Content warning. May contain spoilers.
religious themes
an essay by Dr. Lalita Agrawal and Yashaswi Agrawal, English
Among the seven qualities of the soul, which are peace, power, purity, bliss, joy, love and truth, Peace is our natural state which we can access easily. But due to ignorance, we are unable to feel its presence. When the veils of ignorance are removed, we will realise that we are not supposed to be peaceful–we have to become peace, we are peace. It is our nature. The more we are able to operate from this natural state, our sensitivity increases and so does our awareness. Peace is important because only when we are in peace, do we experience true happiness; they can’t be separated. This happiness is true happiness which is arising from within and is not dependent on external causes, circumstances or situations. Real reason why we always seek happiness and peace is that we are peaceful being with happiness as our true nature. It is so natural to always crave for happiness and peace in life.
We always try to find happiness and peace in outer world, in the things like power, post, money, name, fame, relationships, achievements, success etc. We search happiness in material things; material things bring comfort, not happiness. Comfort and happiness cannot be identical. Our priorities are always external but it should be internal like peace, satisfaction, overall health, acceptance, attitude of surrender etc. We are contemplating happiness in materialistic objects. So we are working hard to possess that objects and think that once we achieve all these, we will be happy and can live with peace; the moment we think so or believe so, we also believe that peace and happiness are something that is in future, it’s not something that is present right now, and we condition our mind and unconsciously postponing our own happiness, and creating a dependency for ourselves, though the reality is absolutely different. After gaining that object we may get temporary comfort and pleasure but eventually its effect gets faded away. Not only this, in achieving these goals, it takes months or years, there is no certainty and in the process we forget to enjoy the journey also and attract stress, depression, anxiety which takes a toll on our physical, mental and emotional health. We also forget that once we lose our health what’s the point in achieving all these, because even if we achieve these we won’t be able to enjoy these at all. It is clear that happiness is not attained when one is a king or when one gains the status of Bill Gates. It is not attained through material possessions or worldly attainments. Usually, we think that peace and happiness will be achieved once we get all we desired in the external world which means that it can be gained internally from this external world which is outside and here we make a fundamental mistake because it’s a state of mind which can be achieved with the help of some spiritual practices and then it flows everywhere; it has nothing to do with external possessions. Our intentions are pure to have happiness all the time but medium we are choosing are damaging our life. We must know that happiness is not dependency; it is not dependent upon any person, anything, anyone, any relation etc. Happiness is not a destination, it’s the journey itself, it’s a choice, a conscious decision; in every situation we have a choice whether we want to be happy or not; even if we are dying, we have a choice if we want to die happily or feeling sad.
Since peace is a natural state, we must free ourselves from all unnatural tendencies and wrong habits. As we begin to value peace and be more peaceful, we start becoming free from all the defilements or evils of the mind such as anger, hatred, violence, malice, greed, obsession, jealousy, fear, insecurity and all other undesirable qualities. Peace is not only our natural state, it is everywhere. So, we begin experiencing oneness by being aware of this. The more we are established in peace, the more is the love and compassion that flows for others. This love is true love, unconditional, unlimited and divine. Thus, by being peaceful, we allow love to expand in our own lives as well as in the universe. When we are at peace, our consciousness expands, we become more sensitive, towards ourselves and towards others.
Acceptance is the key to peace and happiness. We must accept the people as they are; we cannot control them nor will they behave according to my choice; the moment we start accepting the things as they are, happiness follows us.
We must learn to let go. We feel angry and we hold on this feeling, rewind the same situation again and again in our minds and we want to feel happy. This cannot happen unless and until we learn to release the things, situations and feelings from our minds. When something bad happens with us we start playing victim roles and in a very subtle way, enjoy getting fake sympathy and mercy from others and after sometime it becomes our attitude and reflected in our personality. We must come out of this victim mode as soon as possible. Why do we always blame people and situations; why can’t we become stronger and rise above the situations, so that these things do not affect us. I can’t control people and the situations but how I respond to the situation is in my control.
Comparison is a big obstacle on the path of achieving peace and happiness. Most of the time it happens that we are at peace and happy but when we see others being more successful and prosperous, we lose our happiness as we start comparing ourselves with them and find that ours is less compared to them but we forget that what we have was enough and we were happy until we started a comparison. Comparison is not a healthy term for humanity and even if we use it should always be applied in our own case, that is, we should improve ourselves by comparing our own achievements and not others.
Being grateful for everything is a very powerful and effective method of attaining peace and happiness. We must express our gratitude to the universe for each and everything, starting from our birth in human form, for this body, for the family, friends, food we get on our plates, for all that we have. It teaches us to see the positive perspective of everything. Gratitude or expressing our thanks to people have profound impact on our minds and it releases positive neuro transmitters in our brains. It reduces stress and complaining attitude as well. It’s just a way of appreciating everything and improves our relationships. We must thank those who were cooperative with us, we should thank more to the people who criticised us and created obstacles for us because it’s only because of them that realised our power and we are able to go beyond our limitations, they crush our ego and makes us becoming more humble. The day we understand this and apply it in our lives, we become peaceful inside. Gratitude is the highest positive energy that brings all prosperity in life.
Empathy also helps a lot in producing peace and happiness. Being empathetic not only helps others, it also helps us, expands our consciousness and brings inclusiveness by making healthy relationships with people.
Peace and happiness also depend upon how we do our daily chores and duties. What kind of feelings we have while performing these, do we perform our duties as we are serving the supreme or serving humanity or we feel burdened and doing our duties only for earning and for the sake of money. We must remember that the same energy we are putting in our duties comes back to us in the form of our money and the things we buy from that money and the law of energy is eternal.
We must learn to serve others selflessly, physically, mentally, financially, by uplifting others as this act itself creates deep sense of peace and happiness. Before doing this we must create thoughts of it as everything is first created in our minds, and then in reality.
We must give some space to ourselves and sit silently for few hours. Each moment we are consuming something, through our sense organs, either from social media, phones, news, discussions, conversations, watching films and all these materials create an impact on our minds. We must learn to keep away from all these things, at least few hours before going to sleep and after getting up in the mornings. Bed time and mornings should always start with positive affirmations or silence or prayers or meditative practices if we want to be happy and peaceful.
Another thing required for being peaceful and happy is that there must be a harmony between our thoughts, speech and action. Usually people think something, say something and do something and this way they break the inner harmony. This disharmony affects us badly and harms us. Thoughts are energy or vibrations and thought energy travels faster. We may not be able to catch each other’s thoughts but we feel their vibrations. We must learn to work on this harmony and then only we should try to communicate. When we don’t maintain this harmony, we are actually harming ourselves, mentally and emotionally first which results in the form of physical diseases later. We must learn to look within, to our thoughts and should question ourselves, are my thoughts pure, what I am thinking, is this thinking right and if not how can I change it. If we really want to be happy and peaceful, our lives must be filled with pure, positive thoughts only, not only for ourselves but for all beings. Sending good thoughts, good intentions and vibrations to people make us happy. Our vocabulary also should be pure, positive, motivating and uplifting for others and it should be reflected in each of our actions.
The purpose in our life must be to become a being that is in peace with itself and the things happening in its surroundings should not affect it. We will find true happiness when we realise and implement this in our life. Being peaceful doesn’t mean that everything is in our control, we can control situations only to a certain extent; when things don’t go according to our will, we have to accept that and its better to let things happen in their own ways as there is a divine or higher plan for everything happening. We need to self-reflect; we need to get connected with our own inner being. By meditation or self-reflection, we can realise our soul existence.
Meditation is a very important tool to connect with our inner self and thereby feeling that peace which is already in us, which is our true nature. Until we realise who we really are, everything proves to be transient and temporary. we are divine beings, so we are already peaceful; the Divine Energy is our core Nature, but this divine energy is blocked because we are not connecting with our self, because we are so much into negative thinking, criticising, gossiping etc but when we sit comfortably and focus on breathing, this divine energy flows freely and cures our diseases and problems from the root, scientifically meditation boosts dopamine and serotonin which are positive neuro transmitters and good for our health; It helps you to solve your problems from the root as most of the diseases are psychosomatic, created by our mind, so taking the medicine is not solving the problem from the root, it temporarily cures, It also helps us to recognise our thoughts, positive and negative, reduces negative emotions and also shows how negative thinking damages our own overall health and we become conscious of it; being aware of thought is important. We must align our thoughts with our divine nature, that is, with the seven qualities of the soul.