Discovering Real, Deep, Authentic Inner Peace

Transcribed from a public talk at Inner Space by Mike George

Part 1

I think the word ‘peace’ has been ‘done to death’ over the past 30 years. It started in the 1960’s with the ‘love and peace man’ era. That was when it got a bad name for being associated with the ‘anything goes as long as you feel good’ era of hippy culture. A temporary inner peace was achieved through self-indulgence, in order to find that feel good factor, often at the expense of others. Not until the late 1980’s did the theme of “peace” surface again. Then, we began to talk about peace in a slightly different, deeper and more serious way. Global projects were launched to try and bring ‘peace’ back into the world. Technology was triggering the collapse of centuries old barriers and borders, and we started to talk of a ‘peace dividend’. And then we got tired of it again, and like little children tiring of a toy that everyone seemed to be playing with, it went out of fashion.

Now, with the world a more stressful place than ever, it seems that ‘peace’ is once again the flavour of the month. For decades, if not centuries, ‘peace’ has been the goal of the human quest. We seek it in and through whatever we do; in our work, our relationships and whenever we travel. We are motivated by a longing for inner peace, but most of us are not aware of it most of the time. We haven’t registered that yet; we think we are searching for something else – happiness, love, freedom, success, the perfect partner – but the core experience we are searching for is peace – inner peace. Love and happiness are not possible until we are at peace.

So let me ask you, did you have a peaceful week? Was it a week filled with positive and peaceful events? Or did it start off peaceful and then go downhill all the way? The image of the tiger came to mind today, and maybe it is an appropriate image for you too; were there many tigers in your life this week? You know what happens when you’re walking quietly and peacefully in the jungle and suddenly, thirty yards up the path the tiger steps out in front of you. What do you do? What would you do? What would most people do? They’d run for their life. In fact asking you what you would do is the wrong question, because the right question would be, “How would you be?” not “What would you do?” How would you be when you are faced with the tiger? You’d be fearful. Most people would be fearful. Then I’d have to ask the question, “Why are you fearful?” It’s just a tiger! Is it the tiger that makes you fearful? It’s not the tiger that makes you fearful. It’s your imagination! It only takes a second to create a scene of absolute and utter disaster, an image of your body lying in a pool of blood, and the tiger prancing merrily into the jungle with one of your arms in its mouth. So what did you do? You created a picture of the worst possible outcome and then used that picture to frighten the living daylights out of yourself!

The tiger is of course just a metaphor. What or who are the tigers in your life? Other people, changes in your office, an interaction with your boss, or even just the sight of your boss coming into the office - you know what and who your tigers are, because you know how quickly you misuse your imagination and create fear. The moment you do that, you lose your most important human capacity and that is your ability to create. That’s why we are here. We can’t stop creating. We are intrinsically creative beings. You’re creating all the time. And so it’s only a question of how well we create. Here comes the tiger, and in that moment what do you create? If you create this image of total disaster, and then what happens to your creativity? Have you ever tried to be creative when you’re stressed? It’s impossible. It’s impossible to create and hold all the possible options – never mind choose the best option, when you are scared. In every scene in front of you, in every interaction you have, its possible to create a whole range of options as to how you could respond. This is what creativity really means. It’s scoping the options, assessing the options and then choosing to act on the best one. If our mind is filled with fear, if we paralyse ourselves with fear, then it is almost impossible to even begin to create the options from which to make an effective decision.

There are at least six different options in every situation, possibly even more. Go back to the tiger: No. 1 – you could run; No. 2 – you could face it; No. 3 – you could try and kill it; No. 4 – you could try and make a friend of it; No. 5 – you could stand absolutely still and do absolutely nothing; No. 6 – you could roar back and try to scare the living daylights out of it. How many human beings do you know who try and frighten you, but the moment you roar back, they’re straight out the door – have you ever noticed that? I’m not saying that is the right option, but it is an option. So, there are six different options and we haven’t even begun to talk about climbing the tree, or throwing something at it!

There are always many options in every situation, so the question is “What do I do when faced with a tiger in my life?” is wrong. The question is, “How should I be?” “How should I create my state of being, so that I can be as creative as possible in how I respond to my tigers?” That is why we have to take each one of our tigers, one at a time, and hold them in our mind and learn to create the right state of being. That is what will open up all possibilities. Then you’re going to be a person who is able to create a range of possibilities in every situation. We narrow our possibilities the moment we misuse our imagination and create a state of being that paralyses us like a rabbit caught in headlights. This is known as ‘fantasised catastrophizing’, otherwise known as worry, otherwise known as trying to influence something that can’t be influenced with your thoughts. This is why peace is important, because only when I’m peaceful, that is, only when I am able to create my state of being which is peaceful, calm and cool, can I then bring up on the canvas of my mind all the possible options that I have in that situation. Not only the options, but I then need to stay calm enough to make the correct choice. This can only happen when I am at peace with myself and within myself. The doing is the being.

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