"Welcome to the World of Existence"

I’m here to talk about something very, very simple, but at the same time, it touches every one of us. What is it? It is about this journey, this life, this existence. Not an idea. Not a theory. Not rules. Not some printed pages. But about you and me.
The most incredible thing that is taking place is not what you read in the newspaper. It is not what is in your library. Don’t mistake me; I’m not putting them down. I’m just trying to lay forth an order of priority. What is the most important thing? The most important thing is: you are alive. Now what? What does that mean to you?
Sometimes we have interpretations of what it means to be alive. Because I am alive, I can do this, I can do that. The focus is not about all those things. The focus is your existence, you being on the face of this earth. This will never happen again. The house you live in, other people will live in, too. Right now, you say, “It’s mine.” One day, somebody else will say, “It’s mine.”

What is yours? What can you truly consider yours that no one can take away from you? All your life, you work very hard to collect things. But are they yours? All your life, you work very hard to become somebody—to have a name, a title. But is that really you?

Who are you really? Who am I? I have a lot of awards. Is that who I am? What is this journey I am on? I was born. Things have been happening. When I say “journey,” I’m not saying, “Let’s go on a journey. Let’s find out what we can do on this journey.” The journey has already begun. This is not about brochures or holiday packages. This is not about what you would like to eat. The journey has begun.
When you were in your mother’s womb, your parents had a lot of ideas about you. And being in love, they made their little plans for you. They may not have known if you were going to be a boy or a girl. But when you came into this world, there was a very short period of time in which they held their breath, waiting. In that moment, it was not about aspirations and your gender. They were only interested in knowing one thing:

Are you breathing or not?

If you are breathing, then, “Ah! Congratulations, it’s a boy. It’s a girl! Oh, wonderful! Oh, so cute. Look at those eyes.” But before that, before the eyes and the face and the cuteness, there’s only one concern, and that concern was, “Are you breathing or not?”
And this happens again—at the end. At the end, they all wait. And they wait, and they wait, and they wait, and they want to know: Have you stopped breathing?

Everything you are is predicated on something so incredibly simple. And everything you do in your life seems so far removed from that reality. Is this reality ugly? No. It is beautiful. Welcome to the world of existence. Welcome to the world of clarity. Welcome to the world of understanding because this is what it is about—the peace that dances in your heart, not the doubts that wreak havoc in your mind. The reality of your existence is supremely sweet.
I’m not here to tell you about the good or bad, right or wrong. I’m only here to tell you that

what you are looking for is inside of you

. And this is not a puzzle. These are not empty words, because I have a way that you can feel the reality that is inside of you, the peace that is inside of you, the joy that is inside of you. In this life.
You think you are blessed when things go your way. But you are blessed—truly blessed—when breath comes into you. Could it be that the miracle of all miracles is the coming and going of this breath? Could it be that I have been living on top of a goldmine every single day?

The good news is that true joy is already inside every single human being. And you can experience it if you want to.

Search for peace. And wherever you find it, great. And if you don’t find it, come to me. I can make it possible.

"Outside the Cage"

I was reading an email from somebody who had just seen me on TV. He said, “I just saw you for the first time, and I have never heard anything like that in my life before. And the way I feel, I have never felt like that before.”

That’s wonderful, because if I can free up that possibility for you, you can taste what real freedom is. Being able to turn left or right at will is not real freedom. Real freedom comes from a true understanding of what freedom is all about.

For the bird that was raised in a cage, its definition of freedom is a bigger cage. And the one that was raised in a bigger cage? Its definition is an even a bigger cage.
When somebody comes along and says, “Think outside the cage, not a better cage,” it is not about a brand new cage, gold-plated cage, or leather-lined cage. The world says, “Flash your freedom! Show your cage! Let everybody know your status—that you live in a cage that has LEDs, plasma TVs, surround-sound stereo system, computers, all of these things.”

This is what happens in our life, too. Every definition begins with a cage—a better cage. But a better cage is not freedom. Freedom is something else. Freedom is when you feel free, not because somebody says, “You are free!” And then we say, “That’s true because I saw it on TV, I read it in a book.” Why can’t we decipher for ourselves what we feel? Do I feel free? Maybe I’ve got the fanciest cage and the latest plasma TV, but do I feel free? When you go to that beautiful place within, that’s where freedom is. Don’t take my word for it—feel that in your life. When you actually experience it, only then will you be free. When you understand something, you go beyond the ocean of questions. Understand by knowing, not by guessing or taking somebody else’s word for it. In earnest, feel. Then you can have the conviction to exist in a very different way, despite the good and bad that comes.

Many people try to get rid of the bad times so that they will never come. It won’t happen, by the way, because it’s the season. Seasons will come: there will be summer, and then there will be fall. Then there will be winter and spring, and then summer again.

It’s not a question of good or bad. This is how it is. Nothing is constant in an inconstant world. All that you see as bad will eventually turn good. People are afraid. Don’t be afraid. You have to understand, not be afraid, because fear is crippling. Understanding isn’t. Understanding gives you the power, the courage, to look beyond that. You have an option. You can be afraid or you can understand.

That which is okay is always within you. The fear is within you, and the courage is within you. The darkness is within you, and the light is within you. The source of all the joy and wisdom is within you. To be able to go inside and feel that feeling with no limits, just beauty. A silence that is not silent, a feeling where everything comes to an equilibrium. No lists of undone items, no fears, no questions, no discomfort. And yet, a peace. That’s what peace is. To be in peace. That is the possibility. It’s up to you. Practice that, and you will get good at it.

" Rewards of Joy"

What I have to talk about is something very personal, something that has to do with you as an individual.

When I travel, people talk to me, and everybody seems to talk about the “world situation.” “There is this happening in this part of the world, there is this problem and that problem.” You rarely come across a person who says, “I’m very thankful because I am alive, because I have been given the gift of breath, the gift of today.”
When I talk to people about peace, I don’t talk about peace the same way that other people do, where everybody is walking around in an idyllic world with a big smile on their face, nobody’s arguing with anyone, and there are white robes and peace symbols everywhere.

When I talk about peace, it begins with every single human being on the face of this earth.

If we are not experiencing that peace, that joy, in our lives, it really doesn’t matter. The idyllic dream will stay idyllic and stay a dream. To realize it, we will have to go to sleep because that is the only time we can dream.

I am talking about being awake. Part of being alive is to be awake, not sleeping in an imaginary world, striving for an imaginary peace, living an imaginary life. Especially when what you have been given is so much better than anything you could ever dream of and infinitely more beautiful than you could ever imagine. That’s the life I am talking about—where there is a real enjoyment. It cannot be an imagination. It has to be real.

Peace is good, joy is good, being conscious is good, and if you can practice being conscious in this life, that would be a wonderful thing. Imagine the rewards of being conscious. Imagine the rewards of happiness. Imagine the rewards of joy. Imagine the rewards of a fulfilled life. Imagine the rewards of a life complete—not empty. Not half, not three-quarters.

You have to be proactive if you want peace in your life. You have to usher in wisdom and consciousness every single day. You have to have a way to be able to go inside, because that is where peace lies.

I offer a way to be able to go inside. I go around and I try to make a difference. I try to bring joy to people’s lives, to bring a little hope to people around the world.

Find peace in your life. A day without peace, without joy, is truly a waste of time. If you can’t find it, look me up. I’m here, there, somewhere—traveling around the world and bringing a message of hope. Not a lecture, but a hope in earnest to people around the world.

Put the meaning back in this life with every breath you take. Understand the value of breath while you still have it, because then you will be able to appreciate what you have. Wisdom is not a big thing. It’s in the small details of life. The smallest detail of your life is this breath that comes in and goes out. It is so incredibly detailed because your existence dances around it. This is you. This is your gift. Be fulfilled. It will make the difference in your existence.

"A Spectacular Dream"

Here is a riddle: There is something that we have all been given plenty of, but it’s never enough. We want more. Everybody goes around pretending they don’t have enough of it. We’re given this one thing, but we can never keep it. What do you suppose it is? Time.

We say, “I don’t have time. I don’t have time. I don’t have time.” And it just keeps coming and coming. All the time we get is ours, but we don’t get to keep any of it. It slips through, and the only thing we are left with is what we do in that time.

So what is it that we should do in that time? Don’t underestimate this little question. This has been debated for centuries: What should we do? We are such “do” creatures that we forget certain fundamental things.

The thirst for fulfillment is innate; it is within you. If you feel the thirst, you are doing what you should be doing. We are driven to do so much in our lives. We think we have to do so much. All our responsibilities, all our ideas, all our thoughts—it’s, “Do, do, do.”


But once in our lifetime, it would be nice to sit down and feel what we really want to do. The quest for doing it would come from within, not from the outside. It would not be driven by this world. So much of what we think we have to do comes from somebody else.

What does the bathroom cabinet of life look like? All the fixes: “Take this anti-stress thing. Go for a walk, go for a jog, go do this, go do that.” Nobody says, “Why are you getting stressed?” It’s something to think about because there is one more element to living that we have not included. It’s not about going to the moon, and it’s not about accomplishments, and it’s not about what we could do.

There is another quest within each human being, and that is the desire to be fulfilled, not in thought or imagination, but in earnest. It is the desire to be in that one place which is surrounded by certainty, peace.

Life is not about solving problems. Every time you solve a problem, there will be another one. In fact, some days you feel that you better not solve problems because that is the only way to avoid new ones.

People make excuses why we cannot have peace, but how many recognize that the quest for peace has been going on for an extremely long time. We have had a dream for a really, really long time. A spectacular dream, a dream that said to be in peace—not fear, doubt, pain, sorrow, or confusion—a dream to be in clarity.

Peace is to be in clarity, to feel that understanding, to be in joy not sorrow. And there dwells reality—not a theory, an argument, a definition—but a feeling. True reality is a feeling, to know in clarity.

Peace is the reward. Joy is the reward. A life fulfilled—one at a time. That is the most incredible reward you can ever have. It’s the highest honor, the most noble quest—the quest for peace. It is always noble because there’s no end. Those who have felt the peace rejoice. The truest victory for every human being is not all the deserts you could cross or the mountains you could climb. It is about feeling, joining, admiring the place within. This is life, not the things that happen in it.
Each breath is a blessing. Be a fisherman. Somebody can show you how to cast that net within and catch as many of those blessings in your life as you can. Reel them in. Fill this vessel, understand, and rejoice. Feel free, really free. Feel the ultimate feeling. Feel happiness, peace every day. Feel the gratitude in your life every day. That’s what life is about.

"Maharaji at Oxford University"

What I have to talk about is really quite simple. It deals with one human being—one person, one individual, who breathes, thinks, wants to understand, wants to learn. Sometimes, in the pursuit of all that we pursue in this world, we forget about us. Who am I? Who are you? You are unique. There is no one like you. I cannot emphasize enough the uniqueness of every human being on the face of this earth.
Learning is a process that will happen for every single person. This is our nature. Learning will happen, but amongst all the things we learn, what is the most important thing to learn? Millions have come through these gates to learn, understand, and go on in their lives to be successful and prosperous. But there is one kind of prosperity that was talked about a very, very long time ago: Know thyself.

The idea of peace is not new. I’ve been talking about peace since I was a child, because I know that there is another face of peace. There is an idyllic face of peace that people paint in which nobody is fighting with anyone. But there is a face of peace that does not rely on boundaries. There is a face of peace that has nothing to do with obedience, nothing to do with your wishes. It is the face of peace that lies in the heart of every human being.

This is the possibility, the reality, that certain people have always envisioned: “Know thyself.” The resource of the joy, the peace, you are looking for exists within you. You have the tools you need to accomplish the aspirations of your heart, regardless of all external circumstances.

Are you in peace? Are you content, not by thought, but by feeling? There cannot be a formula for peace: “I am content because I did this and I did that and therefore, everything is fine.” It has to be a reality.
My message is not connected to a religion. My message is connected to getting in touch with your heart, to understanding the value and the preciousness of your existence. It is about addressing, rather than covering up, the fundamental needs that you have as a human being—needs that are the same for everyone.

"Seeing Life as It Is"

I talk about the possibility, the life we have been given. With all our responsibilities and the things people tell us, we forget what we have been given.

I have a little story, and it is about a man who used to dream of all the things he wanted in his life. He wanted to marry this beautiful girl, have a good-paying government position, have some land. He was very good at dreaming, but he had no sense of reality. Things would happen all day, people would send him letters, but he would ignore them.

One day, he got old. He looked at his life and thought about his dreams, lamenting that none of them had become a reality. Then he saw a big pile of letters and started opening them. To his amazement, there was a letter from his girlfriend who wanted to marry him. So he called her, and she said, “I waited for you, but I got no answer, so I went ahead and got married.”


He opened a letter and it was from the king, offering him a great job. He called the king, andthe kingsaid, “I waited for you, and you never responded, so the job was given to someone else.”

As he opened each letter, he realized that all his dreams had come true, but he wasn’t there to accept them. If only he had seen the reality, he wouldn’t be lamenting. He could be celebrating.

I’m telling you this story because it is like that with us. We also have our dreams, our hopes, and our aspirations. At the base of every hope and dream we have lies the wish to be fulfilled, the wish to be happy, the wish to be content.

A letter comes to us every day in the form of breath, but we don’t open it because we’re too busy dreaming, trying to come up with formulas and ideas of how we can be content. But happiness itself is included in each one of these envelopes of breath that the Creator gives us. When it is too late, then we look at them and start to open them. Then we say how precious they are, and we look at all the ones we have wasted.


It is so important that we acknowledge the reality of this existence. We get so busy painting our ideas of how this life should be that we actually miss what is really happening. We walk with a bag on one side that is good and a bag on the other side that is bad. Everything we pick up goes into either the good bag or the bad bag. Take away the good and bad, and it is what it is. When you can see it as it is, it is beautiful. When you were young, you had this ability. You could see something for what it was—not good and bad, right and wrong.


If you want that joy in your life, bring back the heart of a child. When we can once again see with the pure eyes of our heart, we can see what we have been given, that the gift of existence means something. Not “what I have accomplished” but “I am alive.” Life unfolds, and the gift is presented again and again. If you open this package, in the heart of it all you will find beauty, simplicity.

Go within and feel that beauty, that contentment. Find your comfort, your joy, in this reality. Find your shelter in this beautiful place.

"Discovering What We Have Been Given"

You have everything. You really do. You have this life. Begin with that. I know that some people are cynical. You might think you are a particularly difficult case. A lot of the things we tell ourselves are the things we have been told by other people: “Don’t do that. If you do, this or that will happen.” Then you think you are a difficult case. Who told you that? Doesn’t breath come into you? Don’t you have a heart? Aren’t you alive? Just on the merit of these three things alone, you are not a difficult case. That makes you a human being, just like me, just like anyone else.

Look at an ant. An ant should be cynical. Have you seen an ant try to go through grass? It has to crawl up and down. Danger is everywhere. It would have a right to be cynical, but it isn't. With its little legs, it marches off. And it marches and marches. It has a focus in life.

Start to see, to appreciate. I’m not trying to tell you that everything is beautiful. But see and experience the beauty for yourself. Allow—give yourself the chance to accept that in your life.



It’s like a door, and behind it, incredible magic has been happening. We say, “I don’t know what’s behind this door and, therefore, I’m not going to open it.” And then we look at the room we’re in and it’s not that great. I say, “Open the door. Go! I’ll give you the key, but you must open the door.”

When you feel joy, don't you want to be there all the time? It’s not a wish. Just wishing won’t work. Something has to happen. We have to understand, “This is where I want to be,” and know that, not just say, “I don’t want to be miserable.” Just saying, “I don’t want to be miserable” does not automatically put us in a good place. This is the law of nature. If I say, “I don’t want to be here,” what good does that do? But if I realize where I want to be, then it will pull me there.

There is a place within you that brings you joy. You have to trust yourself just as much as I trust you. And you have to see the possibility in your own self just as much as I see the possibility in you. Maybe for the first time say, “I’m not going to sit there all my life saying where I don’t want to be. I’m going to clarify for myself where I do want to be.” That’s when I can help you.




If you go to the airline counter and say, “I don’t want to be here,” how are they going to help you? I am like that airline. If you say, “Take me to the place where I can be in peace, where I can be in joy,” then I can tell you, “This way. Which seat would you like?”

We have life. That’s the biggest passport. This breath is marching every moment. Breath doesn’t assume anything. Every moment it comes. Very precise. Then it goes, and it comes again. It doesn’t assume: “I’ve been there for a long time. You’ll be okay if I don’t come for 45 minutes.” It comes every moment, every second.

We have mercy in our life, so many blessings, so much love. It’s a matter of uncovering, discovering all the things we have been given.

A lot of people are fascinated by misery and just can’t leave it. They complain about everything—about God, the weather, everything. Sometimes there are thunderstorms or it’s hot. That’s the joy of being here. You can’t say, “No thunderstorms, please. No heat, please. No this or that, please.”



We have to be strong in this world. To be safe, to be conscious, to be real in this life comes from inside. I can’t fix the political system. What I can do is help people get in touch with their heart. I go around the world Maharajitelling people they can have peace in their life. I started helping people when I was very young, and this is what I’ve been doing all my life. The dream was to be able to go from place to place, village to village—and that is becoming a reality.

Every day is new. And that’s wonderful. Enjoy your life, every moment. That’s how it should be. Don’t lose the shield of hope. Learn how to hold onto it. You want that hope.

Sadness will always be there; sadness doesn’t go away. All the sadness that you will ever feel is within you. And all the love that you will ever feel is within you. It just depends which door you want to open.

You have everything. Let me help you discover all those things again, how to hold onto the shield of hope. The world has pushed it away. But every day we can have hope. We can learn to smile again. We don’t have to be sad. I can’t tell anybody that their business will be better. But I know one thing: a centered person is what the whole world is looking for, because that’s what we all need. So, just enjoy the ride.

"A Single Source"

I’d like to talk about the gift of this life you have as a human being. What is a human being? What makes us so different? On one level, there isn’t a lot of difference between us and other animals. Maybe the difference is no greater than the difference between a cat and a dog, but we are different.

What is that difference? There are animals out there that can outrun us, so it’s not running. And there are animals out there that can out-jump us, so it’s not jumping. It’s not the smile, because monkeys smile quite frequently to show their teeth and let everybody else know they’re the boss. So it’s not smiling.

What is it? This is not based on science, but my inclination is that it is our power to appreciate, to enjoy, that makes us who we are. Dogs enjoy what they enjoy. There’s no question about it. They wag their tail, and their eyes light up. They even get a smile. They enjoy what they enjoy. Cats are the same way. They enjoy what they enjoy. And birds enjoy what they enjoy.

But there is something we can enjoy because of who we are. And that, in my opinion, is what makes us a little bit different.

Now look for a moment at plants. I was driving along one day, and I noticed that even though the ground was undulating, the trees were growing straight up, not perpendicular to the ground. Why? Because their roots are on this earth, but their relationship is with something that’s in the sky. They need to expose leaves to the sun, and the more the better. That’s their relationship.

A tree takes many things into account—storms, wind, and that relationship it has with the sun. There are plants in Antarctica that grow very close to the surface because they know about wind. They know that if they try to pop out, they’ll be gone, so they grow very, very close to the surface, but their relationship with the sun is still constant.

You see a myriad of designs—intricate leafs, branches, root systems, bark. And the tree has a relationship with something that is so far away from it. The tree doesn’t know how far the sun is. But everything in its design, in its existence—as we call it—is in balance. If that balance is compromised, it cannot exist.

If we were to take a look at our own existence, how balanced is it? Most of us think, “I’ve got to survive in this world, and whatever it takes to survive is all I need. Period. That’s it.”

But who do we have that ultimate relationship with? What is the single source of inspiration in our life every day? For me, it can’t be a hero. It can’t be something you learned. It can’t be an ideology or a great poet or artist or philosopher. It is something that resides in the heart.

The fact is that power is within everyone—period. But the only question is whether we recognize it, whether it manifests. And that is what I am here to talk about.

I’m not here to fix your problems. What I want you to realize is that there is something real inside of you that is greater than the sum of all your goods and bads, regardless of how you see yourself. Whatever you have read or whatever you think, there is something that resides inside of you. And that is what can be the single point of inspiration in your life.

I hope you will discover and pay attention to that thing that is within you and that you will forge a relationship with it. For then you will not just survive, you will thrive.