Let me tell you a story. Once two villagers were sitting under a tree and watching the sunset. They were very close friends. After sitting quietly for some time, one asked the other, “What are you thinking? I am planning to buy five acres of land, a garden.” The other friend immediately said, “Don’t buy the garden!”

 

The first one was surprised. He asked “why”? The second one replied, “I am planning to buy a buffalo. Then, my buffalo will enter your garden and we will fight, have misunderstandings and lose our friendship. I do not want to lose our friendship.”

 

The first one said, “Then, you cancel your plan of buying a buffalo. I am going to buy my garden.” The second one said, “No, no, no. I have already decided to buy a buffalo.” The first one said, “How will your buffalo enter my garden? I will fence it thoroughly.”

 

The second one said, “No, you see, it can just enter; a buffalo is a buffalo. Who can stop it? It can do anything.”

 

Then the fight went to such an extent that they broke their limbs! Neither has bought buffalo nor any land. Nothing has happened. Just the mind’s race and both of them broke their limbs over it! Our fears are also like that. The future has not yet come. But you just sit there and think, “Oh! What will happen? What will happen?” Finally you will die! This is what is going to happen! So much anxiety about the future! In this run, the mind gets into such a mess. It is unable to see the presence that is all around it.

 

The mind totally forgets the divine. “Me, mine, what about tomorrow, the day after and the day after that, next year, ten years later?” You people plan in this way even up to the next birth! When people are newly married they say, “We will be husband and wife for many life-times to come! This one birth is not enough. We will be man and wife for the next seven births!” In reality, they may be fed up of each other in this birth itself, but they talk of the next seven births!

 

We should experience the divine’s presence, the divine’s light around us. You should have a desire in your mind to experience this. Have we ever desired the divine light? Has such a desire ever risen in you, that you want the highest peace? Has it arisen from deep inside you? The divine light, whatever that is, you do not know what it is. It is something by which the whole world is running. Have you ever really wanted it? When you sing or pray there should be total involvement. You don’t involve yourself totally. If the mind is preoccupied elsewhere then that is no prayer at all. There should be total involvement. When there is pain there is more involvement.

 

You are like a free bird. You are fully open. Feel that you are flying like a bird. Learn to fly. This is some thing which you have to experience within yourself. There is nothing else. If you consider yourself as bonded, you will remain bound here. Experience freedom. When will you experience freedom? After you die? Become free right now. Sit down and become contented. That thing in you which says, “I have to do. I have to do. I have to achieve”; that is wrong. Sit down in peace, thinking: “I have nothing to do now.”

 

You are afraid of opening your fists. What is there with you that you have to hold your fists? You have nothing with you. Open your fists. The whole sky will be in your hands. Be natural. Be with love. Do service. Celebrate all your life.

 

 

There is strength in peace; there is strength in calmness; there is strength in love — which goes unnoticed. What you cannot win with a stick, you can win with love. What you cannot win with guns, you can win through love. This power of love needs to be realised. The most powerful thing in the world is love! We can win the hearts of people through love.

 

The victory that comes out of ego is worth nothing. Even if you win in ego, it is a loss. Even if you lose in love, it’s a victory! Making people realise this innermost strength that we all have is the challenge!

 

You cannot talk about love when a terrorist is at your door, but is there some way in which we can transform the world? Is there any alternative method that can bring sense to people who do not listen to anything, other than force?

 

We can only start thinking along these lines when we realise that there is enormous power in love, that there is enormous strength in inner peace. When we are peaceful, we radiate that peace around us, to the people around us… and they also become calm.

 

In these times, when there is war and disease in the world, it’s so important that we all meditate a little bit everyday for when we meditate, we nullify those vibrations, creating a more harmonious environment around us.

 

I would call War the Worst Act of Reason: W. A. R.

 

For every war there is some reason. Sometimes it becomes unavoidable. Like an operation. There is a wound, a scar, a cancerous cell in one’s body. We operate, but after the operation, the nursing is so essential. We need to nurse that part which has been operated.

 

Don’t think, ‘‘What can I do?’’ When the world has a problem, don’t think you are insignificant. You too have a role to play. You know a tiny homeopathic pill, which has a 1/100th or 1/1000th potency, makes an impact on a body, which is 70 kilos! In the same way, every individual — everyone who is breathing, talking, walking, thinking — has an influence on this cosmos, on this planet. So we can all radiate peace, good thoughts, good vibrations, good wishes. And that will definitely make an impact on the planet.

 

There is beauty in non-violence; there is beauty in non-aggressive behaviour. These, unfortunately, have not been highlighted either by our media or by our surroundings. This is happening everywhere in the world. Children take pride in being violent. If they lose their temper, they feel that its normal.

 

One who is very aggressive in the classroom gets more attention than one who is peaceful, isn’t it? So children grow up feeling: ‘‘If I am aggressive, then I have my way.’’ We need to bring back the pride in being non-violent, the pride of Mahatma Gandhi’s, ‘‘I’ve not hurt anybody in my whole life’’. If we could instil this pride in being non-violent in children, then their entire lives will take a new direction.

 

Also smile more!

 

Look at a teenager or a boy (or girl) who goes to college. Do they really smile? See the heaviness in their faces, the heaviness in their hearts. A child is so happy — walking, moving, jumping around, and then that same child goes through college to become so sad, upset and depressed! Is this the purpose of our education?

 

You know, sometimes I feel like shaking everybody, ‘‘Ay! Come On! Smile!’’ I read some research recently that said, a baby smiles 400 times a day, an adolescent only 17 times and an adult doesn’t smile at all! If you smile, you think something might be robbed from you! What is it that you lose?

 

I think we need to shake ourselves up! Wake up! Just do something to our lives! When we wake up from this slumber, when we have peace in our hearts, we can radiate that peace and love around us.

 

Only a few people in the world cause terror, not the whole population. Of the six billion people on this planet, there’ll be a handful who cause problems in the world. There are hardly a few thousand who cause crime, but the whole world is affected. Don’t you think that with the same law the reverse will also work?

 

Just a few of us, a few thousand of us, being really peaceful, loving and caring for the whole planet — can we not bring a transformation? If we all have one habit — of giving smiles to people, of smiling at all the problems that we may face, can we not bring about a transformation?