Who are you?
What are you?
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.
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
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.
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.
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
By Prem Rawat
