Bringing Peace to the Planet Through Meditation
September 12, 2009No one would argue that the world is noisier these days than it has ever been, in some cities and countries reaching nearly intolerable decibels. War, bombs, and explosions have multiplied around the world. The intense and heated shouts of antagonist political and religious fanatics merge into indecipherable racket. Faster, noisier, and more “extreme” seems to envelope the market. What doesn’t disturb our ears, affronts our eyes. Billboards, once merely ugly, now digitally light up the night with advertisements. Unwanted ads float across our computer monitors like phantoms, and then stop, blocking our ability to read more valued words underneath them. In addition, what we see is horrifying. Acts of violence and catastrophic events that have produced pain and suffering are played over and over again, in full color, on the news. Where can peace be found in these times? How can we get there from here? Peace can be found within each of us, at the still, quiet core of our being. And the way to get there is through meditation.
By closing our eyes we turn away from the world, and by turn within, we find what seemed unknowable and elusive, but was always there…peace. As we slow the pace of our breathing and allow our body to let go of stress and anxiety… we find peace. Through the slowing of the hyperactivity of our thoughts, until they gently drift, like falling leaves, and settle into nothingness…we find peace.
This type of meditation enlivens every cell, fiber, and tissue of our being. In this way, this type of meditation can be healing. This type of meditation momentarily ends the jabber of our mind. In this way, it can be revealing.
The constrictions of body and mind disappear when we meditate in this way, and they frequently do not return when we open our eyes and face the world again. The peace that we have experienced within becomes the peace of our actions in the world.
It is, perhaps, more crucial than ever for each of us to meditate — to bring forth peace in ourselves and, therefore, bring peace to the world.