Thou shall never find peace

Sorry to disappoint, but thou shall never FIND peace. Yes! The operating word is “find”. For peace is not a key that you lost somewhere to be found.  Nor is it an answer to a secret question that you have to crack.

Let me explain-

Imagine a glass of water placed on a table. It is still. When the table is moved a bit, the water gets agitated. In a while, the disturbance stops and the glass of water is still again. Suppose we consider the first state to be peace and the later to be disturbance. We realize that peace was always there. And when there was disturbance, peace didn’t "go" anywhere, it was n’t lost. The characteristic state of the glass of water changed from peace to disturbance. The moment the disturbance died down, there was peace again. In fact one can argue that peace and disturbance are not opposite of one another. On the other hand, they are inseparably linked! Yes! Absence of peace is disturbance, but so is absence of disturbance, peace.

Another example.

Imagine we open the door of a room and find it pitch dark. A common reaction from many of us would be – “there is no light here, it is so dark”. In essence, absence of light is darkness. Similarly, absence of darkness is light, though we do not find this expression in common usage - we do not often say, "it is so bright here, there is no darkness". So light and darkness, as many have said, are two sides of the same coin. One does not have an existence independent of the other. We can’t choose to have only one and not the other.  You try to remove one side of the coin; you will end up erasing the coin itself.

This possibly gives a clue to peace within us as well. We often want to “find” peace.  Let us try and remember those moments when we felt we were at peace. During those moments, did peace “come” into us from somewhere outside? Or was it always there “inside”, like in the glass of water? As in the above examples, can we say - absence of disturbance in us is peace and the absence of peace is disturbance? If so, can we ever have only peace and no disturbance? Or does peace have no meaning or existence without disturbance?

Shall thou ever “find” peace? I doubt so.