Well: if pressed, I might have said peace is the relief you feel after discomfort goes away.
Like many another human being, I had run so long and hard on cold nerve and hot tensions that walking around semi-fried seemed entirely normal. It's called being jaded: you reach a point where only high drama or explicit pain makes you sit up and take notice. The rest of the time you're on automatic: dancing a long, tight waltz with stress.
Then I took up meditation.
In the beginning I found the practise daunting: a major struggle. And, though I thoroughly disliked it, I kept doing it anyway. That was fortunate, because after some months, I had my first experience with true inner peace. Don't ask me how it happened: I don't know. One minute I was an ordinary body trying to sit still and maintain comfort, and then, somehow or other, I tumbled into a country so clear and clean and borderless and sweet it popped open my eyes.
It was as if a blanket of intelligent bliss had fallen around me. I couldn't see it, of course, but its presence was palpable. I remember wondering if this was how we were supposed to feel all of the time: alive and awake, but without edges and tremblings. Eventually, the blanket evaporated, but not without leaving a permanent record of joy on my limbic system. I still don't know if this state is available to humans fulltime, but I did discover it was recapturable for brief periods through stillness. At least, it is for me.
A weapon against suffering!
Thousands of human souls, alive and dead, have experienced the "peace that passeth understanding"; spiritual literature is crowded with descriptions of its enduring power. And well you might ask: with thousands having tasted peace and been enthralled -- why does it remain untried and unsought by so many?
I know why, because I clearly remember a time when peace was untried and unsought by me.
The reason I didn't go after it is because I didn't know it was there. In a way I was like children who keep an imaginary friend by their side; while they are experiencing the comfort of an illusory relationship, you simply can't pry them away. They cling intently to their invisible chum. But later, when they happen upon a real friend in real life, they drop the imaginary companion without thinking twice: it no longer satisfies.
In other words, until I actually met inner peace, I had no idea about its power, and I certainly didn't know it was mine for the having. In its place, I used the substitutes this world offers to keep my balance. Peace transcends the stuff of this world; but, again, you have to discover that to know it.
So that's why looking within is still a rare drink of water. You don't hang out at the well until you've actually caught the flavor of what's inside. And that happens when it's supposed to happen; not before. Until our Inner Light is ready to turn on, it's going to be more fun to fly a kite, play a bongo drum, eat a hamburger, make money, watch football or go shopping than it is to explore Silence.
And everything's perfect just as it is. It was perfect back when I thought spirit was a 6 letter word meaning wine. It's perfect now when I think spirit is the essence of all life, and discovering its nature the whole point of our collective journey.
Everything's perfect.
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