Prem Rawat at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA
Maharaji addressed an audience that included faculty, community leaders, and students at Sanders Theatre, Harvard University.
Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. It is also the first and oldest corporation in North America. Many of the most venerable academic, political, and literary figures of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, and Martin Luther King, have taken the podium at Sanders Theatre.
Following is a brief excerpt from an address by Prem Rawat at Harvard University:
When it comes to theory, peace is a very complicated thing. The only thing you can do is to inspire people to find the way to feel peace, and that begins with presenting the picture of a possibility.
To each person, there is a version of peace that applies to them. What is it? If you are a city dweller, you hear horns honking, sirens blaring, and everything going on all day and part of the night. Then on the weekend when you go to that quiet little place and there are no sirens, you say, “Ah, this is so peaceful.” That’s not peace. Absence of sounds is not peace. Absence of taxicabs honking is not peace. Absence of screeching tires is not peace. But getting away from that situation seems peaceful. These are individual variations of peace that people have.
What is real peace—peace that is common to every single human being on the face of this earth? The generic definition of peace is the absence of war, but there is a peace that has nothing to do with arguments and nothing to do with wars. The resolution of conflict alone is not peace.
There is a peace that is not temporary, not tied to politics, not found in the formulas of what the world thinks ought to be. It is not somebody’s vision, but resides within the individual, whether they are rich or poor, good or bad, right or wrong—even in their darkest hour, even when they are surrounded by an ocean of confusion and doubt.
This peace is not the absence of anything. Real peace is the presence of something beautiful. Both peace and the thirst for it have been in the heart of every human being in every century and every civilization.
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