebody is putting on perfume and makeup. But somebody is just trying really hard to get rid of the dirt from their body, because they've been working all day. Somebody on the face of this earth has just become incredibly rich. Somebody on the face of this earth has just found everything that they were looking for. And somebody on the face of this earth has just lost everything that they had. Why am I telling you this? Isn't it boring to you? Is it boring? If it is boring, beware. You've got your eyes closed. You need to open up. You need to walk your life with your eyes open, not your eyes closed. You need to see. You need to understand what life is. It's not somebody's idea.

Listen, it is not somebody's idea. It is not some concept. It is not written in a book. Your life evolves every second. And if you're not evolving with it, there's going to be disharmony. There's going to be discord. There's going to be a separation. That's how it is. Whether you're young, whether you are old, you're changing. And of course, you're allergic to changing. You don't want to change. Why don't you want to change? Because you think you're perfect. I know some of you laughed. And the trouble is, deep down inside, think you are way, way, way, way, way deep inside. You make no mistakes, really. Now, in your perfectness, you are also humble enough. Because you're perfect, see? So you're humble enough to accept that you are sometimes wrong, but not really. There will be a day when you will be proven right. So telling the perfect one you're changing is a bit of a strange news. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've heard that, right? You're always changing. You've heard that. Do you believe it? No. Why? Because you're going to go home and you're going to do exactly what you do every single evening.

Tomorrow, you're going to get up. It's going to be a duplicate of one of the days in your life. And then one day, it won't be duplicated. Someone is caught up in yesterday, and somebody is caught up in tomorrow. That pretty much sums up everybody that's here. Somebody's caught up in yesterday, and somebody's caught up in tomorrow. No. Not thinking about tomorrow? You don't think about tomorrow? And do you realize what the fact is? Tomorrow can never come. Because if it decides to come, it has to change itself from tomorrow to today. In fact, think about it. You have been living in today all your life. It was always today. Today, today, today, today, today, today. Always. And you're not trained for today. So, this is what I do. I go talk about peace. But the only way the peace is going to come to you is when you start living in today. Because that's where peace is. Not in tomorrow. Not in yesterday. Today. When you will understand, not learn like a parrot, but understand the value of being alive. Value of being... Do you know the value of being alive? How many of you do? Come on, raise your hand.

Really? Really? How many don't? Okay, there's a few who don't. There's hope for them. Very little hope for Mr. Perfect. This is an infinite blessing. There is more joy in being alive than you can ever fathom. There is more happiness in being alive than you can ever realize. There is more clarity in being alive than you will ever, ever be able to gauge. And there is more peace in being alive than you can ever imagine. How many of you think something has to be done to have peace? Few. There's more. Come on. There's a lot more. Because we're the doers. We're the doers. If we want to make okra, it has to be made. It has to be cut. It doesn't come that way from the okra plant. You have to pick it. You have to cut it. You have to clean it. Then you have to put it in the frying pan. Do something to have something except for peace. It is what we have been so busy in doing that is preventing the peace from being felt in our lives. And what has to happen is, please, let peace emerge.

Emerge. Emerge. Not create. Not think. Not sit there and go, now I am in peace. And then somebody there going, yes, yes, yes. Now you're in peace. That's all we need, right? No. Peace has to be real. You think peace is an option? If you think peace is an option, how many of you are busy in your daily lives and think it's kind of not possible to sit there and pursue peace because you're so busy from morning till evening? You're in education. You have to go to college. You have to go to your shop. You have to go to your business. You have to go to your job, your government job, your, you know, whatever. How many of you think no time for peace? Nobody? Listen, you heard in the video that I have been doing this speaking for 40 years, four decades. That video is absolutely wrong. It's 52 years. It's over half a century I have been speaking. So when you tell me, I'm old hat at this. I know. This is what people say. I don't have time. I'm busy. I am busy being miserable.

I have no time for happiness. Then all I can say is, will you please reconsider? This is your life. Reconsider your priorities of what is important to you. Before you know it, it will all be gone. Before you know it, it will all be gone. There is a structure that people believe in. You're supposed to, you know, be born, then you learn how to walk, then you go to school, then you, you know, go to college, then you get a job, then you retire, then you, and then you, then you die. Unfortunately, nobody is told death that. It seems to kind of go for anybody. Young, old, wise, uneducated, educated, rich, poor, everybody, that we sit in the grand illusion that it is so. This is what I said. All is not as it seems to be. All is not as it seems to be. All is not as it seems to be. A man once had a question about the divine, and he went to a wise man, and he said, you're a wise man, tell me, where is the divine? So the wise man said, okay. So he called his servant, and he said, bring me a big thing of salt. So the servant brought a big thing of salt. He said, now bring me a bucket of water. He brought him a bucket of water. He gave the salt to the man, and he said, now take this salt, put it in the bucket of water, and stir, stir, stir, stir, stir. And he kept stirring, he kept stirring, stirring, stirring, stirring, till the salt disappeared. The wise man said, where is the salt? Has it disappeared? Is it gone? The man said, yeah, it's gone. He said, no, taste the water. It's still there.

Same thing with the divine. The divine that you search is unsearchable. It cannot be searched for. You know why? It's already there. Closer than your nose, closer than your fingertip, dissolved into this magnificent creation everywhere, and in you too, in you too. You're trying to see that salt that was held in the guy's hand once. It's still there, but that's not the way it is. But it's still there. When you, in your life, begin to understand the simplicity, not the complex. See, everybody has told you things. You never questioned them. You didn't question. People told you things. You didn't question them. You just said, oh, okay. And you went along like this all your life, and today you're here, and I'm going to challenge you. I absolutely am going to challenge you on what you know, and what you don't know. And I'm going to say to you that what matters in this life is what you know, not what you think. You touch something hot, you burn yourself, and what do you say? Oh, I thought it was turned on. Ha! So tell your fingers that. It's okay. Don't hurt. I was thinking the iron was turned off. Your finger says, I don't care what you thought.

I don't care what you thought. That iron was hot, and you dum-dum touched it, and now I'm going to let you know you shouldn't have done that. This is how it is. So I say to you, how many of you think you're rich? Come on. How many of you think you're not so rich? That's all? Are we shy today? I mean, what? I mean, how many of you think you're not so rich? I'd raise my hand. Come on. A little truth, please, might help you in the long run. So I have news for you. Good news for me, too. You're incredibly rich. Find me one rich person on the face of this earth who can buy one breath. If being rich could buy you life, they would never die. I mean, there are some billionaires in India. I mean, one guy finally made a house in India, and it holds the record. It's, you know, all surrounded by not-so-nice area, but it's the most expensive house in the world. Billions. So you may not have buying power. You may not have mind-satisfying power, but you have heart-satisfying currency. That's what heaven is about. That's what heaven is about. That beautiful gratitude, the expression of the heart, to feel. A king was going to attack his neighbor. So all night long, you know, he's thinking to himself, you know, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna attack. I don't know if I will survive.

I might die. If I die, will I go to heaven? Will I go to hell? Will I go to heaven? Will I go to hell? Then the question bounced in his head. What is heaven? What is hell? What is heaven? What is hell? What is heaven? What is hell? So the next morning, he gets up, he gets ready in his shining armor. He's got his horse, and he's got his army behind, and he's marching. He's up here. He's going, what is heaven? What is hell? What is heaven? What is hell? What is heaven? What is hell? He sees a wise man coming the other way. Takes his horse, goes over to the wise man. He says, wise man, tell me, what is heaven? What is hell? The wise man said, I don't have time. I'm busy. I'm on my way. I don't have time to sit here and explain to you what is heaven, what is hell. And the king became furious. How dare you? Don't you know who I am? I'm the king. How dare you tell me you don't have time to explain to me a simple question that I have asked you. What is heaven? What is hell? The king is fuming. The wise man says, king, right now, you're in hell. King stops, starts to ponder, oh my god, it really is hell. And I don't feel good. I'm fuming. I'm angry. I'm in hell. Gets off his horse, gets on his knees. Thank you so much for clarifying this. In a moment, you have removed such a doubt from me.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The wise man said, king, now, you are in heaven. So, this is, I asked this question in Segamat. I have to ask you here too. You like this story? Good. You agree with the wise man? How many of you visit hell every day? Why? On purpose? On purpose? Or you have no control? Which one is it? Or is it? Or is it? Or is it? Or is it? That you haven't found anything really to be thankful for. Challenging, huh? Whoa, yeah, yeah, I have a lot of things I'm thankful for. The problem is, sometimes they disappoint you. They disappoint you. Is there something in your life that you're truly, truly, unquestionably thankful for? Day and in good times, in bad times, in riches, in poverty, in the days of plenty, in the days of the ocean, and the days of the rags. In the days when everything goes your way, and in the days when there's nothing but frustration. On those days when the inner ocean is calm, and in those days when the inner ocean is raging with fury, do you have something to be thankful for? Unconditionally? Unconditionally? And forever, forever, until your last breath, without a question, without a doubt, to you. If you don't, you better find it. And if you can't find it, then understand how close it is to you. Being alive is a blessing. This breath is a blessing. To have clarity in your life is a blessing. Blessing. Don't even ask whose. It's irrelevant.

Because my little mind is not made to comprehend whose. But my mind can certainly appreciate the blessing. I see the world is caught up in who, who, who, who, who, like an owl. Who, who, who, who, who, who. And I'm like, what has that got to do with it? A blessing is a blessing. If you think it is more important to know whose, then you don't know what a blessing is. Then you don't know what a blessing is. A drop has one desire, and one desire only, and that desire is to merge back from where it started. It's tiny. How big is a drop? How big is a drop? Eh, not very big. But its desire to join is much bigger than anything you can imagine. In its desire to join with the ocean, it moves the mountains. It shapes land. It creates and it destroys. And it flows, and it flows, and it flows. That's its determination. And it flows, and it flows, and it flows. And then when its mission is fulfilled, it surrenders. No more. But it is home. It is home. That feeling of being home, you should be feeling that every single day in your life. I am home. No more.

But my mission fulfilled. Today, 4.54 billion years in the making. And today, I acknowledge today. I acknowledge today. I accept today. Oh, but see, listen, I'm not sitting here going, I'm the perfect one, you know, and I do this every day, and so I don't. I don't. But I know what I need to do. This morning, I got up. I was thinking everything that happened yesterday, and it was amazing in a way. And just today, I was just thinking so many twists, so many twists, so many twists, so many twists, this changing, this changing, this changing, this changing, this changing. And I get up in the morning, and I check my messages, check my email, check my messages. And there's an email and a message from my wife, call immediately. Whoa. Something must be wrong, because usually that doesn't happen. So I call, and my mother-in-law had passed away. So I'm like, you know, I knew her very well, and my father-in-law, and fabulous, fabulous people. And, you know, and of course, it's okay, because she wanted to go. She was old. She missed her husband. She said, I miss him very much. I want to move on. She wanted it quick, and it happened very quickly. In fact, last year, we celebrated her birthday, 89th birthday, and everybody was like, but your 90th is coming, and we should celebrate that in a big way.

And she goes, I don't think so. I would rather just celebrate the 89th. And gone. Then, of course, you think, hmm, that person, now they're no more. And of course, it rubs off a little bit. One day that's going to happen to you, too. And then, all of a sudden, oh yeah, today's the TV interview. I have to go to the TV studio and give this interview. So I got ready, and I went. And it's, you know, and then all these questions. So what about this, and what about this, and what about this? And of course, I answered them to the best of my ability. But that whole time, I could not help but feel how fragile we all are. We create mountains. We stand on those mountains, and we think we are the kings of our little kingdom. But something else is afoot. And if this drop could fulfill its mission to join with the ocean, and then all of a sudden, all of a sudden, it's okay not to flow. See, you stupid little drop, you've been flowing from God knows, you know, where. You've been flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing, flowing. Keep flowing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I have reached, I have reached that place that I want to be. Will the cycle begin again? Of course the cycle will begin again. In this life, cycle will begin again. And once again, that drop will be a vapor, and will go, and will rain, and will become a river, and will flow, and will do this whole thing again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and then all of a sudden, it'll just merge, and go, I'm done.

It's called satisfied. Satisfied. People in this world are trying to create the symptoms of peace without peace. This is problematic. Long time ago, there was a book, somebody got me this book, and it was a book of cutouts, and it was the book of becoming rich. And so it had Concord tickets, it had a Rolex watch you could cut out, it had all these cutouts of things that was just paper, but you could lay them around on your dining room or something, and have a picture taken, and it would look like, wow, you're really... Sometimes, this is the way this life is. Peace. Peace. Oh yeah, yeah, look, look, look, I'm in peace. Why am I... Look, look at my clothes. Not speaking is peace. Sometimes, not seeing the car that's coming at you is peace. No. Why do you think it is that this message goes to prisons, where there's no hope for these people? I mean, some of these people are in for life, okay, and they've been told, no bail. They'll never be granted parole. Nothing. You're in for life. This is... The only way you're going to move out of this prison is when you're dead. And don't you think they need hope? Of course they need hope. And this message goes, and they find that hope. I read a little thing that from Columbia. It's very funny. There's a guy in Columbia, and he goes door to door selling trinkets, whatever. And one of the things is, he really likes my message.

So he carries DVDs, and he carries pamphlets, whatever he can in his backpack. One day, he was selling things door to door, and he was in a pretty bad area, and his backpack got stolen. So he was pretty distraught. So he went looking for his backpack. A few streets down, he found a guy. He's sitting on the side of the road, reading the pamphlets with his backpack. So the man went over to him and said, hey, you know, you stole my backpack. And the guy looked at it, and he said, this is the best thing that I have ever stolen in my life. What made him say that? I mean, I would think he would go, oops, sorry, or that, that, that, that, that, or no, it's not, it's mine. I mean, whatever. But he says to him, confessing, this is the best thing I have ever stolen. I have a lot of these kind of stories. But that one caught my eye. Because when the lamp is lit, it doesn't matter in whose house that is lit. It will give light. Is your lamp lit? Do you have that satisfaction in your life? Do you have gratitude in your existence? Don't have to answer me. I can be fooled. I can be fooled easily. Answer yourself. This is what peace is. Peace is when things are right, the way they're supposed to be. That's when peace happens. You don't have to do anything to make peace. You have to undo to make peace.

You're not here to suffer, but suffering is there. You're not here to suffer, but suffering is there. Choose that that will take you towards that beauty that is inside of you. Knowing, knowing others is wisdom. Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing the self is enlightenment. Good one, huh? You like it? Don't get too excited. Are you enlightened? Are you enlightened? Don't have to go sit on top of a mountain. All you have to do is know yourself. When does the hope come for even those prisoners? Not when you tell them, oh don't don't be hopeless. There is hope, there is hope, there is hope. You think hope comes to them then? Hope comes to them when they recognize, start recognizing who they are. That's when their world changes. That's when this little drop starts to flow again, to fulfill its mission. Why? I don't know. Kabir says that there is a drop in the ocean. Everyone knows, but there is an ocean in the drop only a few know. What do you think he meant? Oh, people say he was a mystic. You are a mystic. If you don't, if you call Kabir a mystic, you are a mystic. Because the only thing he never made it is mysterious. Made it straight, clean, clear, simple. Another one, the whole world is asleep. This is not Kabir, this is Darya.

The whole world is asleep, no one is awake. Do you believe that? Oh yeah, do you believe that? Of course you believe that. Does that include you too? No, not Mr. Perfect or Mrs. Perfect or Miss Perfect, only everybody else. Yes, the world, is terrible. Look, have you not heard? Look what's happening in this world. Look what's happening in this world. I say, look what's happening in this world. Not this world. This world is going around at 1,040 miles an hour and doesn't even know it. It doesn't even know. What's happening in this world? Because if this world is chaotic, this world is going to be chaotic. This is an expression. This is just an expression of this. How can your own echo say something else than what you said? How can your echo say something different? You say hello and the echo says hi, I'm fine. Is that possible? It's going to say the same thing you are going to say. You say hello, your echo is going to say hello. A little bit later, but it's going to say that. You're crazy. You're crazy. So people don't think the craziness in this world is an echo of themselves. No, no, no. They think that's somebody else talking. No, it's you, you, you, you, you, you, all of us. And what is everybody trying to do? Fix the echo.

Everybody is trying to fix the echo. Now my question is, I'm a practical sort of guy. You cannot have almost 14,000 hours of flying. When you're a pilot, you cannot be too spiritual. You cannot go, oh, the spirit of the wind, come and change. No, you have to go, I've got a lot more headwinds. This just happened to me. I was coming from Mirzapur to Delhi and the winds were just way too strong. And so I could have gone, oh, spirit of the winds, slow down, slow down. No, instead I was, how much fuel am I going to land with? How much fuel am I going to land with? Because if it isn't enough, I'm going to put down somewhere and get some more fuel. You have to be practical. The world is trying to change the echo. How? How? It's not, it's never going to happen. You want to change the echo? Then you say something else. And the nature will follow its course and you will hear something different. But it won't be any different than what you had said. Peace? Not a problem. Where is it? Inside of you. Was it there yesterday? Yes. Will it be there tomorrow? Yes, if you're there tomorrow, you'll be there tomorrow. You want to feel it? You won't feel it tomorrow. You want to feel it? You won't feel it yesterday. You want to feel it? You'll feel it today. So figure out what today is to you.

Do you know what today is to you? It's the day that goes by too quickly, right? People say I don't have enough time during the day. It's not that you have enough time or not, because the days are exactly the same. It's your wants, your wishes. They keep multiplying like the rats. They just keep multiplying, multiplying, multiplying, multiplying. A long time ago, I was in Italy. So I had my camera. I said, I'm going to go and shoot some pictures. It was getting to be just nice, beautiful light. So I went driving. I said, just take me out in the country. And we ended up in this little village. Typical Italian scene. All these four or five elderly gentlemen dressed fairly well, sitting on the side of the road, having beer, smoking cigarettes. And I said, ask them, can I take pictures of you? Yes, yes, yes. I'm taking pictures. And I'm busy looking through the camera at them. And all of a sudden, I see this change in them. They're all slouched and everything. And then all of a sudden, they're all standing up. And I'm like, for me? For my camera? I mean, wow. And I see a young girl walk behind me. I learned something. Your body might stop, but your desires don't.

It is what takes you to the shop. I want to see the dresses. Oh, yes, this blue one would look perfect. You buy the blue one. By the time you get home, I wish I would have bought the red one. How many of you have closets that are overfilled? Why? Oh, me too. Believe me. But I have another problem, too. Sometimes people give me these gifts, and it's just like, okay, where am I going to put them? But, yes. All these, all these, all these keep rotating and rotating, and the desires keep going. The days get shorter. Not the days get shorter, the desires get longer. And all you have to do is then remember that which is important. That which will produce gratitude, not confusion and anger and fear and doubt, but gratitude. Because a heart filled with gratitude will dance, and as a consequence, the peace will reign in your kingdom. The drought will be gone, and prosperity will come. There's prosperity on the outside, and there's prosperity on the inside. A person who prospers on the outside, but not on the inside, that's a house that's going to fall one day. Physics, termites, they eat the inside, then that house falls. But when there's prosperity on the inside, then there will be prosperity on the outside. When there's prosperity on the inside and the outside, everything goes fine. Everything goes fine. This is not about sacrifice. This is about discovery.

This is not about confusion. This is about clarity. This is not about believing. This is about knowing, because that is the only way that peace will ever come to you. So that's what I came to say. My pleasure to come to Ipoh to speak to you. I hope you get something out of it, and you enjoy. Think. Think. Think. It's free. It's free. Think what I have said. Thank you very much, and good night.