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The Radiant, Expansive Peace You Seek is Already Within You

When we touch inner peace, we enter into luminous and boundless space within us. This beautiful experience is not one that our limited ego-minds can truly grasp nor our words describe. Instead, we meet that expanse in the wordless compassion of our hearts when we are open, ready and willing.

Because language is limited, the words that point the way there can seem paradoxical at times. For example, it is common to think that peace is something to build. Yet as we cultivate inner peace, we are not really building anything, but discovering what is inherent within us as our true nature. We are coming into harmony with our self and our environment in order to experience the perfection of the moment. And as any musician can tell you, harmonizing is not a process of building, but of attunement.

When people wish to connect with each other and reduce conflict, we often use the term “peace building”. I wonder if that is accurate. Would not “reconnecting with love” be more honest? We feel uneasy, even attacked, when we do not feel loved. We feel unloved when we are disconnected from source, from the universe, from the divine. To discover peace, we need to connect with loving presence. When we turn towards the reality of love and interconnection, we are shown how to live in peace.

The Lilies of the Field and You

Each spiritual tradition around the world has a name for this compassionate energy. There is a biblical passage that has remained dear to me since I was a child attending Sunday school. It comes just after Jesus teaches the famous Lord’s Prayer, which in itself reminds us that we are always loved. The verses warm my heart, especially as they refer to nature. They are from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 6:

25 That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and what you are to wear. Surely life is more than food, and the body more than clothing! 26 Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them…27 Can any of you, however much you worry, add one single cubit to your span of life? 28 And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; 29 yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his royal robes was clothed like one of these. 30 Now if that is how God clothes the wild flowers growing in the field which are there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you who have so little faith?

Focus on the Light

To build inner peace suggests that peace is within our control. How could something as radiantly expansive as inner peace be controlled by our limited self? Trying to build inner peace is like trying to straighten out a cloud. It is an impossible task. We need to instead turn our attention to the light that is through and behind any clouds we perceive. Any pushing at or pulling from life is rooted in feeling against. We cannot find peace in againstness.

Feel Loved by Letting Go

We feel loved and confident when we tap into our inherent interconnection. We are never alone. Nor are we separate from each other, including those we may have been taught to think of as our enemies. This kind of love and confidence is not a mustering of our ego, which believes we are divided. It is a letting go of our ego, so that we may rest in our true, infinitely connected and compassionate nature.

Practice Inner Peace Now

This week, consider how you are cared for, loved and supported like the birds in the sky and the lilies in the field. Ask yourself, like a spot check through each day, “In this moment, am I willing to feel loved?” If you find yourself tense, take a few moments to pause and breathe and reconnect with the lilies in the field. Then allow peace to flower from within. Let me know how it goes.

Inner peace is the foundation to lasting peace in our beautiful world. Please don’t forget to sign and share the MAPS (Marine Arctic Peace Sanctuary) petition.

From my heart to yours,
Parvati

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