The War and Peace in Ourselves
“Happiness is our very nature and lies at the source of the mind, or the heart of ourself, in all conditions and under all circumstances. It cannot be acquired; it can only be revealed.”
- RUPERT SPIRA
Like a pristine lotus emerging from a putrid swamp, something beautiful and enduring is revealed at times of tragedy and immense challenge.
That is the quality of the human heart and its profound capacity for loving kindness and compassion.
At the time of writing this our hearts are with all those afflicted by the war in Ukraine.
Against a backdrop of international outrage and growing fears of a world war, every new day sees another tremendous public outpouring of humanitarian aid, whilst others work tirelessly to establish a peaceful reconciliation.
So much goodness and positivity is rallied and harnessed in times of great challenge and despair.
But as we all know, there can easily be a tendency for that energy to peter out.
Not long after challenging events have passed, it’s quickly back to business as usual - to an attitude of what can I get from this rather than what can I bring to the situation.
While the factors that trigger conflict and war are always complex, a deeper, mnore foundational reason might also be gleaned.
Because from a certain perspective, conflict and war are ultimately reducible to another aspect of the human heart - the dissatisfaction and unfulfillment that can so easily be our default state.
We all have the same desire for lasting happiness and zero stress. But although we’ve learned to access a working level of happiness - through material things and other people - in truth this is always short lived and unreliable.
It’s not long before the person of our dreams lets us down, or before the things we’d worked so hard to acquire no longer bring us the happiness we were sure they would.
From this perspective it's true to say that, deep down, each one of us is living a life of ‘quiet desperation’.
Few of us are truly at peace with who we are or understand where our experiences are coming from, so that despite our gains in wealth, position, and possessions, we remain in a state of inner conflict - forever at ‘war’ with ourselves and others.
From that perspective our only option is the hopeless task of trying to micromanage the unmanageable and control the uncontrollable.
Like swans, we appear calm and collected, but below the surface, we’re paddling like crazy to maintain that appearance.
Rarely are we ever truly at ease - either with ourselves or with the way things are around us.
So why do we all find ourselves in this position?
Well, everyone is only ever doing the best they can according to their current level of understanding.
Our current level of understanding, or underlying belief structure, determines how we organize and orient ourselves within the world.
So I know that you, like me, have some good and bad days.
You’re loving and want to be loved in return. At your best, you’re kind, caring, and forgiving. And because you’re normally caught up in the stress, tension and craziness of your own mind you’ve probably done things you regret and promised you’d never do again.
We’re essentially good folks, you and I. We want the best for our loved ones and we care about others. And we want to change but struggle to do so.
We have some vision of a bright, healthy, and prosperous future but are quietly doubtful that we’ll ever get there.
We long for a radical change to come ‘someday soon’ but have no real sense what that actually looks like.
On top of all that, we're busy with work and the bills have to be paid, so the cycle of life just continues with no let-up.
But it doesn't have to be this way…
Because what if our notions of where happiness and stress come from are all wrong? What if our belief of who we are was wrong as well?
What if we had access to a vast restorative space in our mind at all times, even when there isn’t much space in our life?
And what if, even when we’re caught up in our heads, there is always an accessible peace in our heart?
I know that real change is possible for each of us. Regardless of our circumstances, we can always return over and over again to the deepest, stillest, most serene inner space - and we can live from there more and more of the time.
This inner sanctum, the vastness of consciousness, is our collective birthright. Why then don’t we live with an awareness of that all the time?
Because we get caught up in the dream of our personal thinking - particularly of limiting beliefs and unrealistic expectations.
However, as easy as it is to forget, it’s even easier to remember. How so?
Because we’re always already living in a mind-mediated reality in the present moment. And as soon as we see this, we fall out of the hallucination of personal thinking, and fall into the inner sanctuary of our Being.
This inner sanctuary is the essence of who we are and the source of all goodness, insights, and transformation.
The longer we hang out in that space, the more it re-organizes and re-orients our perception of reality.
We finally declare peace on ourselves.