Medicine for Peace: Prem Rawat speaks at RML Hospital, New Delhi

On 12th November 2014, Prem Rawat delivered the keynote address at the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research in the Doctor Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital in New Delhi, India. Under the umbrella of ‘Medicine for Peace’ — on the occasion of the United Nations’ International Week of Science and Peace — Prem Rawat spoke of the absolute imperative for all human beings to find peace within themselves before they risked losing their essential humanity.

Before hundreds of assembled senior and junior doctors from the hospital, plus members of the medical teaching faculty, he urged the busy medics to nurture the understanding that they each needed peace in their respective lives. He spoke of the everyday culture shared by all of us that says ‘peace, maybe someday. I do not have time’ and warned that one day we would all literally run out of time.

The urgency of the need for peace was expressed with humor, using anecdotes that related to the special role of the doctors as healers. But he reminded them that their own peace could not be jeopardized. In the interest of their self-knowledge, the well-being of their patients, and the impact on those around them, peace is an essential.

He warned that we have more education than ever before, more scientific knowledge than our predecessors, but never has there been less humanity in our relationships with each other. Passionately, he declared that there is a pill for peace that lies in every human being. The pill is the consciousness of who we truly are when we take off all the identities that we wear and awaken to life. He told us that “knowing about others is wisdom, but knowing yourself is enlightenment.”

He completed his keynote address by reminding everyone that “peace doesn’t have to be created. It is dancing in the heart of every single human being.”

Prem Rawat then took questions from the audience, clarifying the various concerns of the medical professionals. For those present, it became increasingly clear why he has been given the accolade of ‘ambassador of peace.’

On leaving the auditorium, a journalist was overheard to say that Prem Rawat’s suggestion of a ‘ten-second heaven’ in which we all pledged to truly listen to those closest to us would be enough to profoundly change our lives.