A few years ago I wrote a blog post about my deep desire to find inner peace. If you are interested, you can read it here. This afternoon I felt a strong urge to read it again and see where am with this issue, three years later.
The first thing that I noticed is that both not much has changed and everything has changed. For those of you thoroughly ensconced on the spiritual path, these kinds of paradoxes will be familiar to you and might just elicit a wry chuckle. For those of you less familiar with these ways of thinking, let me try to explain a bit more.
When I read that article now, I recognise that everything I wrote is still true for me. I still struggle to find inner peace. I am still regularly swept up in the wondrous storm of human emotions. I ride the highs and crash down to the lows. I am frightened, angry, beautiful and loving. I am all these things, each and every day.
The thing that has changed is that I know myself just a little more deeply. I have seen sides of myself that I had barely noticed three years ago. I feel the warmth of light in the deepest parts of my being and sometimes, just sometimes, it gives me stillness.
The bit that I wanted to share with you today, is that it is the light inside us that is our peace. We are our own peace. It is not just about being in the moment (although it is that). It is not just about letting go of resistance (although it is that too). It is not just about glimpsing our true nature (although, most of all, it is that).
Here is how it comes to me: Once upon a time you were a ball of the most radiant light. Then you came down to Earth to embody your earthly existence and, goddammit, if you didn’t just forget that you were this ball of perfection and radiance almost immediately. You started to feel the lack. Something was missing; something was wrong. You started to search. You started to desire. You started to miss.
You spent years trying to figure out what on Earth you were missing. You looked in every nook and cranny; overturned every stone. Yet you still couldn’t find it.
After a lot of searching, you sat down on the ground and started to breathe.
And, like in all good fairy tales, it was then that you found what you had been looking for all along.
And what do you know? It was exactly where you had been all of the time.
If you are reading this and thinking: Sarah, I hate these kinds of spiritual parables. It makes no freaking sense at all and you are driving me crazy!
I would say: Yes, I know. It is frustrating and confusing and makes no sense at all and yet, at the same time, you know that it is right.
