Peace

Internal or external, the path to peace is the same.

It is difficult to imagine a world at peace without its inhabitants first having found tranquility within themselves.

And it is difficult to imagine a person achieving equanimity within, without conducting himself in the right way in the physical world .

It is hard to believe that anybody would have difficulty in establishing the “right way” to conduct himself, if he really thought about it. But in that unlikely event one need only consult some of the more benign schools of thought which have been around for many thousands of years. Do unto others as the Christians might say, or follow the Buddhist Eightfold Path. Cultivate the beautiful tenets of the Tao. Practice the spiritual and ethical traditions of Sufism, follow the Dharma of the Hindus.

Or frankly, follow your own good sense. Do no harm to any sentient being, be kind and generous in spirit.

And above all do not insist that yours is the only way, that your belief system is unique. And that everyone else has it wrong. To do so is assuredly not “right thinking”, not “right action”.

The exclusive claims of different religions are merely variations of universal truths that have been taught since the origins of man.

Can inner or external peace arise if I insist I am right and those who do not agree with me are wrong? Can peace in the world be achieved when one set of people believe their god or philosophy is the only truth and seek (often by violence, of thought if not of deed) to convert the heathen?

History would suggest not.

But who am I to say? If I were to insist upon the rightness of my own thinking, I would be falling into the same trap as those who have led crusades and jihads. Of those who considered Jews vermin and dealt with them accordingly.

I can only repeat that these are my views, that this is the way I choose (or, more realistically, try) to lead my life and this seems to be drawing me to a place of peace where I can live and let live. My external actions affect my inner world and vice versa. An increasing level of inner peace is giving me an increasing awareness of the importance of following my own path both within and in the external physical world. And letting others follow theirs.

The two must go hand in hand – as man thinketh in his heart, so is he. I can not expect tranquility within if I am a beast without. If my inner thoughts and my worldly actions are those of peace, then I can hope to become what I want to be.

Those without introspection will find it difficult to develop peace within or without. Those who continue to follow the often unconscious desires humanity has traditionally pursued are also unlikely to find lasting contentment.

I have no need surely, to point out that greed, envy, anger or pride are unlikely to lead to a life well led or to a sense of serenity.

Read the Noble Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths if you are in any doubt. If you can not fathom good or bad. If you are unable or unwilling to separate the ethical wheat from the moral chaff. If you can not find the way to happiness.

Wrong thoughts and wrong actions lead to suffering.

I have felt much change within my self in the months and years since I began this blog. In the beginning there was much anger. A conviction that the world was wrong. That it must change.

Today I feel that I have been wrong and I hope that I am now “right”. Or at least that I will continue to feel less and less need to be critical or vociferous. And that I will continue to develop a detached understanding and acceptance of all around me.

Today I feel it of utmost importance that I mind my own business, that I retire from a world I have always found wholly unsatisfactory. And from behaviour that leads and always has led to conflict and misery in a world dominated by self.

Mea culpa, I have been at fault as much as the next man. Through fear perhaps, or through the inner blackness which has so often plagued my life.

And yes, through greed, through envy and perhaps one or two other unwise emotions.

Life is so easy in hindsight but if I had my time again, I must not fool myself that I would live in a better way.

For most of us, wisdom can only come through experience and that perhaps is the one and only benefit of age. The ability after many years of effort to admit that I was wrong. And to have the energy and courage to start again.

It will be obvious to any who have been kind enough to follow this, my diary, that I have long known what my path ought to be. That in reality my weltanschauung has been the same throughout my life. That, intellectually, I have always felt the same, known in which direction my true path lies. But it is only very late in the day that I have come to admit this to myself. That I have begun to make an honest and very internal effort to realize within what I have long understood in the abstract.

For me, the path lies within. Contemplation, reflection, silence and above all coming to know myself is leading me to a place of equanimity. To a place where I can be free not to judge, to a state of mind where I can feel pity and compassion for a beautiful world torn and tortured by ignorance. And self.

There will be those who insist that I must look to their god. That without worshipping Ganesh or Gilgamesh, without bowing down before some other deity, I will never reach the afterlife but will instead find myself cast into the darkness, or worse into some fiery pit, the likes of which even Hieronymus Bosch failed to to depict with sufficient severity.

I would say to such people that I do my best in life and if their god can not accept my efforts and will not allow me access to his version of a heavenly afterlife, then I reject him and will happily take the consequences.

If there are gods, I reject those that are jealous.

And so back to peace, or rather my version of it. I have meditated in Gothic Cathedrals, in Zen Buddhist monasteries in Japan, in Hindu temples in Singapore. And in our garden shed. In Battersea Park by the pagoda. On mountain tops, in gardens, in fields.

Does it matter so very much whether I choose to repeat a mantra of my own choosing or to dwell upon the goodness of this god or that. Whether I believe in an emptiness of infinite fecundity or a creator god who stuck it all together in six days around six thousand years ago. Whether I concentrate my mind on loving kindness or upon some representation of The Good of Plato. I think not. But you are welcome to think otherwise.

What matters is that I seek to be a “better” person in the external world and a happier and more tranquil being within.

I plod my way towards my goal by the simple means of putting my mind at deep rest and softly repeating mantras of my own making. Soon enough, images appear unbidden and a deep peace settles upon my quietened mind. Such tranquility increases in depth and duration day by day. It often appears unbidden in my waking world and a sense of infinity can stretch before me and around me.

Seek your own path. Choose or reject a god or a philosophy. But in the end, your way may end up being not so very different to my own.