Inner Peace :
“A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." - Oscar Wild
"There is a criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace?" – Peace Pilgrim
As with all the transitions, moving from the heavier darker shades to the bright and weightless emotions, the journey is usually not smooth. After all the higher power will again want to test us if we desire the new state actually. More than that, our own internal inertia will try to resist us from moving towards the sunshine of emotions.
And the overnight stay on this journey is at the rest house of inner peace. It is from this rest house you need to fill your bottles with cool waters of inner peace and carry with you for rest of your journey, if you choose to embark on a new journey all together. Many a few travelers on this roller coaster ride give up, by remaining thirsty or trying to quench their thirst from mirage than the real oasis. The other few who do embark either do not carry sufficient water with them or finish of the water too early and return back to their previous states.
While with dark emotions, remaining in that state is even more easier than feeling them initially, but in case of bright emotions continuing to feel them continuously is more tough than feeling them once. After all to make someone happy once is easier than to keep someone happy for entire life. The former is a circumstance; the latter is a lifelong effort, a process, a choice, a life style infact. And it requires maintenance, of which one of the cost is Inner Peace.
So why are - these two mystical words, the most sought after state, the so common sense knowledge - so tough to achieve & so delusional in its existence all together? The reason is this is the middle state. Like all the dual natures of life and the dichotomous states around us, Inner peace is somewhere in between. You cannot have pain when you are happy and you cannot feel complete while you are hurt. But Inner peace can exist while you are hurt as much as when you are happy. And this is the reason it is a Midas touched emotion.
Since ages many learned men, great kings and men with families have been pursuing their own personal quests for this Inner Peace. They have travelled far and wide, in the deepest of forests to highest of mountains to seek this state of eternal bliss. Many wait for their entire lifetime to achieve this state. But what is within cannot be sought without. And it is not some future state or event. The time to experience Inner peace is NOW. The place to experience it is HERE. But it definitely doesn’t unravel itself that easily. Because of the comfort it brings once you achieve it, life does make you little uncomfortable before and while you are trying to achieve it. Though it is meant for everyone, it is not for everyone to attain it. And hence when you accept these turmoils, these strong currents like gusts of wind and crashes of waves on the thresholds of your life and embrace them, and accept the changes, you feel the first gentle breeze of Inner Peace.
Suddenly everything pauses though nothing stops. Even when everything is murky around you, you still see everything clearly. You suddenly start to enjoy the ride because you have now aligned your speed of movement, thoughts, to that of the flow of life around you. And that is when inner peace sets is. The touch of it, the feel of it itself is a state of bliss.
And while you are enjoying this current state of euphoria, life starts forming a new challenge. That is, how long can you remain, continue in this state. More difficult is how to? Because while you may have conquered it once, the change in life will still continue. What would have helped you to achieve this state now, in the current circumstances may not remain valid for future changes.
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- Contd.
