I discovered something 10,
12 years ago and it turned my life upside down,
Revolutionized my life.
I became a new man.
You might say to me,
How come you heard this just 10 or 12 years ago?
Hadn't you read the Gospels?
Of course I had read the Gospels,
But I hadn't seen it.
It was right there,
But I hadn't seen it.
Later,
Having discovered it,
I found it in all the major religious writings.
And I'm amazed,
I mean,
I was reading it and I hadn't recognized it,
Hadn't seen it.
I wish to God I'd found this when I was younger.
Oh,
What a difference it would have made.
So,
How long would it take to give it to you?
A whole day?
Well,
I'll be honest with you.
Giving it to you wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes,
I don't think.
Getting it might take you 20 years,
15 years,
10 years,
10 minutes,
1 day,
3 days,
Who knows?
That depends on you.
If you would bring one quality to this little session we're having,
Just one.
You need one quality to see what I saw 10 years ago and what revolutionized my life.
Is it difficult to hear it's so simple a 7-year-old child could understand?
Isn't that amazing?
And in fact when I think of it today I think,
Why didn't I see it?
I don't know.
I don't know why I didn't see it,
But I did.
What would you need to see it?
Just one thing,
The ability to listen.
That's all.
Are you able to listen?
So let's begin the investigation.
Take a look at the world.
Poverty everywhere.
I read in the New York Times yesterday that the bishops of the United States claim that there are 33 million people in the United States who are living below the poverty line,
Drawn by the government itself.
If you think that is poverty you ought to come to other countries and see the squalor,
The dirt,
The misery,
You call that life.
Well I've got news for you.
I'll show you life even there.
About 12 years ago I was introduced to a rickshaw puller in Calcutta.
You know what a rickshaw is?
It's awful.
I mean a human being,
You don't have a horse pulling you,
But you've got a human being pulling you.
The life span of these poor men is 10 to 12 years once they begin pulling the rickshaw.
They don't last very long.
Now Ramchandra,
Ramchandra was his name,
Ramchandra had TB.
At that time there was a little group of people engaging in an illegal activity called exporting skeletons.
They sort of bought your skeleton while you were alive.
If you were very poor you went to them and you sold your skeleton for the equivalent of about $10.
And so they'd say to many of these rickshaw pullers,
They'd say how long have you been working in this trade?
And Ramchandra says 10 years.
And they think he doesn't have much longer to live.
Alright,
Here's your money.
Then the moment you die they pounce on the body,
They take it away,
And then when the body is decomposed through some process they have,
They get hold of the skeleton.
Well Ramchandra had sold his skeleton,
That's how miserable he was.
He had a wife,
He had kids,
The squalor,
The poverty,
The misery,
The uncertainty.
You'd never think to find happiness there,
Right?
Nothing seemed to face him.
He was alright.
Nothing seemed to upset him.
I said to him,
Aren't you upset?
He said about what?
You know your future,
The future of the kids.
He says well I'm doing the best I can,
But the rest is in the hands of God.
I said hey,
But what about your sickness?
That causes suffering,
Doesn't it?
He says a bit.
We've got to take life as it comes.
I never once saw him in a bad mood.
Well one day when I was talking to this guy,
I suddenly realized I was in the presence of a mystic.
I suddenly realized I was in the presence of life.
He was alive.
I was dead.
You know those lovely words of Jesus?
Look at the birds of the air.
Look at the flowers of the field.
They don't sow,
They don't spin.
They don't have a moment of anxiety for the future,
Not like you.
Right here.
This rickshaw puller must be dead by now.
You know I met him very briefly there in Calcutta and then went on.
What happened to this guy?
I don't know.
But I know I met a mystic.
Extraordinary person.
He discovered life.
You know it's interesting,
I frequently reflected.
Human mind is such an extraordinary thing.
It has invented the computer.
It has split the atom.
It has not solved human suffering,
Of anguish,
Loneliness,
Emptiness,
Despair.
How come we haven't found the answer to that?
We've made all kinds of technological advances.
Has that raised the quality of our living by one inch?
Want to know my opinion?
No.
Now one inch.
Oh,
We have more comfort,
More speed,
Pleasures,
Entertainment,
That's right,
More erudition,
Greater technological advances.
What I'm saying is,
Any improvement on that loneliness and emptiness and heartache,
Any improvement on that greed and hatred and conflict,
Less fighting,
Less cruelty,
And the tragedy is,
As I discovered ten or twelve years ago,
The secret has been found.
We got the solution.
Why don't we use it?
We don't want it.
Would you believe that?
We don't want it.
Can you imagine my saying to somebody,
Look,
I'm going to give you a formula which would make you happy for the rest of your life.
You'll enjoy every single minute of the rest of your life.
Imagine my saying that to you.
I'm going to give you the formula.
You know what most of you are going to do?
Sorry for insulting you in advance.
If you're anything like the audiences I've had till now,
You know what most of you are going to do?
You say,
Don't want to hear it.
I was in St.
Louis giving a workshop.
There was a priest there who came to see me.
He said,
You know,
I accept every single word you've said over these three days,
Every single word of it.
And you know why?
He said about three months ago,
I assisted an AIDS victim on his death bed.
And the man told me the following.
He said,
Father,
Six months ago,
The doctor told me I had six months to live.
You know something?
These have been the six happiest months of my whole misspent life.
In fact,
I've never been happy till these six months.
I discovered happiness.
He said,
As soon as the doctor told me that,
I dropped tension,
Pressure,
Anxiety,
Hope,
And fell not into despair but into happiness at last.
Here's another guy who had it,
Who found it.
For whatever the situation I find myself in,
I have learned to be self-sufficient.
I am experienced in being brought low and I have known what it meant to have abundance.
I have learned how to cope with every circumstance,
How to eat well or to go hungry,
To be well provided for or to do without.
Rejoice,
Always.
Rejoice in the Lord.
Again I say it,
Rejoice.
I think of Ram Chandra in Calcutta.
I think of that AIDS victim in St.
Louis.
