Maharaji: Miami 30 Year Anniversary Event, July 1996

Maharaji: Miami, 30 Year Anniversary Event July 1996

(background music: Teach Me Devotion)

One more chance to listen. You know, to me, I don't know which one it is that does the trick. But you always have to be open to the prospect that maybe something will click. Because in this world, there's so much that changes, that is constantly revolving. In my heart, in my existence, I have this desire, and always have had that desire, to find that one safe harbor, where I can feel, not conceptually, but from within, that safety, that calmness, that simplicity, that my heart has always desired. And at first, we try to create that harbor with our ideas. Maybe if we have a secure this, or we have a secure that, maybe then that will be the safe harbor. And maybe sometimes we need to just look at that feeling, because it is not of our making. Nobody taught us the want, the wish, to be in that peace, to be in that harmony. It has always been there. And simply, going along in this life, we either acknowledge it, or we get very, very good at ignoring it. It doesn't matter. Some of us do not dare, dare acknowledge it. The consequences would be incredible. What would happen? What would people think? Wouldn't that be being irresponsible?

If I really acknowledged it, in my life, I know everybody uses that term, my life, in my life. I don't know how many people understand what that means. I think very, very few, if any, really understand what it means, my life, my, my life. My existence, my stage, my time, I'm the one who was born. I'm the one in whom the miracle of this breath takes place. I'm the one in whom this little dance of life is taking place. I'm the one who has been blessed with existence. I'm the one, my life, my time. And one day, it will go. So is the rule, so is the nature, so is the, the story. That you come, you're gifted with consciousness, you're gifted with this beautiful gift to be able to perceive, to be able to feel, to be able to understand. And one day, just like the sunrise and the sunset, I was thinking about that. Sun is so powerful, really powerful. And yet, it is set up that it will rise and it will set. Think about it. The rays of the sun, the light of the sun goes out to such a big part of this galaxy. Shining, shining, shining, shining, shining. And on this fragile little earth, just by creating sides, one side will point to the sun and that side will be lit, and the other side that will point away from the sun will be dark. And dark, and sometimes, when there is no moon to reflect that light, it can get so dark, so dark, you wouldn't know that there is a thing like sun just on the other side. Pitch, dark.

But that's the little dance of the coming and the going. Come, bring light. No signs in the sky what you should do. Automatically, once you're used to the time zone, you awaken. The light, in fact, starts a physical process, a chemical process in your body to awaken. And you begin to awaken. And then, the moment the time is presented, and then slowly, even that fades away. And every day, this little drama that is played out, I know there are people going, well, you know, in Sweden it doesn't do that. Yeah, it just does it royally. Six months up, and six months, nothing. I was there not too long ago, I was asking somebody, why do you live here? The place gets cold, I mean cold. But, in this sunrise and sunset, what can I tell myself? Can I also tell myself, when I see the sunrise, that as glorious as it is, so is the sunrise of my life, incredibly glorious. And as the sun travels across the heavens, shining its light, so too my existence is here. And as the sun sets, again, so magnificently, so beautifully, everything just starts to wind down. One day, my son will also set.

And then you hear, like that bird, I hope there's nobody here from Guam, but from Guam, it's incredible, there are no birds. The Japanese, when they came over to Guam, brought the snake. The snake ate all the birds. There are no birds, so it's like eerie silence. But, for the rest of the world, the birds begin to chirp. I don't know what they're saying, but it's part of that process of awakening. They have awakened too. And they're singing, talking, whatever they're doing, claiming their territory, saying, "Get off that branch, that's mine. I told you that yesterday, I've been telling you that for the last week, that's my branch, get off of it." (laughter) Technically, that's supposedly what they say to each other most of the time. That's mine. But the part, to me, the song is sweet. It doesn't matter what they're saying, to me it's sweet. And that's a part of me too, that I can enjoy, that I can love, that I can adore, that I can admire. And in my life, just like every day I have to decide, well, what am I going to do? What am I going to do today?

Have I decided what I'm going to do in my life? What's the master plan? Here are people sitting here who love planning. They plan like crazy. So, what is your master plan for this life? Because if you don't have one, you're going to be sorry. You've learned that in your business, have you not? Plan it all out. Everybody's got those little powerful computers. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. So, what's your master plan for this life? What are you going to do? Is it going to be just going from one occasion to another occasion to another occasion hoping for the best? Or is there some significance to this thirst that every human being has? Is there some significance to this little request of the heart to be fulfilled? And will you acknowledge it? Or the way it is, you dare not? Because a lot of people have Knowledge. They're here. A lot of people think, well, now I have Knowledge, that's it. I'm safe. What does it mean to have Knowledge? Knowledge means, if you really are going to have Knowledge, you better be conscious. Because if you want to live your life unconsciously in that mud just rolling day after day after day, then what's the point? You will come, you would have been, and you will go, and there won't be a trace. So to have a master plan, to acknowledge what it means to have Knowledge in this life, I guess you have to have a Master. So you can have a master plan.

Because we need to be reminded of the obvious. What is not obvious, we learn that really easy. That's the nature of this world. But what is obvious, when we are told the obvious, you have to realize the dynamics involved here. I go around the world and I say to people, people I say, listen to that thirst. These people don't have Knowledge, and they go, "Yeah, I have felt the thirst." I don't know them, I don't know their name, I don't live in their house, but I know about the thirst. And so far I am concerned, any human being on the face of this earth has no choice but to do everything that is necessary to quench this thirst. To listen to that request and say yes. I'm not talking about earth-shattering decision here. It doesn't happen like that.

Too many books people read. I mean, do you really think somebody who has found nirvana will sit down and write a book about it? Think about it. Why? He's gone, I mean. If somebody is waiting for a ticket to get on the plane, and he got the ticket, you really think he's going to just stay there and tell all the passengers, I got the ticket. Why should he? He's got the ticket, board the airplane, and be gone. Be gone. Fly away, that's what you wanted to do, now you've got the chance, do it. So people write all these funny books. People still, you know, when I did that interview for the Divine Times, the person who took that interview, Ole, that's kind of funny little story because he had the story he wanted to, when he first met me, he wanted to do an interview. And I said, no way. Finally, 25 years later or so, he gets his interview. And for him, he just keeps saying, write a book. People tell me this all the time, write a book. Well, we can write a book. We can just do a few of these interviews and you'll have a book. I'm writing a book. Every time I speak, I write a book. (applause)

And my book is not to some idiot who merely can afford it, (laughter) go to a bookstore and, that looks good, I'll buy that. People buy books to look intelligent. (laughter) No, there are those people who genuinely buy books because they are intelligent. Then there is a whole other section of people who merely buy books to look intelligent. They've even got books now. They're not really books. They're like video cover storage. It says Othello on it and all that. You open it, it's just a video cover. You can put your videos in it. So they can stack it up, make it look important. Wow, that's nice. A learned being. Somebody gave me a set of encyclopedias a long time ago. So it sat on the shelves. It looked good, an encyclopedia every time. I don't think I ever used it once. And now I don't know if I should put it back in my office. It's all outdated. I'll have to get a new set. Or get it on a CD-ROM. But you can't display the CD-ROM and pretend you're intelligent.

That's the commitment that somebody has to make to come and listen. To them I speak. To those who are interested in this life, to them I want to talk. I have something to say. Those who want to aspire to be fulfilled, I have a message for you. Those who want to listen to their heart, then I will sing you a beautiful song. And those who want to grasp it intellectually, haven't got a chance. So let me put myself in proper reference so I won't be misquoted. Let me go back a few thousand years here. That's always a good way to start. Yesterday I quoted this, I'm going to quote it again. Don't start blaming me for quoting Gita too much. Because I have not read it still. So I claim to be no expert at it. But here is one for those who sit there and try to memorize it. And it's from that. And Krishna is talking to Arjuna again. That's how whole Gita is set. And he says, Arjuna, you can't get it with this. It is beyond the grasp of your mind. 1996, here we are. And I'm quoting a quote. My father used to use this quote. It's from him, I learned it. Beyond the grasp of your mind lies the realm of this Knowledge. What does it mean? It means simply this.

And maybe one time I saw this movie of Little Rascals. It's a long time ago I saw this. And it really got to me. Because in this movie, these kids had figured out an ingenious way. You know, it's always that rich kid in the movie. And he has a boat. So Alpha Alpha and his group, they make a boat too. You can always imagine their boat was different. So out of cardboard and out of this and that and wood and this and they make a little boat. And they don't have enough money to have a powerful engine. So they take a goose or a couple of ducks or whatever and they tie it to the boat. And then they take a long stick with some food and dangle it in front of the duck. And the duck swims to the food. And when they want to turn, they just merely take the stick and turn it and the duck just turns. Of course, this was a movie. But I thought it was so cute. I still remember it. It was quite a few years ago that I saw it. Because that's how this works.

First thing this thing has to do, your mind has to do, is convert it into a concept. It has to have dimension. It has to have an up. And it has to have a down. And it has to have a left. And it has to have a right. Because if you ask this thing to imagine a one-sided coin, it could never do that. It can relate to within the properties of this physics. What is physically possible, it can happily do that. It can grasp that. But what is not, it has a very hard time. It has this limitation. You can find it quickly, especially if you go in the realm. If somebody says the word joy, this thing will go, joy, yes, boom. First, perfume, if you're a woman, perfume. Joy. Then maybe you know somebody called joy. No, it's not that. Something more. It will do its little computer scan and come up with joy. Yeah, that was great.

Barbecue. Like that commercial they used to have a long time ago. They're sitting on the beach, they're barbecuing, they're having beer, and they all look at each other and they say, it doesn't get any better. Of course it does. But to you, to that group of people, and you have to realize, they're not having a good time. They're all actors. They'd like to get a rap and go home, get their money. In fact, they would even like it more if they just got the money without doing any of that. But they're sitting there, they're pretending. It's not like they're enjoying any of this. They really don't want to eat that food that they're barbecuing. I mean it's probably gross. It's probably not even real. And they've probably got this stuff that, you know, you can keep on fire for 18 hours and it won't burn. So they can keep doing it another take. There they are, telling other people, this is the best. This doesn't get any better. And people looking at it going, wow. That's what I want. I mean, I don't know how many people have gone out and said, yeah, let's go and have a barbecue on the beach. Because they have heard, it doesn't get any better. And it is miserable. Because on the beach, the sand will get in your shoes, it gets on your towels, it'll get in your food, it'll get in your hair, it'll get everywhere. You can't go to the beach, take a bite of that sandwich and, oh my God. But it doesn't get any better. So it has to take that, it has to take even what Knowledge possibly could be and conceptualize it. What the experience of it is, conceptualize it. And therefore, completely understandably, that somebody comes out and says, you can't figure this one out.

That's basically, in 1996 language, what Krishna is saying to Arjuna, look Arjuna, it's so cool, you won't get it. And that's as simple as, I mean, you know, I guess before it sounded pretty profound, and this doesn't, but that's basically what Krishna is saying. If you want to get it, you have to go beyond. And beyond isn't that way, beyond is in here. Come to the basics, come to the basics of this life. Come to the basics of this existence, the fundamentals. I asked a little kid once, if you could have anything, what would you want? And he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and he thought, and he thought. A root beer float. With ice cream and, you know, this drink, and that's what he wanted. Of anything that he could have, imagine it. Now if somebody asked you, I mean, this is unique, you ask a kid, anything you could have. This is how far his brain stretches out, because in fact he had come there for a root beer float. He comes to my house to have a root beer float. He expects it. He's nice about it, he doesn't blurb it out, but he expects it. And when I offer it to him, it's like, yes, okay. This is good, it's happening. So, of anything he could have, that's what he wants.

And of anything you could have, I'm not asking you this. At least I can't be here for over a week listening to everybody. I don't want this, and I don't want this, and I don't want this, and I don't want this. So anything you could have, what would it be? What would it be? What was it? Rephrase the question. What was it? What has it always been? That you have wanted. That's my nightmare. So, it's not what you've always wanted, till you heard that, because there was a time you didn't know about that name. And when somebody mentioned it to you, and we're going to have darshan, you went, what's that? You know, what have you always wanted? Since even before you met me, the reason why we met, the very reason why we met, then those are the fundamentals. And that's what has to be fulfilled.

To me, even that one question, and my father asked me that question. I've always told this little story. It was so quick. We were all playing, all of a sudden he wants to see you. You all go in the living room, sit down. You know, whenever you were called upon by Shri Maharaji, you definitely checked your pulse at least once. And it's like, oh my God. It was this automatic reaction of, what have I done wrong? If he wasn't looking for you, and you met, it was always beautiful. But if you had been called, come here. I mean, and I wasn't the only one. I guess I learned it from other people. Like, ah, he's looking for you. And we all sit down. And he asked me a question, and I don't think I will ever forget that question. And the question was, do you want this? That was the question. He asked, do you want this Knowledge? And believe me, I was not ready for it, but I said, yes. And everybody, he asked everybody. And that is my pivoting point. Something turned for the better. The good. The beautiful. That's what. So my fundamentals go to that day. I wasn't looking for it, but I was asked, do you want it? And without a concept of what it was that I was getting, really, I had no idea.

And I don't think anybody who ever goes into a Knowledge session ever has any idea of what they're getting. Ever. But something gets acKnowledged. Something fundamentally turns to say, yes. And it's not a yes that comes from here. It's not a yes that comes from here. It's a yes that comes from such a deep place. Not that I believe in many lifetimes. But when that yes comes, you know, however many lifetimes you were waiting to be able to say that yes. To be able. Something inside had been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for that day to arrive so you could say, yes. My very foundation. Because that is the day I acKnowledged my inner being. That's the day I said yes to my heart. That is the day I said okay. Yes. And those are the fundamentals. That first is your foundation. And when the Master comes and you come to the Master to get the Master plan, that's what the Master will tell you should be your Master plan. Live. Live in joy. Live in joy. What a beautiful message that is. To live in joy. Not in misery. Not in a big experiment. Not in fear. Not in despair. Not in penance. But it always, always has been. Live in that joy. Live in that harmony. Live. Be. Where? Be in the kingdom of heaven. That's, that's the message.

You don't have to be caught in all the little traps of reality and practicalities. The realities that you create. Not the realities that have been created for you. You know, there are people, they find out that they're going. And I remember as far back as just even last Long Beach event. And somebody that I knew, I'd known her quite a long time, she was gonna come. And so, this person came to see me. And I met with the person. And usually in this world, boy, when that comes down the pipeline, that's like, that's it. Talk about being depressed. Depression. That's it. Oh my God. And I tell you, when I saw this person, this person was walking on air. Huge grin. Happy. And as I said goodbye, enjoy. Enjoy this life. Because it's not the quantity, measurements, no. But enjoy this life. Whatever you have. In that beautiful space inside of you, enjoy this life.

Enjoy it without fear. Because so much fear has been pounded into us. Don't do this. Don't do that. Don't do this. Don't do that. And here, enjoy without fear. You don't have to be afraid. Except that preciousness inside of you. And let it flow. Let it be. Let it sink in. As this event continues. I was thinking about it. You can always tell, you know, like when Di was singing that song, Teach Me Devotion, he always told, and you guys, and the old guys, and you guys are like, what is that? And the old guys are like, oh yeah, I know. I remember that song. Maybe just a wonderful opportunity to just see how this all started to evolve. It was response. That's all it was. Just response. Responding to that feeling. That's how it began. And even though maybe on the outside, I mean, not too many people have long hair. People are more clean, cut, and this and that, and believe in showers more. Taking a shower, you know, being clean. Because in those days, you know, God knows if you took a shower, you might wash something precious away. But maybe more people take showers. People are cleaner. This and that. Times change. Clothing has changed. Of course, some people, nothing has changed.

But Knowledge stays the same. All the surrounding things transform, regardless of where it goes. It's everywhere in the world. Started from India, England, United States, and then I, you know, I did go to Heidelberg and Paris in between that. Just spreading and spreading. And even today, I mean, this is, if, if, if the Rome event wouldn't have happened, you couldn't fit enough people in. This would be, this would be response. There's not that much room left back there. Even if you pulled the stage back, it still wouldn't accommodate everybody. And it still grows. And every day, even though so many people have Knowledge, every day is like that little day. And I go someplace where I haven't been, and I see the people and their response. And something grows. That is the nature of the seed. That seed just allows that tree to grow and grow and grow. The fertile grounds of the heart will always be there. So what a beautiful, amazing, incredible opportunity to just sit back and watch this transition, watch this little journey. I am very fortunate, I have to say.

I am. Because I don't know how many masters they will be, and I'm sure that if they colonize other planets, there'll be one that'll take it from Earth. But I had the good and the good fortune of bringing it out of India, to the world. And that's my little part. And it goes on. It has to be still spread to so many more places. I mean, the response is amazing. Everywhere it goes. Because you have to imagine, you know, like in America, maybe people, it's hard for you to relate to this, but there are still, I go to places where I have never been before. I mean, just not that long ago, that's when I first arrived in Benin and Ghana, and it was the same thing. It was just like that. Just like arriving into the United States. Same enthusiasm. People were jumping up and down, up and down, up and down. Yes, he's here. Same enthusiasm. Benin, Ghana. Still, someday I'll go. I've been to Kenya before, I'll go again. I still need to go to South Africa. It's been a while. I need to go to Mauritius. Uruguay. I missed it last time. It's my second attempt. I'm going to try. I'll be there, you know. Because that is the nature. Fulfilling the heart. Making the water available for the thirsty.

That's what I've been doing. And all you get to do is watch that little journey of how it all happens. There's a picture, and yesterday I was looking at it. It was on the slide show, the storyteller, and then I saw it also in Divine Time. It's a powerful picture. There's a little kid standing next to me, and behind me there's a really old man. And there are other people there too. And that enthusiasm is in all. Somebody wrote me a letter. A little kid. Can I come? I've been watching videos. Can I come to this event? I said, sure. I hope he made it. Actually, I talked to his mom. He did make it. Maybe we, at least he's being quiet. Maybe more and more will come. A lot of kids here. A lot of teenagers. Interested. They listen to this. There are some teenagers who just get a kick out of watching videos. Fine. But don't forget this thirst. And the most amazing thing is, you don't have to be thirsty. There is Knowledge. So, at least for this event, sit back and enjoy just as everything progresses and you see this beautiful little story.

But don't you forget it. It's still happening. This isn't, you know, one of those memorial sessions. It's still alive. It is. It's still spreading. Be a part of that magic. In those days, you know, you see some of those old ones. I remember somebody was saying some of these old-timers. It's like people used to want to touch them because they were like, wow, you know, so holy. I remember that. Like, wow, wait a minute. You can be. You still have the opportunity. You can be those people. I mean, they're here too. I see them sitting here, there, there, there, there. So, guys, you know, you were a part of something incredible and I hope you're still a part of something incredible. And that's your, that's your opportunity. The doors, the doors to Knowledge are always open. You walk out, you can always walk in.

That's how it is. They're not one-way doors. People, I see a lot of people going back and forth. And I'm sure there are people who haven't come to an event in a long time like, whoa, it's still happening. Yeah. What do you know? Well, welcome to this event. I'm not gonna sit here and pass judgment on you. You should have done yourself. No. That's how it's always been. The doors to Knowledge are always open. And I guess they have to be open for those who are thirsty. Whenever that thirst comes, they can come in. So, thank you very much and enjoy.