Three Ladders of Peace

At the end soul needs only peace, that's the spiritual message which is often heard in the deep spiritual world. The Vedic scriptures even explicitly mentioned: "Peace is the highest form of God". Although these messages are very old, people have done too many rituals, but peaceful souls are still very rare everywhere.

An increasingly complicated environment is one of the reasons behind the scarcity of peace. The harder the grip of desire and power the rarer peace will be. The endless race to always be called more is also a form of peace poison. But above all, the most important factor is how beautiful one's inner soul garden is inside.

Spiritual friends who grow deep on the path of meditation understand, the first ladder that peace seekers must pass is an old drama about a false self. To make it more concrete, try to imagine someone who has ever injured your soul deeply. An unstable mind, burning emotions, disturbing anger, spontaneous lips that are telling a bad story, that's the concrete form of the false self.

It is this kind of self that creates the walls so high that make one losing the opportunity to experience spiritual connectedness. For seekers who are not touched deeply by meditation yet, this false self continues to grow. Especially by keep blaming others, calling themselves higher, saying others are misguided. This false self continues to grow. It can lead one to chronic diseases, broken families, or a dangerous soul journey.

Before this fake self makes life really burn, it is advisable to step higher into the second ladder. Especially by deeply practicing mindfulness. In its simple yet profound form, whenever the false self appears in the forms of; an angry thought, burning emotion or disturbing experience, learn to be fully present in the moment.

To make it more concrete, there is no need to call it negative. No need to fight. Look at the fake self like children who see all with innocent eyes, just as they are. All you need is a mind which is free from judgement. Emotion which is free from punishment. As a material of contemplation, life that is always safe and comfortable does not exist. Even Avatar (the reincarnation of God) like Shri Rama and Shri Krishna had to fight, the Buddha repeatedly wanted to be hurt.

For that reason, forget the illusive dream to have a life which is always comfortable. Then train yourself to be the good friend of discomfort. At the beginning, the discomfort creates tension inside. But when someone does not react, simply let the fake self pass like letting the waves pass on the shore, over a matter of time the grip of discomfort weakens.

As the grip of discomfort weakens, the quality of inner peace begins to grow within. Moreover, when someone waters this seed of peace with deep meditation practices, a supportive environment, and close friendship with sacred teachings, one day this seed of peace will bloom beautifully.

This last beautiful flower of peace makes one enter the third staircase. As the waves do not have to fight to become water, similar to butterflies that do not need to beautify themselves to appear to be beautiful, peace seekers who no longer reject discomfort, they do not need to struggle to be kind. The nature of their hearts are full of kindness.

For these kinds of beautiful souls, they do kindness not because of the fear of hell, not for heaven's sake. But because they find happiness and peace by doing kindness. It's as natural as a butterfly that beautifies the garden, as natural as the birds that keep singing every day. In the language of a Tibetan elder, the rainy season does not add the amount of water in nature. The dry season does not reduce the amount of water in nature. Likewise sadness-gladness, sorrow-joy, blame-praise increase nothing in life, and also reduce nothing in life. Everything flows peacefully as it is.

Author: Guruji Gede Prama.

Photo Courtesy: Twitter GaillardoJose.

Proofread by: Kirsty Spence.