Supreme Wisdom

Prem Rawat / Maharaji

Sometimes we get carried away with everything that is happening in the world, and it’s incredibly confusing. People tell you, “This is how it is.” They tell you about God, about afterlife, about before life.

Life is about now. Somebody told me once that I was an emperor in my last lifetime. So what? If you live your life by explanations, maybe it would important to know what you were in your last lifetime or what will happen after this lifetime. But if you live understanding the value of this life, all those things are irrelevant. The only thing that is relevant is that I am alive. Now.

When you live with explanations, only one thing is created. Confusion. When you live by the value of your existence today, what is created is clarity, simplicity, gratitude, understanding. Not speculation. If you say, “Explain to me why my tire went flat,” you will surely find someone who will explain it to you. There is no shortage of explainers.

Prem Rawat

Why? Because we truly do not know. It’s easy to say, “I am Jose or Maria or Patrick.” Excuse me. You are not that. You’re something else. It’s easy to say, “My mother’s name is this, and my father’s name is this.” But you’re something more than that. “I am a college graduate. I have a degree, I’m a doctor, I’m a lawyer, I’m a this, I’m a that.” No. You’re something more than that, too. “I’m a housewife.” No. You’re something more than that, too. “I’m a mother, a father.” You’re something more than that, too.

All these relationships you measure yourself by are relative. They are, and then they’re not. You are in the process of moving on. It doesn’t feel like it. You need to understand what is moving and what is not moving. In this river of life, you are sitting on a boat, and it’s moving. When you look out of the window, it looks like all the things you see are moving. They’re not moving. They’re there, and they willbe there. You are moving, and you won’t be there.

What is perishable? This vessel that you are in is perishable. One day, it won’t be. This vessel is moving. You are moving. Since when? Since you took your first breath. First breath. Most amazing thing. Before that, you were blue. Then you took a breath, and the process of life started to unfold. Powerful. And another breath and another and another.


The unfolding of the same power that unfolds the universe is what just came and touched me, bringing me this gift of life. Bringing me every day, every moment, every star. This is a miracle. Every baby that is born is a miracle. We do not understand that, and that’s why we suffer. Having everything, we think we have nothing. Burdened by our problems, we hobble through life.

Yet how beautiful it is in this moment. I cannot go back to yesterday, however hard I try. And no matter how much I try, I cannot go to tomorrow. To me, that is supreme wisdom. Here I am in this moment, and here, everything is wonderful.

Young people want to live in the future. Older people want to live in the past. Nobody wants to live in the present. And where has joy placed itself? Where has understanding placed itself? In the present.

So if you ever wonder why it is so hard to have understanding about life, maybe the answer is: You don’t live where it lives. You have gotten used to confusion, and it’s not nice.

What can you do? Learn how to live in today. And what is today? Another chance you have been given you to fully feel what it feels like to be alive. Amazing. And this is what life is all about.

— Prem Rawat