The Search for Personal Peace.

One of our greatest and most constant searches is for personal peace. One reason we have difficulty gaining and maintaining peace is because we often misunderstand it. Peace is not a mere state of mind; it is a state of relationships. Hence, it is not something under our exclusive control.

Peace is harmonious connection with something or someone, including with oneself. The root of the word “peace” means “to fasten,” or “to confirm an agreement.” Thus, connection is at the heart of peace; peace always includes a “with” of association – or there is no peace. Peace has to do with the state which can exist between two or more entities, including our relationship with ourselves, for we do have a relationship with ourselves.

Peace is the harmony of interconnected well-being, with three primary dimensions. First, peace signifies the absence of dis-ease, infirmity and discord, whether of body, soul, spirit or relationship. Second, peace is a positive, harmonious connection with oneself, including body, soul and spirit. Third, peace is a right relationship with the Absolute.

Gaining peace is one thing, maintaining it is quite another. Four primary options for gaining and maintaining peace have been put forward in history:

1. Peace through attainment: this is the way of the world, which assumes peace comes from possessions, power and prestige. This however is a disillusion, for lasting peace and harmonious connection cannot be secured by money, power or popularity. Peace attained through human effort remains dependent upon continued human effort. Like a juggler who must himself keep everything in the air constantly, or everything will fall down to no avail, so is the peace that comes from human attainment.

2. Peace through acceptance: this is the way of the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers and Chinese Tao masters. The central precept of this brand of peace is that “Everything happens for the best.” The key to serenity is to accept whatever comes as somehow right and for the good. A loved one dies? “It was his time; it was for the best.”

For most of us however, this is not an effective means for attaining peace, or for helping us sustain peace of heart and mind over time. It would prompt us not to love or risk too much, for the more grievous the loss, the more difficult our acceptance of it being “for the best.”

3. Peace through annihilation: this option for peace originated with the Buddha. He taught that the only way to overcome suffering was through the realization that our “I” did not really exist. Rather, when we become enlightened through attaining “nirvana,” we will experience our “I” being extinguished like a candle being blown out. Peace comes through the transcendence of our personal identity as we melt into the cosmic Whole, attaining then a gentle compassion for everything and everybody. Yet few of us will ever find such a peace; fewer still would even want such empty peace, devoid of self.

4. Peace through at-one-ment: this is the true peace of harmonious connection. Imagine a stone tossed into a pond: from the point of vertical ingress, progressive ripples slowly extend outward. Just so the point of ingress into the waters of your soul is the offered peace with the Absolute, then with yourself, your family, your friends, and your neighbors