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Excerpts from Prem Rawat speaking at the International Day of Peace celebration at the Parliament Buildings in Wellington, New Zealand
It’s a pleasure to talk about a very profound but beautiful subject—peace. Everybody wants peace, but everybody looks at it from a different angle. Peace begins with every single human being. It is not a matter of countries or states or cities. It is a matter of every single human being.
Individuals must come together collectively for the benefit of society. If every person can feel something beautiful within, maybe all that society wants will happen automatically. Trying it the other way around has not been successful, and we are talking about years and years of experiments.
Let’s try something that was talked about a long time ago that never was tried. Socrates said, “Know thyself.” I’m not talking about religion. I’m not talking about spirituality. I’m talking about who you are. We speak different languages, but don’t we say the same things? We do. That’s why our language can be translated.
Do we see our strengths or do we see our weaknesses every day? Do we see the possibility of peace in our lives or do we see the impossibility? In this life, sometimes you have to be as brave as a pioneer because you don’t know what the day will bring for you. You wish you did, but you don’t.
Your life is this most complicated story that unfolds and folds and unfolds. Each day you are given is a blank sheet of paper. Write on it whatever you want. At the end of the day, you could be reading a beautiful poem because in that day you wrote one and it was magnificent. You lived your life that day in reality. You lived your life that day at one with your self. You became your own ally, your own friend. You could see the possibility that was there from the day you were born.
One day all the gifts we have been given will no more be. Three main events happen in everyone’s life. One, you were born. Two, you live. Three—I don’t have to tell you. You don’t have to make an appointment for it. The middle one is where peace dances. That’s where the serenity is; that’s where the tranquility is. What does peace look like? It looks like your face in contentment. When your heart is in peace, peace dances on your face and you cannot help it. That is the nature of joy. That is the nature of happiness. That is the nature of contentment. That is the nature of peace.
How many excuses are there for not having peace on the face of this earth? How many excuses are there for not having peace in your life? You have no excuse because peace is already inside of you. Nothing can rob us of the peace that dances in our hearts. Wherever we go, whoever we are, that peace remains with us. In good times it’s there, and in bad times it’s there.
Of all the things you will do in your life, do one more. See who you are. Know thy self. Know the peace that dances in your heart. Do that so each page of your life is truly magnificent. Read your poetry so you can be delighted. When you are at peace, do you know what happens? You delight. You become happy. Those are the symptoms of peace.
Prem Rawat
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