The method is simple. You have to do 2 things:
1. Be aware of the many ways in which your mind loses its natural peace (in other words, watch your mind)
2. Tune into your mind’s natural peace
Now, our conditioning is such that we believe that perfect personal peace is impossible or that at best, we can only experience it in brief moments, and more randomly rather than intentionally.
If you’re reading this, you probably already know or at least suspect that we can override our conditioning. After all, haven’t we already done this in so many ways in various areas of our lives?
For instance, you might have been a later riser but, for whatever reason, you have now made it a habit to be up by five every morning.
Or say, you used to believe that a certain person was a hypocrite. Now, however, after listening to him with greater patience and sincerity, you realize that he is actually someone who cares deeply and does his best to live authentically.
In both these examples, you have overcome your conditioning, which as you will notice, is really a habit of mind or thought. These are examples of what we might call ‘personal conditioning’.
But there is a type of conditioning that is not so personal though it does affect each of us. It’s what we might call ‘universal conditioning’ or ‘collective conditioning’. An example of this is the conditioning that makes us look at the objects around us as separate entities.
This kind of conditioning is a little harder to recognize because, after all, we cannot recall a time when we did not see the objects (including the people) around us as separate from us. In other words, we have always seen things this way and because we have always seen things this way, we have unconsciously formed the conclusion that this is true. How can it be otherwise?
Unless you have an experience of seeing things differently, of seeing the interconnectedness of everything, the ONENESS of everything, you are unlikely to question your belief, which, in this case, is an unconscious and deeply pervasive acceptance that things are separate and that separation is real. Unless you have such an experience, you will have no reason to question this assumption. In fact, you’d be astounded and dismissive of any suggestion to the contrary. You’d think it completely ludicrous.
And even if you have had the experience of seeing the interconnectedness of things, as might happen for instance in an intentional or incidental meditative state, you are more likely than not to question the actual experience – Did I really see/sense that? – than accept it as real and true. And you’d be quite likely to dismiss it – Oh, that was just a freak experience! Or even, That was mind-blowing! and then carry on as if it didn’t matter and as if it didn’t have any bearing on your life. And to the extent that you believed it didn’t matter and that it didn’t have any bearing on your life, it didn’t. In this and so many other ways, you and I have been ‘numbed by normal’. But more of this in another post.
Right now, I’d like to return to my point about conditioning and specifically, the conditioning by the belief that peace is not something that we can hope to have consistently or constantly.
You must be familiar with the observation that
Beliefs have a powerful impact on us, how we think, the choices we make and the outcomes we experience.
For instance, many people I know believed that they were poor at Math at school and they have test results to prove it :). Sadly, many of them have maintained that belief as adults and so still have an aversion to many things involving the manipulation of numbers. In fact, many of them have made academic and career choices that circumvented or minimized the need for them to be good at Math. Perhaps you’re one of them :).
Now, here is another interesting thing about our conditioning and the persistence of our beliefs:
Even when there is evidence to the contrary eg. that you can do Math, because the conditioning is so strong, so deeply embedded in our psyche and hardwired in our brain and body, we refuse to give up the belief.
So, for instance, even when we are indirectly and informally given a Math exercise, to say, work out the cost per person for a meal for 15 people and we’re able to do it almost instantly without seizing up in a paralytic spasm, we’d still maintain the belief that we ‘suck at Math’!
I’m sure you can come up with your own examples of this if you gave it some thought – A belief about your inability to sing or about not liking a certain kind of food or about not being able to ride a bicycle or swim or speak in public…
When you overcome the belief once, you may consider it a ‘fluke’, an unlikely and unrepeatable stroke of ‘good luck’.
But, it you keep practicing overcoming that belief, or better yet, subscribing to an opposing one, and if you keep doing it enough times, the new belief will replace the old one and you will do the very thing that you believed you couldn’t do and with greater consistency. No longer will it be a ‘random’ stroke of ‘good luck’. Now, it is something that you can consistently and confidently rely on.
What all this means, therefore, is that if you do the 2 things that I said you must do to experience Peace, not as a ‘random’, unpredictable, inconsistent and infrequent experience but as an ongoing, imperturbable state of being, NO MATTER WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING AROUND OR INSIDE YOU, it will happen.
Does this mean you will start walking around with a permanent smile on your face greeting everybody including your most hated politician or your obnoxious ex or your foul-mouthed neighbour with a blessing? Eh…NO!
Does it mean you will never again feel anger or sadness or loneliness or jealousy or guilt or unworthiness or greed or resentment or fear? Eh…NO!
Does it mean that you will stop getting excited by a new idea and stop wanting to engage wholeheartedly in your passions? Eh…NO!
Does it mean that you will never again utter a mean word or think a mean thought or do a mean thing? Eh…NO!
What does it mean then?
It means that even when you do feel, think, encounter or do any of those things which seem to disturb your peace,
1. It won’t affect you as deeply or as badly as it used to because while all these things are happening on a more superficial level of consciousness, you are in fact more deeply and firmly anchored in the natural peace that is found right underneath
2. You will be quickly reminded of and pulled back into your natural peace
What is more, the more you do those 2 things, the less likely you are to experience these disturbing states. Why? Because you are increasingly ‘spending time’, hanging out, in your natural peace.
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