Going Beyond Peace
“Thanks to you and other writers in this space, I've finally touched my own inner peace. While I know this is a beautiful gift, if I'm honest with myself, it's a little flat—as in, there's peace, but hardly any joy. Have you experienced this?”
There’s deep peace that comes with stillness. But joy only starts coming when the stillness is effortless. When there is no trying whatsoever in it. When the stillness just is.
We could say it’s like the stillness of a closed fist versus an open palm. There is stillness in both. But one is working much harder for it than the other. One hardly has room to breath. The other is simply effortlessly open and free.
We may say, ‘But I am never effortlessly still, ‘open and free’. This is impossible for me.’
Don’t be so quick to accept this limitation.
In moments of laughter, inwardly, there is effortless stillness. In moments of holding loved one’s or where your heart is resonating and vibrating with another heart, there’s stillness. In moments of sex and pleasure and even the self-abandonment that can come with a couple drinks, the same effortless stillness is there. Its simply a matter of slowly trickling this effortlessness out more into our daily lives.
In the meantime, ‘work’ may feel necessary to get there. Just as it feels very effortful to relax a fist that’s been closed for some time. The teacher Rupert Spira uses this example a lot. But the ‘work’ is simply a process of relaxation—relaxation of our body, our mind and our entire life energy. When relaxation is there, joy will have space to breath.