This was posted on Twitter’s Think Smarter today. Is this really true though? We all say that we want peace more than anything, yet so many of our actions vie for attention, appreciation, applause, adulation and approval. Our actions show that we are addicted to the a-words, yet seeking peace outside of ourselves, by depending on what other people do and think, and relying on experiences outside of us to go exactly how we want them to go, almost always never happens. These things are not within our control. Being out of control makes us feel anxiety, not peace. Depending on outside influences and circumstances, does not brings us peace. Why do we always get so confused on this matter?
I think it may be because if we are honest with ourselves, we are more likely to get appreciation, applause, adulation, positive attention, and approval from other people (no matter how fickle and fleeting) than what we give to ourselves. I read this statement recently, scratched in one of my old notebooks:
We are much harder on ourselves than life is . . .
I am currently re-reading one of my favorite spiritual books of all time – The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. The premise of the book is that the peace that we are seeking lies within every single one of us, if we get past all of the layers of self-chatter, self-recrimination, judgments, beliefs, fears, pains. If we stop and observe all of that constant self-chatter, we are reminded that there is a very peaceful, non-judgmental observer who is seeing our “monkey mind” at work – the part of us that can actually observe our thoughts. That tranquil, loving observer is inside of every single one of us – the soul/spirit/God part of us, who just quietly experiences everything going on. It watches the things going on outside of us and takes in our physical sensations. It watches our minds and our thoughts, our brains trying to calculate and to make sense of everything, to give everything a story and meaning and a connection to our prior experiences – trying to give the illusion of control. This tranquil observer then experiences the emotions that the thoughts and the sensations from our experiences, evoke in our bodies and in our hearts. It makes no judgments, it makes no conclusions. This tranquil part of us is just aware. It is our awareness. It is our peace and it is always a part of us. It never goes away. We just have to get still enough to remember that it is there for us Always. Be still and know that I am. (Psalm 46:10)