TPRF has extended its work with Compartimos Bienestar y Salud Para Los Niños Maya I.A.P. in Mexico to provide a breakfast program for the 59 students of an elementary school in the Yucatán, who arrive at school hungry because their families face severe poverty. Maria Jose Medina Diaz, President of the Mexican nonprofit organization, said, “The teachers told us that the children were becoming more attentive in class and, in general, appeared more content.”
“What kind of road is life?” asks Prem Rawat. “Some parts are hilly; some are flat; some have a nice, gentle slope; and some way too much slope, slippery,” he says. “Walk. The key is not to measure how many miles you have come, but to enjoy every single step you take.”
Prem Rawat talks about the need to “try every day, consciously, to be fulfilled.” “When I have come home to this moment called now,” he says, “I have no quest for tomorrow, or even the moment yet to come, because it is a moment that I could live in forever.”
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.”
