Peace Then Prosperity

Prem Rawat / Maharaji

From my heart, what I want to talk about is very simple. You know, it’s the little things in life that sometimes have the most significant impact. Little things like peace…being felt in the heart of every human being. Maybe it’s a little thing. And, in the pursuit of prosperity, we ignore the formula set forth a long, long time ago: peace, then prosperity.

In this day and age, we are ambition-driven. Have you ever wondered what the ambition is for? What is the ambition of a poor farmer in some remote place? Is it to work in a high-rise? He has never even seen one, and he can’t even imagine it. What is the ambition of a little boy that only has a bicycle wheel and gets incredible pleasure, hour after hour, rolling that wheel down the road? I do not claim to be an expert, but I have traveled quite a bit. Their ambition is not that much different from the ambition of all the people I saw going to work this morning in this city.

We sometimes forget that we are human beings. We have very simple needs. And at the top of the list has always been the need to feel contentment. To feel a heart full of joy. To feel a peace—not by definition—but a peace within each individual.

Prem Rawat

I go from place to place reminding people of the most important things in their lives. Simple things—not complex things. I see wars in this world. I don’t like wars. And I know it has been said many times that the poor soldiers that have to actually fight are the ones that detest it the most. Nobody likes wars.

And yet, wars happen again and again and again. And every time there is a war, there is a call for peace. Is that an accident? No. The call for peace has been there. We look everywhere, and sometimes we forget to look within ourselves for the thirst that we have. The thirst is within us, and the well is within us. The quest for peace is within us, and the solution for peace also lies within us. This is who we are.

We are human beings striving in our own ways to reach the same goal as anyone else. At the end of the day, maybe some people have more resources and others very few, but the driving force is exactly the same for everyone.

Like all the different cuisines, there are many religions, many solutions. They are supposed to satisfy the same basic hunger that is in each of us. We are driven by very fundamental ambitions. It is not a question of whether the world recognizes it or not. What do we recognize? What do we see?

Prem Rawat

When you look in a mirror, you see yourself differently than anyone else sees you. We look at ourselves very, very differently. We know our needs. We understand our needs. And whatever you do and wherever you go in this world, remember that peace is on top of the internal list. External lists are influenced by society and what is in vogue. External lists change. Internal lists stay the same. Like they have since you were a little child.

We may speak differently, we may even have different languages, but the true feelings from our hearts are not that different.

If you’re going to be in the boat of this world today, little things like having peace in your life become incredibly important. That’s my opinion. This is my message.

I cannot help but feel that the same ambition drives us all. Perhaps what you know, what you have accomplished in your life, is on a scale unimaginable to a farmer in India. Yet, we are so concerned with our differences that we have forgotten about our similarities. Even though I like the differences, I also like the similarity we all have—that a lamp burns bright in the heart of every single human being on the face of this earth. And in this great darkness of ignorance, where people are fighting with their own kind, that lamp needs to shine as brightly as it possibly can.

What I like to tell everyone is that if you want the solution, turn within. Look for the things you want, but also look within. People find that to be a powerful message, and I can understand why, because sometimes we forget those simple little things. As we go fumbling in the darkness, maybe the solution has always been with us. With a little opening of this heart, shining of the lamp, we don’t have to stub our toes on all the obstacles out there.

Simple it is and always has been. Peace, then prosperity. Your own call within you that you feel. Let it be real. Peace is not a fiction. Peace is the one flower that is held by every human being. That’s what peace needs to be.

— Prem Rawat