…that Peace which the world cannot give…

If you are a subscriber to the guilt ridden miseries of Western religion, then peace will indeed be unobtainable. Those who have been wise enough to hitch their wagon to the rather more useful philosophies of the East will tell you a very different story. The Order for Evening Prayer may be sublime but it does not offer peace.

If I once believed it impossible to change one’s entire experience of life, and the mind itself, I was wrong.

If I once fretted about free will, or its absence, I wasted my time.  Whatever worthy philosophers or earnest scientists might opine, I have discovered that I do have agency and that I can and have made my life my own.

I have turned my mind: a personality once full of melancholy and guilt, pessimism and despair has now become something a little different.

Not a sparkling wit perhaps, no genius or greatness.  No outrageous happiness or overwhelming abundance of energy and exuberance.  But a quiet peace, an acceptance of a life that is, no more longing for something different, or better. No longer questioning existence, mine or that of the world itself.

No more seeking answers to impossible questions, no quest to see the mysterious face of an unfound god.

I do not claim that there is an “I” a “me”, let alone a soul, an eternal existence in the sense of a continuance of whatever it is that has lived these 68  years.

But I experience and therefore, to plagiarize Descartes, I am.

And that has become enough.

Each day starts with an hour’s meditation, a disappearance from the mundane, a flight to some far plane. A haze of quiet content.

And then perhaps an hour or so of slow, languid exercise. Think Tai Chi or Yoga and you will be close enough, but mine is of my own making and I am my own master.

To my surprise and great satisfaction I have discovered that my extended and gentle routine of exercise deepens and reinforces my meditation.

My mind becomes filled with peace, joy even. Time seems to vanish.  Deep contentment fills my mind and my body.

Endocannabinoids, say the scientists.  Some of us are apparently rather better at producing them than others and to my surprise I seem to be very proficient indeed.

I have always exercised; an entire life has been spent in hills and mountains, walking and skiing in the Alps. Even now each day I will cycle or wander the fields and hedgerows for a few hours, with my stick and my thoughts.

But this other stuff, this slow and extended stretching and reaching, using the body’s own weight, lying out under the dappled shade of a large quince tree – is altogether of a different nature.  Intensely slow, completely silent. Prolonged, without thought or words, a being, simply existing. And a mind, a soul, whatever you will, full of utter content.

How would I explain it to someone who has not felt it, how must I put into words feelings which don’t really have the language to describe them.

Do I exaggerate some may wonder, am I talking my own book to buoy myself up, to make something of myself which I am not.

I do not, I am not, but take it as you wish. With a pinch of salt if it pleases you.  Or don’t. These days I only write when I have something pressing to say, some new discovery to record.  And I talk mostly to myself and for my own benefit.  But then if some may use my words to pull themselves from darkness into light as I seem to have done, I will be glad of it.

I could of course state the usual caveats, in my still lawyerly fashion. That I may be sitting in the eye of a storm, or be perched on the edge of a treacherous and crumbling cliff without knowing it.

But I will not, for I sense that they are no longer necessary.  While I do not expect to live in quiet content for the rest of my days, the scales have been removed from my eyes. I no longer look through the glass darkly. I know that I can find my way back, stumble out of the perennial blackness which has so often blighted my life.

How has it come about? And why now, after so many terrible years?

Why does anything happen in this vast unfathomable lottery, this life, this infinite and little understood eternity.

In my case this change has arrived largely through acceptance, by refusing any longer to question, to seek. By giving up, if you like. By throwing my hands in the air and refusing to bother. By ceasing to complain about the iniquities of our species and by looking for good rather than evil.

I have so often worried about my place, that I find myself in comfort and safety – in a state so very different to that so very many have to suffer.

But perhaps with the right attitude I could find peace these days in a hut on some savannah or a rush house in a rain forest.

I only know that I find man’s concerns so endlessly absurd, but that complaint or worry is futile and wholly counter productive.  Greed, brutality, envy – all the deadly sins – will likely always be with us. And to play one’s part properly is to do one’s best to avoid falling into those habits. To try to remain calm and non judgemental, to look around at our world with wry humour and to shrug one’s shoulders.

Take me as you find me, believe my words or not. It is all one to me.