We cannot change the world and its problems. But we can add a new dimension to life that will give us peace. Peace can be found within us, says Sant Rajinder Singh
Throughout the world, we find people who have many ways of expressing their desire for peace. We hear phrases such as ‘peace be with you’. At Christmas, people send greeting cards or sing songs about ‘peace on earth’. We find that people will hold up two fingers in the form of a ‘V’, which symbolises peace. When someone dies, we pray that he or she “rests in peace”.
Nations meet continually to search for ways to make peace with each other. Organisations dedicated to peace have sprung up in many countries. There is even a Nobel peace prize for individual contributions to this noble cause.
The quest for peace is universal. In every age and in every country, people have been trying to find peace within their environment, societies and the world. It is strange that this search has been going on for so long and has been sought by so many people, yet its attainment remains elusive. Few find peace for themselves. Nothing on earth seems to provide us with true and lasting peace. We start to wonder why peace is so hard to achieve.
The dictionary defines it as freedom from strife, and a state of serenity and calmness. Inherent in this definition is the answer to why peace is so difficult to find. life and strife seem to go hand in hand. Whether one is rich or poor, a king or a peasant, one’s life is always beset with one problem or another.
There is a story from the life of lord Buddha, which aptly illustrates this truth. A woman, whose young son had died, approached lord Buddha. She was shedding copious tears over the loss of her child. She asked Buddha to help bring her son back to life and ease the terrible pain in her heart. Buddha, in his wisdom, told her he would help her if she could first bring back the mustard seed from a household in which no one ever died. The lady followed his instructions and moved from one home to the next. Yet, at each door, she received the same reply. She realised that there wasn’t any family that could pass through life escaping the loss of one of its members.
Death is the one inevitable fact of life. Sickness and disease are yet others. We need only examine our own life to see how difficult it is to go through one’s existence without any mishap, accident, or illness. Medical books are filled with numerous diseases that can afflict human beings. There is no dearth of accidents that could befall us as we move through life’s highways and byways. With death or illness hanging over our heads, it is difficult to live in perpetual, uninterrupted peace.
Even if our physical body is fairly healthy, few can pass through life without any strife. There are many occurrences that produce stress. If we have a family, we know that the illness, unhappiness, or misfortune of any member causes the others to be distressed. Whenever any two people live or work together, there are bound to be tensions due to differences of opinions or differing viewpoints. There are a host of other problems that afflict our lives. If we search for peace in our outer life, at best we can find transitory moments. We certainly do have times in which we enjoy the warmth of being with our loved ones, or we have moments of happiness from some gain or achievement. But these moments are fleeting. Inevitably, life again comes with its panorama of problems. The great mystic-poet saint, Sant Darshan Singh, expressed this beautifully in one of his verses:
Whenever your devotee’s condition alters but a little; life presents itself to me with another cup of sorrow.
It seems as if lasting peace in this life is virtually impossible. life is more like a pendulum in which we swing back and forth from moments of joy to moments of sorrow. But true peace can be attained in this lifetime. We only need to undergo a paradigm shift. Our angle of vision needs to be changed. We normally look for peace in the outer world. We hope to find it in our possessions, positions, and relationships. But the loss of any of these causes us to become agitated and distraught. Our peace of mind is disturbed.
There is a way to have true peace. Just as Birbal shortened Akbar’s line by drawing a longer line next to it, the solution to finding peace can be found in a similar way. We cannot change the nature of the world and its problems. But we can add a new dimension to life that will give us peace. Peace can be found within us. Many people believe the outer world is the only reality. But the enlightened luminaries throughout history have had mystical experiences which verified for them the existence of inner spiritual regions.
Buddha found enlightenment by inverting within himself. Christ has said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” The Muslim and the Judeo-Christian scriptures speak of the contact that the prophets had with God. Mystics in every religion have described their inner spiritual experiences. These higher realms co-exist simultaneously with us in the physical world. They are realms of eternal peace and bliss. We cannot change the world, but we can tune into those realms lying within us. By doing so we will change our perspective.
The way to reach this inner world is through meditation. We may not be able to change our life or eliminate its problems, but through meditation we can look at it differently. Through meditation we can face life because we understand it better. We have the knowledge to help us face what happens to us with strength. We will have gained the inner peace that comes from spiritual consciousness, and we will be a source of peace to all around us.
The more we come in contact with the inner light and sound, the more bliss we experience. The soul experiences pure joy and happiness. This bliss stays with the soul throughout the day and night, and we experience peace and contentment.
The writer is a spiritual leader and author