Some teachings on peace
Subjects for Contemplation.
Karma, a Sanskrit word that means action, is a principal teaching that reveals how we ourselves create the effects that surround us, how our own actions and intentions carry over into consequences in our daily lives. This principle of karma teaches us that we must take responsibility for our actions, that we are the architects of our fate. Karma also emphasizes the continuity of existence. If we are dissatisfied with our life today, which is the product of the way we have thought, felt, and acted in previous times, that is sour Karma, then we certainly can change it. Further, You can't change anyone or anything unless you change first, unless you purge yourself of your false thinking and wrong acting. When this happens, you find those around you changing, and pretty soon an arc of influence develops.
There is one world, one peace, one heart, one being. Seek to be of this, in love. Through love - to love all, this will convey global peace and healing.
Your neighbor is your unknown self made visible. His face shall be reflected in your still waters, and if you gaze therein you shall behold your own countenance. Should you listen in the night, you shall hear him speak, and his words shall be the throbbing of your own heart. Be unto him that which you would have him be unto you.
You shall not be yourself alone. You are in the deeds of other men, and they though unknowing are with you all your days. They shall not commit a crime and your hand not be with their hand.
They shall not fall down but that you shall also fall down; and they shall not rise but that you shall rise with them. Their road to the sanctuary is your road, and when they seek the wasteland you too seek with them.
You and your neighbor are two seeds sown in the field. Together you grow and together you shall sway in the wind. And neither of you shall claim the field. For a seed on its way to growth claims not even its own ecstasy.
Pray for your enemies that all may be well with them. And should you think this is not serving God, rest assured that more than all prayers, this is, indeed, the service of God.
Let us know that we are all one in the Reason of the universe; that the phenomenal world is real only to the extent it manifest Reason; that egotism has no absolute sway in this life, for it destroys itself when it tries to preserve itself through its arrogant assertions; and that perfect peace is only attained when each man sees himself in his neighbor. Let us all be enlightened to these things and our ignorance and egoism will be disassociated from us. When the wall that divided is destroyed, there is nothing which prevents us from loving our enemies, for the source of loving kindness is open in our hearts. The eternal current of sympathy has now found its unobstructed path.
Inwardness enables us to harmonize our different ways of knowing, to make them cooperative, to set up inner cooperation in our own mind. This inner cooperation and harmony makes our mind more peaceful even when it is active. The place of reflection, the place of pure knowingness of inner and outer, is always at peace.
When you see that someone hates you and does you harm, rally your spirit and love him more than before. That is the only way you can make him turn. For the whole of Israel is a vehicle for holiness. If love and unity prevail among them, then the Divine Presence and all holiness is about them. But if - God forbid! - there should be a schism, a rift appears, and through the opening holiness falls down into the 'shells.' And so, if your neighbor grows remote from you in spirit, you must approach him more closely than before - to fill out the rift.
Concerning the words of the prayer: "He who maketh peace in his high places, may he make peace for us . . ." We all know that Heaven (shamayim) came into being when God made peace between fire (esh) and water (mayim). And he who could make peace between the utmost extremes, will surely be able to make peace between us.
Once, on the ninth day of Av, the anniversary of the destruction of the Temple, Rabbi happened to be in a community whose members had for a long time been nursing a quarrel which grew more and more involved and difficult to end. One of the factions approached him with the request to arbitrate. "But the rabbi," so they said, "will probably not want to bother with our affairs in this period of mourning."
"No day is better than this," he replied. "For it was because of an idle quarrel that the city of God was destroyed."
Peace comes into the world through the individual as well as the presence of other beings not of this world. It is necessary for the person to clear the qualities of personality to become the lens of love and transmitter of peace. Eliminating the negative characteristics is only a preliminary stage. Beyond that is the clarifying of self. Loss of individuality and the becoming of the transmitter of peace, harmony, joy, and blessings through the personality is becoming of That One, of which one is, but now realizes again, remembers. This is needed for the transmission of health, peace, and joy through daily life. It is here that one starts, with oneself, for all are also part of oneself as well as apparently apart.
Listen to a talk on this subject