Where Does Peace Begin?

[Ms. Othmar]

Note: I would LOVE to take credit for this article, but I give credit where credit is due...

This comes from Rebecca Fine of http://www.scienceofgettingrich.net which is a web site that revolves around a book written in 1910 by Wallace Wattles called "The Science of Getting Rich" You can get a free (.pdf) copy of SOGR at Rebecca's site. A very interesting read...

Enjoy!

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"There is no way to peace. Peace is the way."
– Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi


"Peace is not a relationship of nations. It is a condition of mind brought about by a serenity of soul. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is also a state of mind. Lasting peace can come only to peaceful people."
– Jawaharlal Nehru


"A person can form things in his thought, and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks about to be created."
– Wallace D. Wattles


WHERE DOES PEACE BEGIN?
by Rebecca Fine


[Note from Rebecca: If you've been reading this ezine for a while you already know that I LOVE to write about the principles we learn about in The Science of Getting Rich. And if you'd spent any time around me in person you'd know I love to TALK about them, too – and not just in terms of wealth and financial prosperity. These principles underlie EVERYTHING we experience.

Last month I read ("devoured" is more correct!) the new book by Dr. Deepak Chopra, Peace Is the Way, and was thrilled, though not surprised, to find that this book is completely in-tune with these principles. Not only that, but Dr. Chopra shows us simple, everyday practices that we can all do to bring more peace into our lives and our world.

Later, in this edition's "Wrap Up," I'll send you off to get those seven simple practices -- one for each day of the week – at a special web site. But first, this month's feature comes from a talk I was invited to give a while back on this very topic: peace.

Since that talk was given at a church on a Sunday morning, you'll find a couple of things here that I don't usually include in The Certain Way simply because readers come from every religious, spiritual and cultural background imaginable and I choose to honor and focus on what unites rather than divides us.

So whatever your own religious preferences, I invite you to consider these references as gifts of information, to do with as you please. And I think you'll readily see that those particular ideas are not unique to any one religion or person, but are expressed in all the world's wisdom literature and traditions.

Now, a bit longer than our usual feature article, here's my talk, "Where Does Peace Begin?"]

When you steal ideas from one source, it's called plagiarism. When you steal ideas from many sources, it's called research. So today it's my hope that you will benefit from all my exhaustive and dedicated ... research.

Here's what I think the world needs right now – a REAL peace demonstration. I'm not talking about an anti-war demonstration or marching in the streets. I'm not talking politics of any kind.

I'm talking about a demonstration in our own
individual lives of the peace that lives
within each of us.​

We all know the Hebrew word "shalom" and the Arabic "salaam." We know that they share the same meaning: Peace. But there's an even more basic meaning for those words. They mean WHOLENESS. You could even say UNITY, or ONENESS. (It's interesting to note that
wholeness is the original meaning of the word "integrity," too.)

And that idea of wholeness and unity is really the key to the whole thing, because to be AT PEACE we need to understand our oneness with each other and the Formless. Our unity.

In The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace Wattles writes:

"[T]here is one original formless stuff or
substance from which all things are made. All
the seemingly many elements are but different
presentations of one element. All the many
forms found in organic and inorganic nature
are but different shapes, made from the same
stuff."​

ALL shapes – including us. And, of course, modern physics tells us basically the same thing.

Here's a quiz for you:

* Are you at peace with yourself?
* Are you at peace with all other people?
* Are you at peace with the world as it is right now?​

The way I see it, if your answer to any one of those questions is no, then the answer to all of them is actually no. Because it's all about WHOLENESS.

Now in putting this talk together I tried to neatly group everything I wanted to say under one of those three categories. But it wouldn't work. Because none of the ideas or stories I wanted to share with you would stay cooped up in just one area. They're all inextricably woven together. I guess that's really just the nature of wholeness after all.

So today I invite you to take a ramble with me through this sometimes challenging terrain – the subject of peace. What is it? And where can it be found?

Socrates was once asked how to get to Mount Olympus. And his answer was to make sure that every step you take is in the direction of Mt. Olympus. So every step we'll take today will be in the direction of a conclusion. We may travel a circuitous, roundabout route but we'll end up at the conclusion that peace isn't to be found OUT THERE. That it lives here, deep within us, and our task is to go within, get to know it, and set it free in the world.

We'll take our starting point from the words of Jesus when he was asked what was the greatest commandment. He said it was to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. And the second greatest, he said, is like it: Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

So there are really THREE prescriptions here: Love God, love others, love yourself. And again, when we understand the concept of wholeness and unity we can see that those three are really all the same. We are all part of the one life, the one substance, and so to truly love one part of that life is to love all.

Those three prescriptions also fit neatly with our three quiz questions because ...

If we were actually following this advice, we
wouldn't be talking about world peace. We'd
just be reveling in it. Where love rules,
peace thrives.​

So it then makes sense that where the opposite of love rules, there is no experience of peace.

Now some people would say that the opposite of love is hate. But I think there's something even more basic that comes first, and that's FEAR. And fear is even more insidious, too, because while many, maybe most, of us can truthfully say we're not harboring hatred, few of us are without fear.

Fear is what we experience when we forget our unity, our wholeness, our oneness with God and each other. When we look around and see circumstances and events we don't like, don't want, that our hearts cry out against. Like hunger, violence, racism or other forms of suffering.

If we're unaware that present circumstances are always just the tangible results of our past thinking, we can feel that those circumstances and appearances are inevitable, that they're the Truth of our existence and "just the way it is."

We begin to accept them and that breeds more fear – fear of scarcity, fear of lack. The more we give into the fear and focus our thinking and feelings there, the more we create and attract exactly what we do not want. We trap ourselves in a vicious circle, forgetting that the underlying Truth is that we are the children of God, heirs to all abundance if we'll only go within and claim it.

So we go 'round and 'round with this scarcity thinking – this fear of lack. There's not enough. I've got to get mine and hang on to it. And of course others are moving around in their own versions of the same circle, so we all begin to cast a suspicious eye.

We end up feeling separation, division, competition, envy, jealousy, sometimes even hatred. More fear. More fear of lack – more "I'm not getting enough, somebody must be getting my share and keeping me from having enough" – enough wealth ... power ... land ... respect ... security ... enough anything. Even enough love.

In this state of mind, we see others as keeping us from our good. THEY're the problem. We see anything but unity and wholeness. It becomes US versus THEM. We feel victimized, and so we look for someone to blame.

Mother Teresa said, "If we do not have peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."

But let's back up a bit. What was that other thing Jesus said? Love is the antidote to fear. Perfect love casts out fear. He said, "PEACE I leave with you ... Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid."

OK, that sounds good. But how do we DO that?
How do we move from fear to love? From fear
to PEACE?​

Well, we get opportunities every day. In fact we have the opportunity in every moment.

Let's start with the "every day" kind. Just about every day we find ourselves in the middle of challenging events and circumstances – whether it's something major or as relatively small and simple as someone being rude to us or, say, cutting us off in traffic.

When something happens, we ALWAYS get to CHOOSE how we respond. And here's the KEY:

Our response to ANY event or circumstance can
give us peace – or it can give us something
else.​

(cont.)

 

[Ms. Othmar]

Peace, part II

(cont.)

Think about the rudeness example for a moment. We've all experienced it in one form or another so call up a memory and let yourself feel it. Now remember THIS: How did you respond? Did your chosen response give you PEACE – or something else?

The seeming paradox is that your TRUE SELF is ALWAYS at peace. No matter what happens around you. But to get to that peace you have to reach down deep inside.

I'm a sailor and I can tell you that it can be very unsettling and downright terrifying actually to be out on the water when a tropical storm comes up and the waves start to look like the Cascades [a local mountain range]. But deep below the surface of the sea, all is calm and still.

On the surface, we, too, get disturbed by events. But we always have a CHOICE: Stay on the surface or dive deep.

We go deep when we take time each day to give our focus over to our visions of our heart's deepest desires. For many of us that means time to pray and meditate, when we get in touch with that Presence within us. When we are committed to this as a daily practice, that inner depth becomes more easily accessible. We can get there more quickly, more "in the moment." We can get to the inner peace and to the love that casts out fear.

Gandhi, a great man of peace, said, "Without prayer there is no inward peace." And he added that "the man of prayer will be at peace with himself and with the whole world."

Mr. Wattles talks of prayer and says, "By prayer I mean holding steadily to your vision, with the purpose to cause its creation into solid form, and the faith that you are doing so."

We also go deep when, instead of reacting
immediately and automatically to what's
happening, we stop for a moment to breathe
and consciously CHOOSE the response that
gives us peace.​

Now, think of a time when your child or spouse or partner was away from home and late getting back. No phone call. No way to get in touch. You're just left hanging there, wondering where they are, what's going on.

As the minutes tick by, what happens? FEAR. For some people it shows up as worrying, for some as anger. Some get sick with it.

And then your loved one shows up, safe and sound, having just lost track of the time, and blissfully unaware of what you were putting yourself through! The fear dissolves in an instant.

(So where did it ever actually exist? Hmm.)

And that frenzy WAS just something you put yourself through – no one forced you. You chose it. You chose the response that did not give you peace. But when you know HOW to go deep inside and access the peace that lives there, you can choose that instead.

Does it change the outer circumstances? Not immediately, and you can't always undo what's done. But it gives you peace of mind in the moment. And that's what matters. "There is never any time but now," Mr. Wattles reminds us. And since "now" is always arriving, this choice brings you peace of mind in the future, as well.

Here's another example of going within and choosing the peaceful response, this time in our relationships and interactions with others. We've all heard of Jesus' famous admonition to "turn the other cheek." But do you know what he REALLY said?

"If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also." Note, please, that he did NOT say to lie down and be a doormat.

Walter Wink, a professor at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York offers some interesting insight here. He points out that since most people are right-handed, to strike someone else on the RIGHT cheek, requires a back-handed slap.

Then as now, a back-handed slap would be intended by a powerful person (such as a Roman citizen) to humiliate and insult someone without power such as a slave, a woman, a child, or – in that time, place, and culture – a Jew.

So turning the other cheek and requiring that the "powerful" one must strike you on the left cheek is actually a quietly courageous and symbolic way of saying, "I am your equal." It's the response that gives peace – and dignity, too.

Choosing the way of peace, love, and wholeness takes courage of all kinds.

Now I said we have the opportunity to choose peace in EVERY moment, and here's what I meant by that. It's not just our responses to the things that are happening to us right now that affect our experience of peace but our ongoing responses to the things that have happened in the past.

I'm talking about forgiveness.

A lot of people think that to forgive someone is to say, "What you did to me is OK." But it doesn't mean that, any more than turning the other cheek does.

What we're doing when we choose to forgive is just letting go of our end of the chain that keeps us enslaved to the past and bound to that person and whatever happened. In SOGR terms, it's taking our focus off a crippling vision of what we do not want more of and replacing it with what we do desire to create.

There's an old Chinese proverb that says, "If you are bent on revenge, dig two graves." That's a powerful image, and not just in terms of actually physically taking revenge on someone, but because when we hold those images of revenge in our minds we WILL get results. But we'll get them in our own lives, and usually in our own bodies as well.

Forgiveness is a gift we give OURSELVES first. A gift of peace. And love. And wholeness.

A California couple, Peter and Linda Biehl, were proud and happy when their daughter Amy won a Fulbright Scholarship and went off to South Africa to work in the movement to replace apartheid with equality.

When Amy was killed by a mob during a riot, the Biehls faced a defining moment of choice: They could let their lives be devoured by hatred and anger or they could forgive.

Amy was gone, and for a long while their grief was overwhelming. But ultimately their response was staggering. Abandoning their upper-middle-class jobs and lives, they moved to South Africa and established a foundation in their daughter's name. There they met two young men, two of the mob who had murdered their daughter.

And they forgave them.

But the story doesn't end there. After these men were pardoned they went to work for the foundation to try to atone for what they could not undo, and this odd foursome became friends, more than friends. These two young men who killed her daughter now call Linda, "Mom."

At first, the Biehls' choice may seem impossible, even beyond comprehension. How did they find the strength to forgive such heartbreaking loss?

But when we stop and look for the Truth, we begin to see that while their choice to forgive has certainly benefitted the two young men, it has been of much greater value to the Biehls. Instead of bitter lives deformed by a desire for vengeance, they chose lives of love, forgiveness and service as a living memorial to their daughter. They chose to build up rather than to tear down.

They chose the response that gave them and others peace. They have saved their own lives and the lives of others and now, through their example and story, they have touched our lives, too, yours and mine.

Forgiveness requires courage, and I believe that to create outer peace in our world will require that at least one "side" in any conflict summons the courage to take the first step toward forgiveness. To be willing to let go of past hurts, however deep, and begin to build something new.

This powerful story also illustrates another aspect of this subject of forgiveness, and that is our responsibility for the world we are right now creating with our thoughts and feelings.

We can say, "I want peace and plenty in the world," but if we are holding anything at all against ANY other individual, then we are blinding ourselves to the truth.

If we really understand that we are powerful
co-creators and that our reality begins with
our thinking, then who is responsible if we do
not experience peace and plenty in our world?​

I am.

You are.

The cause is never out there somewhere, my friend. It's not in that other person or in "THOSE people." It's right here in me, in you, in all of us.

By taking care of ourselves first in this way – by choosing to forgive and respond with love rather than fear – we free ourselves, we sweep away the years of built-up sludge that jams up the channels through which abundance of every kind flows, and we move more firmly into our power to make manifest that peaceful, prosperous world we want to live in.

I've got another quiz for you, and I suggest that you actually get out pen and paper and write your answers, one by one.

* Against whom am I holding a grudge right now, today, this moment? List as many as necessary!

* In what ways does holding these grudges enhance my life and bring me peace?

* In what ways may this be restricting me? (Joy and happiness, relationships, career, finances, self-esteem, stress, and others.)

* Am I willing to continue paying these prices and placing my attention on what I do NOT want more of in my life? Or do I choose to MAKE PEACE?​

(cont.)

 

[Ms. Othmar]

Peace, part III

(cont.)

Now, I've mentioned several times how we actually create our world by the ways we choose to focus our thinking. So here's a little "research" on that subject! I want to share with you the words of Douglas Bottorff, author of A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO PROSPEROUS LIVING.

Some years ago I was teaching a class on
Creative Visualization. During the course of
our discussion, the subject of world peace was
raised.

A woman, pointing through the classroom window
to her car in the parking lot, called our
attention to her bumper sticker, which read,
"Visualize World Peace." "This is what we all
need to do," she declared.

To emphasize a point I was trying to make in the
class I seized the opportunity and asked her
this simple question – and it's one of the
questions I asked you at the beginning of this
ramble – "Are you now at peace with the world
as it is?"

Her response was revealing. She said: "Of course
I'm not at peace with the world as it is. The
world is a dangerous and violent place!" The
emotion of her conviction flashed in her eyes as
she spoke.

Something very significant occurred to me as the
result of this woman's response. Like many, she
desired a world of peace. However, the actual
VISION she held of our world was that it was a
dangerous and violent place. Her desired vision
of world peace was something that COULD possibly
take place in the future. Her negative vision,
however, was taking place in REAL TIME.

The significance of this fact lies in under-
standing that IT IS THE REAL-TIME IMAGES
WE HOLD WHICH DETERMINE THE
QUALITY OF OUR EXPERIENCE. This woman
was relating to the world on a day-to-day basis
as if it were a dangerous and violent place.

That was her definition and her expectation of
the world. How could the world show her anything
else if that is how she chose to define it?

If this woman truly wanted to create an impact
through her visualization of world peace, she
would have to abort her real-time, negative
vision and replace it with a vision of the world
as a peaceful place!"​

And that, my friends, is what we've come round to at last: Peace can only exist "out there" when we choose to go deep and release it from "in here." Up til now humankind has not realized the depth of our creative power, and so we have created, again and again, a world of experience that is NOT peace. But every moment is new, an opportunity to choose again.

Henry David Thoreau once said that "for one who is hacking at the roots of evil, there are thousands hacking at the branches." My friends, WE can be the ones who do both, not merely trying to rearrange outer circumstances but going within, to find and dissolve the root cause as well.

As with the other aspects of true prosperity – health and plenty in our finances – peace begins within, with "peace of mind," and only then can it manifest in the outer world.

Dr. Mwizenge Tembo in Zambia writes, "The best strategy for achieving universal peace and tranquility is the spreading of love all over the world. Skeptics will laugh, but what other choices do we have?"

Only the choices we have been making up 'til now, my friends. The ones that time has PROVEN to us do not bring peace. But each of us is free to choose again in each new moment. Free to choose the way of peace and plenty. Right now.

"More life to all and less to none!"


P.S. The web site Rebecca mentioned earlier is http://www.peaceisthewayglobalcommunity.org