How long does it take to find lasting peace? The sort of peace that, even in challenging situations doesn’t fail us? Common belief essentially suggests that it’ll be a long struggle, a great deal of work, and that, in the end, it’s likely we won’t find it until the end of our lives. And then, only if we’re lucky.
The idea that finding peace requires time and effort is bizarre considering how all of us come into the world. When we’re born, we are peace; peace in the form of human beings. When a baby cries, it’s not from mental distress, it’s a signal that some crucial need isn’t being met.
Crying from a very young baby means, “I’m hungry,” or “I’m wet and need changing,” or “Some part of me hurts, and I need help.” It’s a distress signal from a creature too young to express itself through language.
The absence of peace is a learned trait, and is learned only after a child’s brain is sufficiently developed to where it experiences the world through thinking, in other words, the same way adults experience reality. By the time thinking has progressed enough for a sense of an independent self, the abiding, always-present peace the child was born with has started to be displaced by a world of constant thinking.
Our experience of modern life has us convinced the faster our thinking is going, the more effective we are in all aspects of life. It’s this constant thinking and overthinking that causes us to believe that peace is foreign to us, and that we have to do something to find it.
What do we do? We try to find peace in our circumstances; a vacation somewhere quiet, a different job, a different partner, a new home, a new car, exercise, various substances, and so on. And for a while, we may experience a feeling of peace. But only for a while.
When do you suppose was the last time someone found lasting peace in their circumstances? Lasting peace is a completely different experience from the brief encounters most of us have with a peaceful feeling. Remember the last time you felt peaceful? I can guarantee that while you felt that peace, your mind wasn’t racing from one thing to the next.
We expect peace to be foreign to us simply because we’ve forgotten that peace is our nature, and the only thing that can take us away from peace is our thinking, and how seriously we regard it.
I’d read and heard for years that peace was my nature and the nature of all humans. I wanted to believe it with every fiber of my being, but I couldn’t quite get myself there. Imagine my surprise when I discovered for myself that it was true, and more wonderful than I could have imagined.
Do I have the experience of abiding peace every moment? NO! I’m a human being, and I can think myself away from peace as often as any human. But now, because I spend so much more of my time in a peaceful feeling, it’s become much easier for me to see the fact that peace is my nature and the nature of every living being. And I return to it very quickly.
The funny thing is, I didn’t find peace until I stopped constantly looking for it, as though it had been something I was missing. It turned out, I didn’t need to find peace; it found me.
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