Peace is a necklace of a virtue. It is a necklace which we all wear constantly but have forgotten that it lies around our own neck, as the queen in the story did. It is visible, beautiful to look at and very valuable. A person without peace looks like Sita shorn of her jewels. We do not generally say that we want to be an embodiment of honesty, but we all want to be embodiments of peace. To embody something means to have every fibre of your being made of it.
Peace is a blanket that covers the chill of winter. When a soul loses all its virtues and values, it is like staying poorly dressed in the open on a snowy day. There is pain and frostbite and death is very close. The first blanket or warmth such a soul experiences on meeting God is that of peace… a deep enveloping peace that slowly grows like a fire into its frostbitten bones. We can hear the first cuckoo of spring when we awaken from the unconsciousness caused by the winter frostbite. When the heat is regenerated into the soul by the touch of God and warmth flows back into its blood, it becomes an embodiment of peace. It wants peace and nothing else.
Why peace? Peace is the first and last religion of mankind. When the struggles of the soul do not result in peace, all virtues become immaterial. All tests, all religions, all philosophy and science, every iota of research ever done in the subject is driven by only one passion- to be peaceful. Happiness follows later. Peace is the first step on the ladder to joy. Peace quenches the thirst of the soul. Peace is what God identifies us with.
The first identity that God gives us is that we are the most peaceful of all beings. As His children we can be nothing else. But when this memory is lost, we forget ourselves and we forget God. We run to temples and mosques and doctors and specialists and all kinds of therapists, hoping and praying that they will return to us some vestige of our peace. But God is the only person who can give us true knowledge of peace. Hence, to experience peace, it is essential to know God first. He is the Ocean of Peace.
We all carry within ourselves the fortune of peace gifted by God. By showing us the path to peace, God sets something similar to an ecological food chain. The chain of Peace flows from God, to the deities, to the religious fathers, to humans and then humans go back to God for peace. But there is a time when this chain is set. The present time could be the most testing of all times, for the world, but when you know God; it is one of the most peaceful times in the human cycle. What god does, no human being can do for the others. Humans can try to make each other temporarily peaceful. However, God as the Ocean of Peace regenerates us through His presence. A meaningful and deep relation with the Supreme Source of Peace charges our batteries again. Peace fills our being, as power would charge a battery. Only when we have been re-charged by God’s peace can we start a life anew with joy.
All of us have levels of peace, but when we stay in constant touch with God, in constant remembrance of God, our peace is constantly full. We stop seeking peace from physical things and physical beings. Blessed people, however peaceful they may appear to be, cannot charge our rundown batteries, because they are after all humans themselves. Only God can. His legacy of Peace adorns us with all virtues and makes them shine on the personality of the soul.
by S. Aarti