' Inner Peace begins the moment you choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions.'
(Eckart Tolle)
Really? Is that it? Is that is all that it takes to attain a state of utter peace and calm, dignified in the face of any storm, protected against any Weltschmerz that might attach itself to the anxious heart? You simply choose not be be upset and voila!
Alas..... this statement is as loaded as a script direction for a Stage farce...one sentence.....loads of work,endless repetition until some sort of expertise is achieved...or ,as in my case, NOT.
Oh how I yearn for a time when I will be of serene countenance, simply drenched in an endless supply of Inner Peace. To be in a place of quiet introspection, to be able to withstand any onslaught in dignified silence and objectivity, assimilating the Lesson that must be learnt, ( or repeated ad nauseam) , until said tutorial has been processed by the focused mind and heart.
After part- taking in many a meal at the Big Karma Cafe, one wants to be respectful and must heed .
Through a process of liking a couple of pages on Face book, I now have a supply of uplifting and encouraging messages that I share with great abandon...'.We teach best what we need to learn the most'.. indeed.
I am sitting on my new stoep, after recently moved into a new cave with my partner. There is peace around me and within me, the birds are frantically chirping and pecking at the breakfast buffet we offer to them every day, various pieces of art are dangling from the trees and the pallet coach that I treated with wood stain is comfortable and a purple cushion adds to the mojo.
The reason for all this tranquility is that I am hidden away from any visual pollution that may want to assail my senses.
Please tell me how anyone is able to attain and maintain 'Inner Peace', if the first thing you see on a billboard in the morning is something like: 'Woman's genitals cut off by Lover', or, 'Nine year old rape and burn victim dies, Father is devastated' , , or any of the political posturing that reached frantic levels in a pre-election South Africa, let alone the Nigerian school girls that were abducted or the Oscar Pistorius trial that screamed at you from every street corner..
I have not and will not respond to any of the vitriolic posts about Oscar's legal dilemma, but I have been quite shocked at the ghoulish intensity of some suggestions of revenge, and the horrendous punishments that people want to dish out to him...The LGBT debacle in Uganda and Nigeria...Christians dancing gleefully in the street while a man is burnt alive for suspicion of being homosexual..
Does having Inner Peace mean that you are are somehow insulated against events? Is insulated the way to go? How does one find and keep the balance between being a caring individual ( who is involved in life), and a fulfilled human being, continuously fueled with an ample supply of Inner Peace?
I have recently failed spectacularly at this. It took one railroad thin, tall, angry woman,( who dared scream at me), for me to lose my hard won peace completely, and within two seconds I was shouting back like a fish-wife on crack. My exit line at the end of this nebulous argument was vile, I am ashamed to say...
'The danger of arguing with an idiot, is that in no time at all, you start sounding like one.'( I can't remember who said this, but it sounds a bit like Mark Twain or Oscar Wilde.)
How does one become the calm in the storm, a quiet and wise Goddess that supports, and actively assists others,( while not being torn apart by the horror of what passes as Civilization), if one can't even ignore some garden variety pettiness and rise above? At my age it is undignified and immature, to say the least.
Namibia ( my birth place) allowing a wild herd of elephants to be hunted for meat.... one of only two such herds in the world....
Still reeling from that shock and writhing in embarrassment, I had to read about the poor owls that are being decapitated, eyes poked out, children cutting off the legs of the unfortunate bird with scissors...people are scared of owls........never mind the fact that rats will gnaw at your baby while you sleep....So, this great natural incentive to rid the rat infested suburbs have now given birth to yet more senseless cruelty.....
I have slowly become accustomed to the traffic in the City and I actually had quite a pleasant drive to work a couple of months ago.....until I saw the headlines screaming at me:
' 4 year old boy dragged behind car'
I was utterly devastated, as were the parents of the poor child and a great deal of outraged citizens as well. I still have not come to terms with it completely, and as a parent I doubt that one can ever recover from such an atrocious event.
How does one not have this kind of happening affect your psyche?
So, it is back to the stoep I go, crochet needle and wool in hand, crazily busy creating something, anything that will help to chase the horror away.
I change the colour of the blanket I crochet when some dark thoughts want to invade my peace and I say thank you, thank you, thank you for every good and positive spirit in this world.
Thank you to the man who drags a huge bundle of recyclables behind him to go and sell for food, thank you to every Security Guard,who spends hours alone protecting properties and people, whilst watching the protected elite pass him/her every day without so much as a glance of recognition, no greeting, no connection.
I greet strangers and compliment random people on their appearance, and I love the glow that comes to their weary faces!
I don't care if they think I am mad, every single person that I have lovingly accosted responded with a smile, sometimes it even goes into a chat, and its cool to listen to their stories.
We live on top of a rather hellish hill, suffice to say that offering a bone weary domestic worker or burdened Gogo a lift is most gratifying.
When things become really bad, and the words 'torture' and 'rape' shriek at you from all sides, my only advice is to put on some Percy Sledge at full volume and clean the hell (literally!) out of everything in sight.
You will eventually be to tired to obsess and it's a fine thing to see your cupboards organized and for a moment there you can almost believe that you are sort of in control of something for a change.
In the words of wonderful Kate Bush: 'This woman's work is never finished'
Desperately hanging on the whatever Inner Peace is to be had..spread the love*
Stocking up on cleaning materials and appropriate music**
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