Prem Rawat says, “A long time ago, someone said, ‘As far as your eyes can see, consider it to be an illusion.’ Why am I talking to you about illusion and reality? Does it matter that this is an illusion? Does it matter that there is a reality? Yes, it does.”
The Prem Rawat Foundation has made a grant of $25,000 to ORBIS UK, a beneficiary of the 2008 Lord Mayor of the City of London’s Appeal, to support ORBIS UK and the Lord Mayor’s Childhood Blindness Programme in India. Wendy Lloyd, director of the Lord Mayor’s Appeal 2008, said, “This donation will certainly make a real contribution in achieving our aim to make the lives of future generations brighter. It is enormously encouraging to receive such fantastic support.”
“If I keep the company of clarity, I will begin to take on the qualities of clarity,” says Prem Rawat. “If I want to have the beautiful aroma of understanding, I need to keep the company of understanding. Keep the right company, and you will soak in their traits.”
The Prem Rawat Foundation has made a contribution of $20,000 to help St. John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital continue providing care in conflict-ridden Gaza. The only charitable provider of eye care in Gaza, St. John is open to all patients, regardless of race, religion or ability to pay. Dr. Jom’a El Jazzar, head of the St. John Eye Hospital Clinic, said, “The donation from The Prem Rawat Foundation will have a very real and demonstrative impact on our ability to broaden and deepen our much-needed humanitarian services.”
“The human being is an incredibly sensitive, experiencing instrument,” says Prem Rawat. “Place in it the truth that resides in you, and it will sing out with ecstasy. Play it with the passion it deserves, and you will hear sounds you have been yearning to hear all your life.”
“What is really yours?” asks Prem Rawat. “This breath that just came, is really, really yours. It didn’t go into someone else. It came just for you. From the workings of the universe, something stirred, and this breath came exclusively for you.”
The Prem Rawat Foundation has made a contribution of $15,000 to the Rotary Club Lahore Mozang, which will add $5,000 in matching funds, to provide clean drinking water for 60 schools in the Punjab region of Pakistan serving approximately 20,000 elementary through high school students. The water system will benefit students, families, and communities by decreasing the spread of disease and improving educational opportunities.
“From nothing came this body, and to nothing it will go. What is the point?” asks Prem Rawat. “There is a lot to appreciate,” he says. “In this one life, to understand what is real, to understand the quintessential, important thing: the value of this existence.”
The Prem Rawat Foundation as contributed $40,000 to Feeding America, formerly named America’s Second Harvest, to provide truckloads of food to help people returning to their homes in devastated areas of Texas after Hurricane Ike. “Disasters put yet another strain on families who face hunger issues every day,” noted Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of the Feeding America Network. “Thanks to the support of The Prem Rawat Foundation, local residents will have emergency food and supplies to help make it through these difficult days.”
“I need to do everything possible to pay the most magnificent tribute to this existence every single day of my life,” says Prem Rawat. “And, in turn, when you pay this tribute, it fills you with the gift of joy … the gift of peace … the gift of true contentment.”
The Prem Rawat Foundation has made a $10,000 grant to the Sierra Vista Rotary Club Charities in Arizona to aid 40,000 Nigeriens by providing sustainable and permanent sources of clean water at in Niger, West Africa. These grant funds will be matched by other Rotary Clubs and The Rotary Foundation, potentially bringing together over $61,000 for this project. Ernie Montagne, Rotary Foundation Director of the Sierra Vista Rotary Club Charities, Inc., said, “The number one need in this area is access to clean water. People often walk miles each day to draw water from unclean open sources where pigs and cattle drink.”
Prem Rawat talks about the human being’s need to be comfortable and avoid pain. “What do you like to hear?” he asks. “That which brings you enjoyment. What do you like to see? That what brings you enjoyment. This is how you are. This is who you are.”
“What is life about?” asks Prem Rawat. “Is it about the excitement? Or is it about feeling a heart full of joy? I have been telling people all my life: Don’t let another day go by without being touched by the magic of what has been placed inside of you.”
TPRF has donated US$4,500 to Mountains of Hope (Montanas de Esperanza or MdE) to translate and produce DVDs, CDs and text materials to bring Prem Rawat’s message of peace to 20,000 indigenous people who live in the northern highland areas of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. According to Paul Murtha, Executive Director of MdE, “The Quechua peoples are very appreciative that such an important message comes to them in their native language. They are well-aware that these days are crucial passage for humanity to a renewal of the human heart.”
Prem Rawat talks about the difference between a true passion and a hobby. “Whatever it is I am passionate about,” he says, “I need for that to be real, not a figment of my imagination. And it has to be amazing. Passion isn’t one of those things that you generate. You unleash it. It’s already there in you. You open the gates, and it comes pouring out.”
“What I talk about is not dogmas, theories, descriptions, explanations,” Prem Rawat says. “This is about finding the joy in your life. And not just once, but to have that joy available to you for the rest of your life. If you’re looking for descriptions, explanations, rules, something to believe in—you won’t find them here, because this is the realm of the heart.”
Prem Rawat says, “When we come in this world, we’re given seeds. There is the seed of anger, but there is also a seed of kindness. There is a seed of love…a seed of understanding. Whatever seed you have sown in your garden of life is what you’re going to sit under to rest. You have the intelligence to choose what will benefit you the most.”
There are “6.7 billion reasons why there should be peace on this earth—6.7 billion being the population of this earth, approximately,” says Prem Rawat. “And we, the people, can make the difference for peace on this earth.”
There are “6.7 billion reasons why there should be peace on this earth—6.7 billion being the population of this earth, approximately,” says Prem Rawat. “And we, the people, can make the difference for peace on this earth.”
TPRF has made a grant of $10,000 to provide food for more than 750 disabled women and children in Niamey, Niger, who are in various educational and training programs. Mme. Mahadi Zeinabou Sangaré, coordinator of the program, said that the grant will enable women and children in the program facing abject poverty to “stay in the NGO center rather than beg for food in the streets.”
The gift of life is about “that one day, one minute, one second you are touched by the pure joy, the pure reality, that resides in you,” Prem Rawat says. “Wherever go, whoever you are, the gift keeps coming. All you have to do to put your world right is to accept it.”
The Prem Rawat Foundation has made a grant of $100,000 to Community Water and Ecological Sanitation Care (CWESC) to provide 10 impoverished communities with potable water and proper sanitation essential to eliminating debilitating diseases associated with contaminated water. The grant is the third in a series that will help a total of 23 communities and nearly 100,000 people in Ghana.
“You exist. You are alive,” says Prem Rawat. “Gather your strengths, not your weaknesses. What are your strengths? Your strengths are consciousness, kindness, understanding, acknowledging, rejoicing, loving. And when you walk with these, the outcome is beautiful.”
Prem Rawat talks about the possibility of feeling peace and joy and the gratitude it brings. “Gratitude comes when there is a beautiful experience of life,” he says, “when it is not full of words, doctrines, and dogmas, but it is filled with a simple reality.”
TPRF has granted America's Second Harvest – The Nation’s Food Bank Network US$40,000 to provide food and water to those stricken by recent flooding in the Midwest. “We are extremely grateful for The Prem Rawat Foundation’s interest in supporting our efforts to respond to the unprecedented flooding in the Midwest,” states Vicki Escarra, President and CEO of America’s Second Harvest.
“Things will change—you will change—but the passion for joy, for clarity, will remain with you for the rest of your life,” says Prem Rawat. “Choose that in your life. This is a choice that has to be made every day—to enjoy your life.”
TPRF has offered a US$50,000 challenge grant through the Facebook “Causes” page to help thousands of people at risk of starvation in Haiti due to the recent dramatic rise in food prices. TPRF’s challenge to Facebook members is to raise an additional $50,000, for a total of $100,000, which can supply food for 60,000 people for one month. Karen Sendelback, President and CEO of Friends of the World Food Program, says: “TPRF’s generous contribution will not only help the people of Haiti through this critical time but also encourage the online community to donate.”
“The want for peace has been on the face of this earth as long as there have been human beings,” says Prem Rawat. “The need for peace was identified a long time ago. And the need for peace comes from within you.”
“Wars happen again and again,” says Prem Rawat. “And every time there is a war, there is a call for peace. Is that a new invention? No. The call for peace has been there. The quest for peace is within us, and the solution to peace also lies within us.”
Prem Rawat tells a story of life and the potential to enjoy it to the fullest. “The purpose is not to entertain you. There is a simple and beautiful reality, and it’s the most magnificent story. It is about what is—this beautiful creation in an incredibly hostile universe.”
Prem Rawat talks about the moment a baby is born and “the one concern: breathing or not?” At the end of our lives, he says, we have the same concern. “Everything you are is predicated on something so simple. This reality is beautiful. Welcome to the world of life.”
Prem Rawat talks about the moment a baby is born and “the one concern: breathing or not?” At the end of our lives, he says, we have the same concern. “Everything you are is predicated on something so simple. This reality is beautiful. Welcome to the world of life.”
“In spring, on the ground are delicate little plants,” says Prem Rawat. To survive the winter, he says, they shed their leaves “gambling that summer will come again and, when it does, once again will be made whole.” He asks, “Are you ready for the spring in your life?”
TPRF has donated $20,000 to the Maryland-based Correctional Education Association (CEA) to underwrite the costs of telecasts on the Transforming Lives Network (TLN) that present Prem Rawat’s message of hope and the possibility of personal fulfillment to U.S. prison populations. CEA sources say the TLN programs reach at least 500,000 and as many as 900,000 inmates nationwide as well as about 300,000 correctional staff and workers. Anne Charles, project director for TLN, said, “We believe that ‘Words of Peace’ will help bring positive change to offenders and corrections workers.”
“The baby knows how to cry, how to laugh, how to be,” says Prem Rawat. “These are innate. These are fundamental things nobody has to teach. The desire for peace is also fundamental. This is who we are. This is our foundation, our need, from our heart.”
Speaking about the power of life that is beyond logic, like new leaves emerging in spring, Prem Rawat says, “This I call ‘the grand miracle.’ This life holds promise after promise after promise, gift after gift after gift for you.”
TPRF has donated $26,000 to Montañas de Esperanza or Mountains of Hope (MdE), a local non-profit in northern Ecuador, to provide relief to flood victims in the coastal village of Santa Lucia. The grant will supply 32 tons of vital food supplies to feed 1,500 families (c.7,500 people) for one month. This will be one of the largest deliveries of aid to flood victims by a non-government agency on the Ecuadorian coast to date.
“Do you know that, wherever you go, whatever you do, there is love in you and there is hate in you?” asks Prem Rawat. “Do not be under the misunderstanding that the love is in someone else. No, no, no. Love is in you.”
Responding to someone who asked him about becoming kind, Prem Rawat said, “The kindness that you want to feel, you have. There’s more kindness in you than you can possibly imagine. To practice kindness, just become a little more conscious.”
Prem Rawat talks about a personal quest for peace, “a peace not of consequences but an individual peace for every human being on the face of this earth. People want to stop wars, conflicts, but nobody addresses the individual—from where peace has to begin.”
TPRF responded quickly to aid Kenya victims of the violence that erupted following the December 2007 elections by making a contribution to the Friends of the World Food Program (FWFP) to help the UN World Food Programme (WFP) provide food for the 3,000 displaced Kenyans for three months. “TPRF’s generous contribution will help save hundreds of lives and prevent under-nutrition and hunger rates from skyrocketing,” said Karen Sendelback, President and CEO of Friends of WFP.
“What is the single source of inspiration in our life?” asks Prem Rawat. “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 an artist or philosopher. It is something that resides in the heart.”
