Attaining Peace of Mind : 1.

During these days I have practically told you everything that you are required to know. I have left nothing unsaid, and perhaps I spoke from every point of view of human life. We are now moving toward the conclusion of this course in the Academy.
It also is necessary to tell you that everyone should know the art of having peace of mind.


A person with no peace of mind does not actually live, but just exists. Living is different from just existing. First and foremost the purpose of life has to be understood – why you want to be alive at all. Do you want to continue living in this world with distorted feelings, insecurity from all sides, fear that is gnawing into your vitals and dissatisfaction everywhere? Would you like to live such a life?


Every person has a common complaint that things are not as one would like them to be. This complaint is without foundation because things are exactly, even now, as they ought to be. You are not actually as you ought to be. The complaint, therefore, has to point in your direction and not in the direction of the world outside.

We somehow forget that we belong to this wondrous structure of creation, which we look at as something that is staring at us as if we are outside it. The world, taken in its totality, never does wrong. It has its comprehensive vision directed towards its own goal. However much our learning and erudition, we cannot give up the prejudice of feeling that we are standing outside the world, outside everything; we are inside nothing. We are totally disassociated from the world of nature, from its Creator. 

That which you call peace, which you erroneously identify with some fancy of yours, is a little different from what you think it to be. Can you define what you really mean by peace ? When there is no noise, when nobody talks to you, when there is nothing for you to see in front of you, when everything is calm and stands still – is that peace? When everything is dead silent from all parts of the world – nothing moves, no sound is created and nobody speaks – is that peace? 

Naturally you will hesitate to agree that this kind of thing is peace. When there is no disturbance from anything in the world, nobody speaks to you, no sound is created, nothing happens anywhere, why should you not regard it as peace? It may be felt subtly from within. Peace does not come from outside. If the external world is the cause of your disturbance, then the dead silence of everything in nature, or in general, should be considered as peace.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  ....