Hear Yourself summary

Think about your favorite shirt for a moment. 

Imagine taking it out of a drawer, putting it on, and then heading out the door feeling fresh.

Prem Rawat grew up in Dehradun, a city in India. Thinking back to his childhood, he remembers the magical autumn days filled with blue skies and big, puffy clouds. 

He describes sitting in his front yard beneath two magnolia trees, watching the sweet peas growing on the walls and smelling the delicate scent that hung in the air.

Throughout his life, Rawat has traveled from country to country to spread his message of peace. He’s spoken everywhere from United Nations meetings to high-security prisons, and to everyone from world leaders to ex-guerilla fighters.

As part of the Prem Rawat Foundation, he founded the Peace Education Program, which helps people find their place in society by reconnecting them with their inner peace.

If you're anything like most people, a series of expectations probably guides your day. You expect that your alarm clock will go off. You expect your important meeting will happen. You expect to pick up a salt shaker and find it filled with salt.

Setting expectations is how we shape our lives. And it isn’t necessarily harmful. What is harmful is when we set expectations that don’t square with reality. 

Did you know that trees have a heartbeat? Recent research shows that trees move their branches up and down at night, creating a pulse of water that flows throughout their entire body. 

Trees are masters of survival. They can prosper in whatever environment they’re in and grow in the most unlikely places – from deserts to rivers to inside the cracks of rocks in mountains.

Prisons are not the kind of places you usually associate with freedom.

Inmates are locked behind bars and live out their days within the same four walls while prison officers keep a close eye on their activity. 

Say you’re building a house. You might start by layering bricks on top of each other, lining them with cement to make sure they stick together. The condition of each brick determines the strength of the house. If one brick is crumbling, it weakens the structure of those around it.

The same is true of the individual and society. If one person decides not to show love and kindness to others, the ripples of that decision are felt throughout the world.