Will you show me the way to peace?

Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures. John F. Kennedy

When President John F. Kennedy addressed the United Nations in September of 1961 the world was on the brink of disaster. Powers to be were busily fomenting what was to be called, The Cuban Missile Crisis. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko warned that an American attack on Cuba could mean war with the Soviet Union. Across the nation, school children practiced huddling beneath their desks and in back yards and famers fields, mothers and fathers built bomb shelters stocked with enough supplies to last as long as it took for the radioactive cloud to dissipate.

And no one could predict how long that would take.

And no one knew when the first strike would come.

And everyone believed the world as they knew it was about to end.

And Kennedy spoke of peace. Of quietly building new structures.

In each of us, peace searches for that new structure to take hold, for those old, outdated notions to be eroded so that we can become one with our being at peace with ourselves. In each of us is 'a critter' busily fomenting crisis amidst our struggle to find that place where we know peace within. Two super powers busily duking it out on the playing fields of our hearts, on the uncharted waters of our consciousness rising in fear we will never find peace, we will never see a brand new day.

In our searching, we create worlds of turmoil, of discord, of disquiet. We create that which we do not seek and in our constant gyrations, we make room for everything but peace. We wonder if it will ever be possible to 'give peace a chance' when all around us the world is tossing to and fro chasing peace into the hinterlands of our dreaming about a distant day when we will find heaven on earth.

There is always a chance for peace within us.

Yesterday, I received an email from a very dear friend whom I've known since my early twenties. He once played a vital role in my finding myself in the angst of my search for the answer to the question "Who am I and how the hell do I find my way back to a place I didn't know I lost when I haven't got any ruby slippers?" In his email, he wrote

"Quiet, solid steadiness, one day at a time, is in part the key to getting through this life for me I have found. I know what is said about the importance of "the examined life" - and it is - but sometimes it is a simple measurable joy - and enough for me - to not plumb the depths for a moment or two and simply be, under often-unfair, but such is this life, heaven. Hold on to yourself, the evolved Pure Art that has emerged as you as life has chipped away from the original block of granite. Knowing your stubbornness I think "granite" is not a misplaced expression. But too it weathers all storms and remains unscathed in all its grandeur when the sun returns."

For him, peace is in this moment. In this time of life where he walks the quiet path, giving of his brilliance to the world, sharing his light so others too may know peace.

My stubbornness is well-known. Perhaps it is why, when peace eludes me I stubbornly cling to the stories I tell myself about why I have the right to my disquiet. "My discord is not of my making," I insist. "He said. She did. They were...." Those are the causes. Not me.

It is finding that place of silence within, that beautiful, deep, loving place where I embrace nothing and know all, that I become one with the One. That I breathe life into the peace I seek within me.

Lama Surya Das, in a speech entitled, "Why be a Buddhist when you can be the Buddha?" which he gave at a recent Integral Spiritual Experience event asks, "How long does it take to awaken a human?"*

The answer.

As long as it takes.

I'm stubborn. I will not give up on my awakening. I will be like the granite. Chipping away the rough edges to reveal the diamonds in the rough. I will not sink into the mire of disbelief that my birthright is not to live this one, wild and precious life on fire, in the fire, dancing up a storm of authenticity. Passionately becoming the one I have been waiting for in peaceful surrunder to all that I am and all that I will ever be in Love.

The question is: Are you waiting for someone else other than yourself to show you the way to peace?

nameste.

*(I cannot post the link as it is a members only event -- go to Integral Life to find out more.)