The Making of Hear Yourself
Here is the six-minute back story of Hear Yourself: How to Find Peace in a Noisy World -- Prem Rawat's wonderful new book.
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November 21, 2023THE CHALLENGE OF COMMUNICATING THE INEFFABLE
Ever since I received the gift of Self-Knowledge from Prem Rawat in 1971, I have been trying, in various ways, to communicate something about the experience he reveals, how the practice of what he teaches benefits a person's life, and what his ongoing role is in the grand adventure of "knowing thyself."
As a poet and writer, I have a high regard for the power of language to convey and evoke that which is difficult to translate. But beyond that, I know deep down inside myself that, ultimately, it is not really possible -- not unlike the way my Zen friends describe the phenomenon of trying to speak truth into existence.
"It's like a finger pointing at the moon."
Prem Rawat has spoken of this phenomenon, as well.
"It's like trying to describe the taste of a mango to someone who's never experienced it."
Bottom line, words are finite, no matter how they are strung together or how impassioned the writer or speaker may be at any given moment in time. The menu is not the food. The finger is not the moon.
When it comes right down to it, I take my cue from the Chinese sage, Lao Tzu who once said: "Those who know don't speak. Those who speak don't know.
Hmm... a most provocative quote, indeed. And yet... drum roll please... Lao Tzu SPOKE this unspeakable truth. So... we can either conclude that the illustrious Mr. Tzu didn't know anything about the truth (because he spoke) OR he spoke, anyway, because there was something deep inside of him that needed to be said, no matter how paradoxical or imperfect his expression was.
Inspired by his choice and the undeniable fact that a finger pointing to the moon is better than no finger at all, I am going to take one more whack at this impossible task.
In other words, I am going to take a few leaps, using words as springboards, catalysts, and approximations.
What does enjoying the gift of Self-Knowledge that Prem Rawat reveals feel like?
Like coming home... like being on home base in a game of tag... like landing on Free Parking in Monopoly... like the bridge over troubled waters... like the trail of rice Hansel and Gretel left behind to find their way out of the forest... like Christmas morning... like an unexpected snow day... like finally finding love after looking for it in all the wrong places... like a sanctuary city for all of the refugees inside you... like realizing the promised land is (and has always been) beneath your feet... like being happy for no reason... like falling in love with life itself.
Catch my drift? I hope so.
Of course, each of the above figures of speech are imperfect. Every one of them is flawed.
For the moment, look at it this way: there is no perfect perfume or cologne in the world, but a really evocative scent will move you across the room to connect with the person who is wearing it -- or, at least, LOOK their way.
If any of the preceding has piqued your interest, I invite you to follow the scent wherever it may lead you. Towards that end, I have included links, below, to some Prem-related websites.
Sniff around if you'd like.
Hear Yourself: Prem's New York Times bestselling book
Prem's Official YouTube Channel
PremRawat.com
TimelessToday
TPRF.org
Photo: Courtesy of TimelessToday
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November 17, 2023Paint Outside the Boxes
"Weve been given the opportunity to express ourselves -- to paint beautiful pictures with the strengths we have inside. Each new morning, we can choose to be the most fantastic version of ourselves. Ignore the numbers. Paint outside the boxes. Paint what's in your heart. Paint the most dazzling version of who you are." - Prem Rawat
Illustration: gapingvoid
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November 15, 2023Easy to Love
PremRawat.com
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November 11, 2023The Hostage Situation
A few days ago, Rabbi Zoe B. Zak from Temple Israel of Catskill asked me to write something for tonight's Sabbath service -- something that spoke to the hostage situation in Israel.
This gave me pause and one more opportunity to reflect -- specifically on what, if anything of value, did I have to say about this great tragedy and from what persona of mine would I speak?
As member of this temple? A Jew? An American? A man? A father? A poet? A Democrat? A peace advocate? A lifelong seeker of truth?
There are so many ways to look at things, so many points of view, so many sides of the story.
At first blush, like all of you here tonight, my heart goes out to the hostages and their families. I can only imagine if it were my children who had been taken hostage... or my friends... or my parents. I have no words to describe the feelings I would be having, never having lived through this nightmare myself.
Nor do I have words to describe the feelings of the hostage-takers and what drove them to such an action in the first place.
Here's what I know: thoughts and prayers are not enough to heal the pain that the people of Israel and Palestine are experiencing. Nor is political posturing, protest marches and whatever cease fire or truce is eventually agreed on -- especially since we all know that whatever cease fire or truce is agreed on will only be temporary and that the deep-seated hatred and antagonism that both sides have for each other -- along with their own "proof" for why their stance is well-founded -- is likely to continue.
Here's what else I know:
We were not born to hurt, fight and kill each other. We were born to experience love, kindness, compassion, consciousness and true humanity.
Demonizing the so-called "other" is easy to do. It has become a sport on planet earth -- which, as far as I can tell, is a planet of duality, one of the great challenges facing all of us -- the apparent dance of opposites:
Up and down... in and out... black and white... good and bad... East and West... North and South... hot and cold... male and female... light and dark... now and later... hard and soft... you and me... us and them... Israel and Palestine.
This duality, deeply embedded into the DNA of every single person that walks this earth very much affects our perceptions of life. "Otherness" rules us in just about every aspect of our lives. And this otherness blinds us to our common humanity in such a vile way that it makes it insanely difficult to experience each other as brothers and sisters... or children of the same God.
We have all been taken hostage by this mindset of otherness. We have all been kidnapped by an invisible force that makes it extremely difficult to come from a place of love instead of hate, compassion instead of destruction, kindness instead of killing.
Personally speaking, I have seen and felt a lot in my 76 years.
I almost died at 21, just three seconds away from drowning. Three years later, when I was 24, I met a great being and experienced my timelesss, true nature beyond the circumstances of my life. I saw an angel when I was 27 -- not in my imagination, but in my room. I worked in an Islamic school for a year -- the only Jew among 1,000 Muslims. I have walked the halls of power in corporate America, for 35 years, invited by that curious slice of humanity to open their minds to new possibilities. I have brought two children into this world, written seven books, and watched Fiddler on the Roof six times.
Speaking of which, there is a scene in that movie that has always stayed with me -- one that has relevance to the world we now find ourselves living in. Perhaps you remember the scene.
Tevye, the town milkman and also the town wise man was walking through the town square when he encounters two villagers arguing loudly about a transaction they recently had. Apparently, one of the men sold a horse to the other, but the other man is now insisting it was not a horse, at all, but a mule. When they see Tevye, each of them turns to him and vehemently makes their case.
After the first man tells his side of the story, Tevye strokes his beard and says "You're right!"
Then the second man, with an entirely different story of the transaction, makes his case to Tevye.
Tevye listens, strokes his beard and says. "You're right!"
A third villager, standing close by, who had been watching the argument play out for the past ten minutes then turns to Tevye and says, "Wait a minute, how can he be right (pointing to the first man) AND he be right (pointing to the second man)?"
Tevye listens, strokes his beard, and exclaims "YOU'RE RIGHT!" Then he starts dancing, embodying in that highly-charged moment, something far beyond right and wrong.
This story may sound cute to you or not at all applicable to the awful situation in the Middle East. But it is neither cute or naive. There is a lot of truth in it.
Until and unless, we -- as a species -- get to a place beyond our cultural perceptions of right and wrong -- we will always be fighting, always killing, always taking others hostage and more fundamentally, taking ourselves hostage.
What I am talking about has nothing to do with the laws of mankind. It has to do with the laws of life and the almighty -- that which not everyone agrees on, selectively quoting from their favorite scripture or interpretation of their favorite scripture to support their own point of view.
What can YOU do in regard to the hostage situation in Israel? What can you do in regard to the horror show going on in the Middle East these days -- and let us not forget the war between Russian and Ukraine.
That is for you to decide.
You can send thought and prayers. You can send money. You can send ambassadors. You can protest. You can write letters. You can come to services like the one here tonight. And all of these approaches, of course, have their place and time.
But ultimately, all of us -- you and me and everyone else who is not in this room tonight -- will need to find our own way back to peace -- the promised land that is not a physical place, but a state of being, a state of consciousness -- one whose natural attributes are love, kindness, empathy, compassion, selflessness, and the recognition that all people, regardless of their apparent differences, skin color, religion, language, politics, education, or perceptions are children of the same God -- all here to experience true love and forgiveness.
For now, before I take my leave, I invite you to close your eyes, take a long slow breath, and get in touch with one step you can take, one move you can make, to bring more love, kindness and understanding into this world -- starting tonight, in this room right now, in your home when you return there, and tomorrow in your community or wherever you can reach out to someone with love in your heart and the timeless recognition that we are all in this together.
Shalom! As-salamu alaikum to you all!
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November 04, 2023The Miraculous Border Crossing
What follows is a chapter of a memoir-in-process by Joan Apter about her four-year overland-to-India adventure: 1967 to 1971 -- one that led her to the home of Prem Rawat (known as "Maharaji" at that time) when he was only 12 years old.
It was late in 1969. I was 21-years old and my bus from Pakistan to India was approaching the border.
I had left America in 1967 without a plan, feeling that it was time for me to bail from the chaos and darkness of the Vietnam war, the violent race riots and the assassination of my generation's heroes. Many of my friends were already fleeing to Canada.
Simply put, I was looking for a place to settle that made more sense, having already "turned on, tuned in and dropped out," quitting college after my second year.
So, with the little bit of money I had earned at my summer job, I said goodbye to my family, promised to be back soon, and boarded my Air Icelandic flight to Luxembourg. Thus began what was to become my four-year sojourn overland to India.
And now, sitting in the back of a colorful Pakistani bus, I was approaching India, having no idea about the protocols for border crossing and all of its ramifications.
I traveled light in those days, one bag over my shoulder that contained a single change of clothes -- a Pakistani-style shalwar/kameez (baggy pants and a long tunic). I also carried a small flute, the oratorio of Handel's "Messiah", a vintage, beautifully illustrated book of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales, and a few other items I cannot remember.
All of the items I carried with me were bookmarks to experiences more of a spiritual nature than anything practical. And of course, I also had my chillum pipe and hashish, me being a self-identified member of the "seeker" class in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, where the chillim ceremony of passing the pipe in circle was a part of my life.
Magnetized by the mountains of Pakistan, I had been living in Chitral for about three months, a beautiful valley in the Hindukush range. Before Chitral, I had lived in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan, surrounded by the Hindu Kush.
Although I was traveling alone, I wasn't lonely and always seemed to be adopted by the warm, hospitable locals. Many of them had never seen a white woman before, so I was an oddity to get to know and understand. I remember following the daily schedule of the women of the house, but joining the men's circle at night to smoke and tell stories.
It was a wonderful and simple life, surrounded by astounding beauty and grandeur, but I couldn't ignore the feeling that kept returning to me to keep on moving. I was beginning to understand that what I was looking for was not a particular place or culture -- that, indeed, there was no such thing as "the perfect place."
When the bus I was on got to the Indian border, the border patrol asked all of us to disembark so they could search our bags. Having my priorities in order, I had my pipe and stash on the top of my few possessions, so it was not hard to find.
"You will be going to jail!" the border guard announced, motioning me to enter a back office.
Once there, I sat in front of the guard as he searched my bag, explaining, as he did, that it was illegal to bring hashish into India and I would have to face the consequences.
Without much thought and trusting the moment, I began making an impassioned speech.
"The chillum is a part of my religion," I explained. "I believe in the unity of all people. When we sit in a circle and pass the chillum, all duality drops away, and we become one world."
Being in India, a culture of deep spiritual roots, this kind of talk had resonance. The border guard listened intently and took it all in as he sifted through my meager possessions.
"What is this?" he asked, holding my book of Handel's "Messiah" in his hands.
Again, I let it rip -- waxing on about the deep devotional feeling I got from this channeled piece of music since the first time I heard it in college.
Smiling, the guard then asked about my vintage Hans Christian Andersen book. As he did, I walked behind his desk and started leafing through the beautiful illustrations, describing the tales written by this famous Danish children's author. I was oozing inspiration.
When I took my seat again, there was a long pause as he continued looking at the book.
"I would love to give this book to you if you would like it," I said.
The guard's eyes sparkled.
"Would you sign it for me?" he replied. "Next time you go through a border crossing, put your chillum on the bottom of your bag!"
To be continued...
If you want to be alerted when Joan's book is published, let her know via email:
-- Joanapter@earthlink.net
-- www.apteraromatherapy.com
Joan Apter is an adventurer of the heart with many stories to tell. Now 74 and living in Woodstock, NY (nestled in the mountains), she still believes that love conquers all and that our greatest achievement is to experience and share the adventure of the heart. The memoir Joan is writing is still untitled, though she is leaning towards "The Miracle of Thirst."
Photo of Sadhu: Ira Meyer
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