Attaining Peace of Mind : 5.

If you are torn asunder – away from the total to which you organically belong and cannot unite yourself – then you cannot have peace. Peace is the total consciousness of total existence. We are far from it. We are torn individuals in every manner, socially and psychologically. We require, therefore, not peace of mind, but education.


Education is the art of knowing oneself, first of all, before knowing anything else. You may know the stars in the heavens, but you may know nothing about your own self. You can count the stars in the heavens, but you do not know the number of doors in your own house. You have to look around to find out how many doors and windows there are.


You know very much about the world outside, but nothing, practically, about yourself. But you must know that you cannot stand outside the world. So, knowledge of the world implies knowledge of the self also and, vice versa, knowledge of the self is knowledge of the world. Atmanam viddhi – know thyself and be free. This 'thyself', or the so-called 'yourself', is not one person, one individual, one unit sitting somewhere in a corner of the world, but is an integrally connected organism, though small in range, to the larger organisms of society, nature and God's existence.

This is a point which you have to bear in mind when you sit in meditation. You require nothing in order to bring you peace of mind. You require only yourself. You are the master of yourself and you have to know how to tune yourself to the requirement of existence as a whole. The tuning of your personality, your existence, to the existence that is total is peace of mind; that is peace of consciousness; that is harmony of existence; that is blessedness; that is happiness; that is bliss, you may say. What you call happiness, satisfaction or joy in the ordinary sense of the term is a fractional adjustment of yourself to a condition that is prevailing outside, though the adjustment may be for a few seconds only.

Swami Krishnananda

To be continued  .....