True Peace

(translated from Hindi)

Audience

Is there a human being who doesn’t want peace? Everyone wants peace. But today, people have complicated things so much that nobody knows what peace is. People say if there is no war, there is peace.

What is true peace? It is a peace that can be experienced even in the middle of a battlefield. It is not the peace that people talk about, that if this happens or that happens, peace will come. True peace resides in the heart of every human being. It can be experienced not just once, but again and again, just as we eat again and again. We don’t just eat once and never need to eat again. When we are hungry, we need to eat.

Do you want true peace? It is up to each person. True peace can only happen when a person learns to stand on their own two feet and understand what is within them.

Our culture says, “Look outside.” People want to find the truth. They search and search on the outside. There are so many books written, some just to criticize other books. The more a person reads, the more confused they get.

Prem Rawat

You have to look for peace in the right place. You don’t need to search for it on the outside. If you search the whole world, you won’t find it, because it is within you.

Experience that for yourself. It is not selfish. Being selfish is doing something that benefits you but harms someone else. When you do something that benefits you and no one else is harmed, that is not selfish. If you steal someone else’s food and eat it, that’s selfish. But if you eat your own food to satisfy your hunger, it isn’t. So, experiencing peace is not selfish. When you experience peace, you experience it for yourself. It is a very personal experience.

Who are you? This mind, this intellect, this body, this life, this experience—you are a compilation of all those things put together. You are who you are because of all of those things. This life that you’ve been given is an opportunity that won’t come again and again. What do you need to do with this life? Be fulfilled.

Audience Rawat
The day will come when you have to leave. So fulfill this life now. What does it mean to fulfill this life? It means that your garden can be beautiful and green and lovely. For that, I will give you the seed. If you plant it and give it the water of trust, then definitely that seed will grow, and your garden will be beautiful. This you can experience. As long as you are alive, your garden can be beautiful. You can live in that peace. It’s not just something that you heard or that was written somewhere. This is something practical.

— Prem Rawat