Creative Peace

Love means to enjoy the eternal in the passing by creating forms of beauty and ideas of truth, to understand nature and to transform the raw and chaotic into harmony. We cannot be happy unless we understand our place in nature, and make progress in learning, virtue, and in appreciation of beauty all around. We must observe, think and act to create a new order of peace within us and in the social surroundings in which we are placed. Our progress must be simultaneous on the planes of nature, intellect and spirit. In this way, we can find happiness.

Nature reveal its secrets to one who progresses harmoniously on all the planes of existence. Such a person feels the throb of the cosmic life in their own life, the ideas of the cosmic mind in their intellect, and the bliss of the abiding spirit in their soul. This state is called peace or shanti. Unless love leads to this peace, it is incomplete. Nature is ever productive and also destructive. The soul of a person of shanti is ever at one with nature, the cosmic mind and the spirit. We are not disturbed by the acts of nature, but are above the pairs of opposites, and we live creatively, prompted by the higher law of compassion.

Forgiveness, contentment, love of obscurity, creation of the good through writing, well wishing to all—this is the root of compassion. Life can never be entirely free from the pairs of opposites. Spring is followed by winter; youth will give place to old age; many who pose as friends today will abuse you tomorrow. To expect the mind to enjoy pleasure is to turn the course of the river Ganges northwards.

Our duty is to progress so that our state of mind rises above hope and fear, pleasure and pain. How to do so? First decide to base your life on inner peace. Avoid lethargy, which precedes a relapse into a life of waste or ruin. If you need a personal support, focus your mind on some spiritual personality that epitomises for you the highest wisdom. Then, to avoid fatigue, teach the mind to rest in abstraction.

Even pilgrims get fatigued. Meditate on the contents of a great spiritual utterance, such as the holy gayatri or the Lord’s prayer of Christ, or ‘I am’ or OM. Meditation, when done well, makes the mind peaceful like the autumn sky, free from clouds and storms. Stay in that state as a witness. Enjoy that state. The mind when in this state, which is called samadhi, will be charged with inspiration. Utilise the inspiration in adoration of God, nature, art, literature and benevolence.

To cut out all desire for praise or recognition, not to seek publicity, is essential to a good life. It is a subtle malady, like the first stages of consumption, and the yogi must be careful. The mind must be taught daily the futility of name and fame and also the wastefulness of publicity. Let us make virtue and philosophy illustrious and not our petty self. A Chinese Zen master travelled extensively. His teaching was sincere and full of humility. He attracted many people. When they asked him his name and place of abode, he just lifted one finger and left them. He declared the unity of all.

Difficulties, such as illness, loss of possession and disappointment, can be turned into opportunities to grow in patience, peace, fortitude and a higher understanding. To give way to grief, to love to be melancholy and to grow bitter, is to lose the battle of life. It is stupidity to expect no illness, loss or disadvantage. These are bound to come. Like the waves in the water, the changes in the weather, and the movement of the clouds in the sky, our daily life must be subject to ups and downs. We must be prepared to meet these changes with tranquillity, to keep our mind set on the ideal. The ideal must be universal and based on promoting the good and happiness of others.

There are two worlds: the world of time-space-causation and the realm of transcendence. The world of the mind is the link between the two. The sensations of the external world impress the mind through experiences, and the mind interprets and evaluates them to the soul. We cannot prevent the sensations, but to interpret them, to find ways to turn them into means of utility and progress in peace and moral order, is within our power, and it is our destiny to do so. Human beings have managed to survive amidst the rigorous changes of nature, by meeting them with skill. Fatalism is the lowest view of life.

A young and thoughtful military officer, who was once trained for monastic life, became friendly with me. While speaking of the life of a soldier, which is exposed to danger much more than the life of a merchant or a scholar, he remarked: ‘I know I may be killed in battle any day, but I will try to make the world of the future more secure and perhaps happy.’ I was impressed by this remark, and thought that the principle should be applied to other departments of life. An old Sanskrit proverb says: ‘It is better to be unknown than to live exclusively for your own good.’

At one time I was an extreme coward in life. When misfortune came in my way, I cried, and asked the starry heaven for help, as it rolled on as helplessly as any other object in nature. My teacher, Shri Dada, taught me the lessons of calmness and equilibrium. When the first shocks of misfortune come, I pause and study them, and take refuge in my inner Self, the realm of eternity. Life is a school; we graduate in it at the time of death.

How life should be lived in peace and in creative activity is illustrated by the way in which the great monk-poet, Basho, lived. Simplicity was the keynote of his life; contentment and satisfaction are attributes of the mind which can be cultivated, in independence of the external conditions. Basho met life with a plain severity and tender affection to his pupils and to nature in general. One of his disciples was named Sampu. He supplied his teacher with all the necessities of life.

To Basho, the happiness of the New Year was the remembrance of the fidelity and affection of his pupils, symbolised in the rice remaining over from the year before. He says in a poem:

The beginning of spring,
For me the New Year—
Five pounds of rice from last year.

Basho’s complete lack of affectation is illustrated in the following verse:

I am one
Who eats his breakfast
Gazing at the morning glories.

This verse shows that the true poetic life is not here in gazing at the butterflies, but in eating one’s rice and pickles for breakfast, and enjoying whatever nature and the seasons bring us.

Basho discarded the life of luxury and often went without meals to learn contentment and exercise courage. His disciple Chora gives us a picture of him:

In travelling attire
A stork in late autumn rain—
The old master, Basho.

The English poet, Keats, held up before himself more or less the same kind of ideal.

At the start of one of his journeys, Basho writes:

Resigned to death by exposure
How the wind goes through me.

Basho did not mind dying by the roadside. He was not afraid of death and was willing to entertain it whenever it came. He held that without an intimate contact with cold and hunger, real spirituality is impossible. He was offered a comfortable hermitage in his old age, to live in and meditate on the Buddhist ideal, but having a missionary spirit, he preferred to teach the people all over Japan to tread the way of the Buddha. In another poem, he writes:

The end of the year fair;
I would like to go out
And buy some incense sticks.

How beautifully in this verse he illustrates the modesty of his desire, as nothing is cheaper or more commonplace than incense sticks in Japan.

Basho was once returning from Ise, the home of the gods of Shinto, to his native place, which had sad memories for him. Passing through the lonely forest, the cold rain pattering on the fallen leaves, he saw a small monkey sitting huddled on a bough. Sensing the passive pathos of the monkey, he comments:

First winter rain;
The monkey also seems
To want a small straw cloak.

Basho was free from sentimentality for the monkey in distress. He knew this life was full of discomfort, and he faced it with great peace; in a sense he thought life’s difficulties were desirable, giving us deeper understanding and empathy.

Basho was not a great poetical genius by birth. During the first forty years of his life, his writings were mediocre, but by constant endeavour and study, by observation of nature with a tranquil heart, by concentrating his mind on the infinite within, he acquired excellence in writing verse.

Basho is not only the greatest of all the Japanese poets, but is also one of those rare people who teach how to live best by the way they themselves live. In the life of Shri Dada, those who lived in comfort and luxury were not criticised; in order to live up to the supreme ideal, he himself cultivated indifference to the external conditions, and employed the energy thus preserved to study, meditation and teaching his fellow men.

In my Himalayan pilgrimages I often met pilgrims who travelled in sedan chairs with stocks of provisions and a staff of cooks to cater for their needs. But happier by far were the simple devotees who travelled on foot, merged in meditation on the beauty of nature. The ones who clung to their own comforts, were insensitive to the needs of others, and easily lost their patience when confronted by a little adversity or want.

Do not seek success in the outer life; it does not exist there. Would you like to squeeze oil out of the desert sand? Look at the outer life of Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Shankara, St Francis, Swami Rama Tirtha and Shri Dada. From the empirical point of view, each was a dismal failure. Cultivate patience, tranquillity, unconditional forgiveness, benevolence, fortitude and devotion to the Lord. Be a giver, a giver only. Learn the philosophy of non-duality with patience and faith. That is all, and that is enough. In the lines of Longfellow:

Let us then be up and doing
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

We have only one enemy and it is sloth, inner darkness, the will to rest. Fight the inner battle with patience, and keep God in your heart. You will be helped.

Hari Prasad Shastri