Building peace in our hearts and minds

Today when terrorism and wars are trending, it is time to learn how to build peace in our hearts and minds. It is time to understand that we all cannot tolerate hatred, unrest and wars. Have a walk through this essay and checkout the easiest way of building peace in hearts and minds.



“Cute little baby

Slept comfortably in mother's arms.
Despite loud noises!!”

Pic courtesy: Wikipedia

What is peace? According to Google, peace means freedom from disturbance. In other words, peace is the state of mind where disharmony, ill feelings and emotions don’t affect one’s inner integrity and inner self. The haiku above, illustrates the same. A small baby never gets affected by rest of the world and noises, when it finds itself safer and comfortable in mother’s arms; in other way, when it finds ‘peace’ in mother’s arms.



It is very much necessary to understand what peace isn’t before actually beginning to understand what peace actually is? Often the misconceptions about ‘peace’ lead to misdeeds. So, what peace isn’t?



Peace is not a synonym of calmness. For example, one can be stressed out in the calmest places on earth and one can be at complete tranquility at the noisiest places on earth. This is because; peace is often misconstrued as silence. Sometimes, silence becomes the real cause of uproar. Usually people tries to find peace and prosperity in inanimate objects (called good luck charms by few). That is why; it is also must to know that Peace is neither a physical object to attain nor a path to walk upon. Often people claims to ‘search’ or ‘find’ peace as if it could be found out from somewhere. But peace can’t be bought and can’t be sold. Thus, peace is neither a silent place, nor a miraculous or real object. Then what peace is?



Peace is abstract. Peace is a feeling, an emotion or a state of mind; exactly like other feelings or emotions. Peace is not universal, because feelings, emotions and state of minds are also not universal. It is relative, in more sense, individualistic. Therefore, parameters of establishing peace can’t be universal. And here comes the necessity of finding ways to establish peace at relative level, in individual’s heart and mind.



How to attain “peace” as an emotion? Peace can be felt only when other feelings stop dominating oneself. All feelings bring different series of events, attachments and bonding with them. If love is dominating, it comes with desires, pampers and intimacy. If grief is dominating, it comes with pessimism, hatred, anger. Thus, feelings and emotions are in fact the real rulers of human personalities. And that is the reason why old scriptures, religious sayings and epics focus on dealing with insights, dealing with mind’s dynamically changing feelings, needs and comfort zones. When peace will be a dominating feeling, one is sure to be in the state of completeness.

Pic courtesy:Wikipedia

But is it possible to be completely isolated from other feelings and attain peace? No, for most of the people, it is next to impossible to stay isolated, especially in the era of digital shrinkage! So, what to do? How to attain peace in hearts and minds? For me there are two ways by which this can be done. First, cultivating satisfaction and second, stopping expectations (especially of results).



First one is quite clear. Dissatisfaction has always given birth to terrorism, wars and crime. If people cultivate satisfaction, automatically they would be relieved from stressful feelings like greed, selfishness, anger, jealousy and hatred. Satisfaction doesn’t mean non-competitiveness, nor does it mean defeat. Of course, the urge to upgrade one’s life is obvious. But satisfaction prevents this urge to get transform to greed and other linked events. Satisfaction can be achieved by not comparing oneself with others. The best way to achieve it is to compare oneself at present, with oneself at past. Satisfaction relaxes mind and lightens heart’s burden bringing internal happiness and ultimately peace.



The second one is trickier. “Stop expecting!” It is good to have aim, an ambition per se; but it is dangerous to expect. Everyone must have been through this-an event, or object or a person-not living up to expectations-causing immense pain and un-rest in heart. Therefore, every sage, every spiritual being, explains the same: “Continue to work with determination, but without expectation!” Thus, these were ways to attain peace.


Today when there is extreme terrorism, wars and hatred in the world, it has become essential to build peace and share peace. And indeed we are living in such dark times where selfishness matters than charity, competitions matter than unity. In such a dark times it is must to attain internal peace and tranquility.

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Footnote: This is the essay which I had submitted in Goi peace foundation Essay Contest. This foundation annually organizes essay contests on behalf of UNESCO. I could not win the contest yet got the participation certificate.

Kreative Karan -2015