Real Peace - What Does It Mean To Have It?

Real inner peace is a rare and valuable commodity. Why? Are we looking for it in the wrong way? The Bhagavad-gita 2.66 states: "One who is not connected with the Supreme can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind, without which there is no possibility of peace. And how can there be any happiness without peace?

So what is the nature of that connection and how is it achieved?

Transcript

Muhannad Govinda Rama Madana Mohanna It's kind of like a pretty massive subject to speak about.

What does it mean to have real peace within?

And how do we even define that?

And what does it mean to us individually?

Different people will have different ideas.

And the time we've got to talk about this is so short.

It's just like really so we get right down to it.

Looking for peace on what I will describe as a material level is an impossibility.

You cannot attain it.

The peacefulness that you seek,

The peacefulness that we actually long for without realizing it.

What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning?

The most common thing amongst millennials is to reach for their phone.

Very first thing you do in the morning is reach for your phone.

I mean you've just opened your eyes and you can't even just be still.

You're instantly going to reach for the phone.

The moment that you've opened your eyes you have been agitated within.

There is this constant agitation and gnawing and emptiness.

Other people their habit is to flip on a television,

Maybe get a cup of tea or something and throw on a morning news or show and look at the.

.

.

And the news it's no longer about actually reporting just events that happened.

It's the sensationalization and the horror of all the worst possible things.

I mean they have the saying in media,

If it bleeds it leads.

Meaning if there's some catastrophe or violence,

If there is blood and mayhem,

That's going to be the lead story.

Because that gets your attention.

They want your eyeballs.

The more time you spend looking at their things the more money they make because they sell you to the advertisers.

You're a commodity.

And here I am just looking at things and thinking,

Oh,

Like it's just me and I'm acting independently and doing all this stuff.

And I don't see this bigger picture.

My world quite often doesn't involve any.

.

.

It's this very narrow,

Very thin paradigm that I live in.

This little box that I call my world in which I am seeking peace.

One of our great spiritual teachers from more about 500 years ago,

His name was Sanatana Goswami.

This guy,

He was like.

.

.

I shouldn't have said this guy.

He was the most extraordinary personality.

He had served as the treasurer for the Nawab of East India.

This is like the Muslim emperor.

And so he had a very high office.

He was a man of extraordinary intelligence.

He could speak multiple languages,

Apart from his native Bengali,

What was Hindi at the time.

He spoke Urdu.

He spoke Persian.

He spoke Arabic.

He spoke a language in Southeast India,

Oriya.

And we're not just talking about speaking.

We're talking about having amazing poetic ability to be really steeped in understanding.

And when he gave up his position and became Sanatana Goswami,

He traveled through North India to meet up with Chaitanya Mahaprabhu,

Who was the greatest spiritual personality of the era.

He was actually the father of the modern kirtan movement,

Originated with him.

And Sanatana's first question that he put to him is,

Why am I suffering?

And the word that he used was a word that was actually really deep,

Because it spoke about three types of suffering.

And suffering here doesn't mean just like in a superficial sense.

It means all of the agitation and the pain that one experiences within.

And the word that he used described that there are three types of suffering that one experiences.

One is called adi atmik,

The suffering that is due to one's own body and their mind.

And of course,

That necessitates an appreciation and understanding that the body and the mind is not me.

I am the occupier of the body,

But my mind is a source of agitation,

Constant agitation,

Constant disruption.

The second one is called avibhautik,

Which was the suffering that one experiences from other living beings,

Whether it's your irritating friend or neighbor,

Your mother or father,

Your children,

Mosquitoes biting you,

Flies coming in to disturb you.

And the third was adibhavik,

And it had to do with natural disaster,

Natural calamity,

Natural difficulty,

Excessive heat,

Excessive cold,

Floods,

Earthquakes,

Volcanic eruptions,

Everything that fits into that category.

And it was like,

Oh my God,

This question is like massive and it's monumental,

But it speaks to the subject that we are speaking of.

The primary requirement for peace is a profound harmony.

This harmony is actually what the word yoga means on many levels.

So one of the things that people don't understand is that much of the agitation and the unhappiness and things that we experience in life are directly due to things that we do,

Things that we think,

Actions that we take,

Desires which we cultivate.

We do these things,

We run after things.

I mean,

We have this,

We have this like,

This really unfortunate perception that I feel an emptiness within.

I feel an unhappiness within.

And so I look around outside of myself looking for a person,

A possession,

An experience,

Something that I can grab hold of and pull close to me and hold tightly in the hope that it will fill up the emptiness,

That it will relieve the agitation.

And it can't.

It's impossible.

It can't.

You are an eternal spiritual being.

That which you seek and need is also spiritual.

It is not material.

Material activity,

You know,

It can produce reactions in the body and mind and get a dopamine rush and think,

Wow,

That was really cool.

But it doesn't give us what it is that we're looking for.

And so what we are constantly bombarded with is this idea,

Okay,

Try this,

Do this,

This one will do it.

Every single company or person that is selling you something is actually packaging it as that thing that will fulfill you,

That thing that will make you complete,

That thing that will actually give you the happiness that you seek,

The shelter that you are looking for.

And it's untrue.

And I try this and I try that and I do this and I do that and all that does,

It's like putting gasoline on the fire.

I'm already being scorched by this fire and looking to quench it,

To quieten everything down and to feel peaceful and complete and just relaxed.

I end up putting something on the fire that causes it to burn brighter and hotter.

And we just can't figure this out.

It's like we just don't get it.

And we just keep doing the same things over and over and over.

In the Bhagavad Gita,

In addressing this particular point,

It says that for a person to come to a state of peacefulness,

They must be able to be not disturbed by the incessant,

That's a heavy word,

Incessant,

Nonstop,

Incessant flow of desires.

This endless flow of desires which we cultivate in the vain hope that by participating in these things,

Doing this stuff will find the peace and happiness.

So it says that a person who is not disturbed by the incessant flow of desires that enter like rivers into an ocean which has ever been filled but always still,

Such a person alone can achieve peace and not the person who strives to satisfy such desires.

And it's like,

Oh my God,

This is a whole new idea.

This is like a really,

You know,

There was this word,

This amazing and wonderful word that is used in spiritual teachings.

It's called an atmarama,

Someone that is utterly self-satisfied.

They are satisfied within because they have attained this union of the soul with the Supreme Soul,

This connection and in that union,

All desire and hankering is utterly fulfilled.

This person would be like really out of place in this world.

This is the worst kind of person that you could have in this world.

This world,

We are all taught to be servile,

Servile and stupid consumers.

We are fed images and lies and ideas of where happiness will be,

Where I will find fulfillment.

I'm even told what's cool.

You don't make up what's cool.

It's messaging that you receive and then you hear,

I mean,

And it's like,

What happened?

You know,

It used to be there was the rebel image,

You know,

The hardcore surfers or skateboarders or you know,

Extreme sports guys.

Then that whole image,

As soon as it looks like it's becoming a little popular,

It's immediately,

Immediately taken over by corporations that repackage it and then really grow it and promote it and everybody's told what's cool.

And you buy into that.

You buy into somebody else's image and idea of what's cool.

This is the way that we are being trained to find peace requires that we take an inward journey,

Not a journey out into the world.

The world won't provide you the peace that you're looking for.

That peace will come from really being able to reconnect,

Rediscover your actual spiritual identity,

Who you truly are,

And to be able to live in harmony with that reality.

When that happens,

You could be in the middle of a great whirlwind around you.

There may be great chaos and confusion and horrible things happening and you would be utterly untouched,

Utterly untouched.

So I'll just read another verse from the Bhagavad Gita,

Which really clearly describes this need.

There we go.

And it states that one who is not connected with the Supreme can have neither transcendental intelligence nor a steady mind,

Without which there is no possibility of peace.

And how can there be any happiness without peace?

That's like really profound.

What do you think?

I mean,

This is a whole nother way of looking at things,

Something completely different from what we've become accustomed to,

What we've been raised with,

The ideas.

This need for this connection with my true spiritual being,

And then for that spiritual being to reconnect with the Supreme Soul,

Is actually the focus and goal of yoga.

And it is the only way in which a person can find real and lasting,

Eternal peace.

But it requires that we have a change in our thinking,

We have a change in our value system.

I mean,

That which we value,

We haven't made this up ourselves.

It's all told to us.

It's all imposed upon us what our values should be.

Real spiritual value is something else,

Is something different than what we have been told and what's been pushed upon us.

Today we had a one day immersion retreat,

And a major part of it was a focus on learning a technique that is called silent witness meditation,

Where a person learns to become more inwardly aware that I am an eternal spiritual being.

I am perceiving everything,

But actually I am different from everything.

You know,

It's kind of like we've been locked in a movie house since we were born.

Can you imagine what that's like?

You're locked in a movie house,

And then there's just nonstop bombardment on the screen of exciting,

Dramatic,

Emotional movies.

And you've forgotten who you are,

And you've forgotten whether there's anybody near you,

And you're just constantly absorbed in the movie that's called life.

And what we're proposing is that you actually,

You can't shut off the movie,

But you can turn the lights on,

And you can get up out of your seat,

And you can decide how you are going to participate,

How you are going to become involved with what we call life.

Having spiritual truth as our guide is what will bring us to the state of true peacefulness and complete and utter satisfaction.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Accusing To stay

Reviews

The movie is playing nonstop. Just remember I can turn the lights on, I can turn the volume down and I can get out of my chair. Resist being a commodity. Important messages I have control over this very minute. Thank you.

Twice I lost the connection so that I didn't get to hear the whole talk, but being reminded of the truths I did hear was helpful. It's so easy to forget about all the programing our society is pushing on us. Awareness of its influence is a good beginning in seeing the lies it tells and in extricating ourselves from those illusions.