IndiaPost.com - Peace is not something created; it always is

Peace is achieved in different ways. Let's say you eat to a full stomach and lie down; just see how peaceful you are. Somebody else may drink alcohol and become very peaceful and so on. Whenever your ego is satisfied, you are very peaceful.

Wherever you go, in that place, if people are willing to support and boost your ego, in that place you are very peaceful. Only in those places where your ego takes a thrashing, that's where you are not peaceful, isn't it? Generally in the world, when people talk about peace of mind, it is only about somehow making their ego comfortable. Instead of being in a disturbed state, they wish to be comfortable.

But the very process of trying to make your ego comfortable is the whole process of discomfort also. The more a person tries to be peaceful, he only loses his peace and goes off track. A person who is trying to be peaceful will never actually be peaceful. Just the reverse of this process will happen. Generally the peace that you achieve is only about making yourself comfortable.

When you are here, looking at the mountains, you are peaceful. Peacefully you are enjoying the mountains and suddenly an elephant rushes out of the forest, straight towards you - all your peace disappears. This peace is of no great significance. It is okay that for sometime off and on you are able to experience a little bit of peace. But it is better to be disturbed because if you are disturbed you at least search.

If you become peaceful you only become complacent. Complacence is the greatest enemy. Disturbance is not your enemy. Peace can also come out of achievement. When you have achieved something you feel very satisfied. You feel like you are complete, a whole being. This lasts just for a moment. This feeling of wholeness is not really wholeness. You achieved peace out of this also, but this is not peace.

When your wishes are fulfilled, when your ambitions are fulfilled, or when everything is right for you, when the situation around you is comfortable for your ego and your body, these are the times when you feel peaceful generally but this peace is no peace. Peace means nothingness. Peace is not something that you create. Peace is not something that happens. Peace is something that always is. What happens on the surface is disturbance.

This is just like the ocean. On the surface of the ocean you will see waves, tremendous turbulence and turmoil going on. But if you go deep down, it's perfectly peaceful. The fundamental quality of existence is always peace.

Role of sadhana in enlightenment

It is not that something like enlightenment "happens." Enlightenment never happens. It is there; it is always there. The sadhana that you do is just to see it is there, you understand. You are not doing sadhana to construct divinity within you. All you will construct is only ego. When I went to the US, everybody there is talking of self-development.

How to develop the self? You can develop the body; that is fine. You can develop the mind; that is fine. You can develop the ego, which everybody does anyway. How can you develop the self? And if you could develop the self, better discard it, because it is an incomplete stuff. Only that which is incomplete can be developed, isn't it? If something is already all pervading, eternal, how to develop that? Self is one thing that you cannot develop.

Everything else you may develop. You can develop the land, you can develop the earth, but you cannot develop the self. And if it can be developed it is better you put it in the storeroom like everything else. That is why Gautama went about saying, "You are non-self. You are Anatma." People were talking too much about atma, then slowly it took the egg shape.

So now he knew a chick will come. People will sit on it and make it hatch also. Initially they said, "hell and heaven." To which he said, "There is no hell and heaven." "That we also know, but it is about reaching the Divine, God." He said, "There is no God." "That we also know.

Our Upanishads also say we are Atma." He said, "There is no Atma." Everything he demolished because everything that can be demolished must be demolished. That is the whole sadhana.