Peace is both the heart of our being and the power of our life. If you did not return regularly to your heart, your spiritual heart, to be nourished by your inner peace, you would likely be permanently exhausted, easily burnt out, over stimulated, hyperactive and a real hurry and worry addict.
Peace is one of those words that seems to have lost its true meaning, its real significance. Real peace, true peace, is not the absence of war or the resolving of conflict between two sides. Authentic peace is a state of being, which shapes a state of mind, which generates positive and focussed thinking, which are then expressed as proactive attitudes and behaviours.
Every human being is intrinsically creative by virtue of the fact that every human can think and choose, discern and select the thoughts they would like to manifest in the world. However, the ‘quality’ of our thoughts is another question. If creativity is a function of consciousness then the ‘quality’ of your creation is a line along which whatever you create may be measured. At one end of the line is low ‘quality’ thinking/creating i.e. negative, cruel, angry and ugly thoughts. At the other end of the line is high ‘quality’ thinking/creating, i.e. positive, compassionate, loving and caring thoughts. If that line were now stood on one end, with the low ‘quality’ at the bottom, and the high ‘quality’ at the top, and if we could imagine it as a thermometer with ‘peace’ as the mercury indicating the level of ‘quality’, at what level would you find your thinking/creating?
Inner peace is both the foundation and the sustenance of positive thinking and beautiful thinking. Perhaps the occasional inspirational thought could be ‘triggered’ by cruel or angry intentions, but a steady flow of insight and inspiration is guaranteed when the mind is quiet and peaceful. Just as we cannot see deeply into the ocean if there is a storm on the surface so we cannot see and allow what is deeply within our self to rise to the surface if there is mental and emotional turmoil.
Ask a writer why they suffer from bouts of writer’s block and most will tell you it is because of distracted attention, obsessive thought patterns or simply an agitated mind that is disturbing their inner peace thereby blocking and distorting the mental flow that generates their creativity. Take a second glance at works of many modern artists. Do you see something of great beauty or an expression of mental darkness, confusion and fragmentation? Yes it is creative, but what is the ‘quality’ of the creativity. Listen to modern music. Are you struck by the beauty of the tones, the subtle harmonies within its structures, or are you shocked and shaken by the edgy, often discordant tune, which is also accompanied by words that express the creator’s angst, frustrations and solemnity? The purpose is not to criticise, but to review, to sense the presence of ‘quality’, or its absence.
Perhaps the message here is simple – when we lose touch with our inner peace the quality of our creativity is degraded, the quality of our expression is distorted and the quality of our life will consequently be polluted. This is not to say that life is always a bowl of cherries when you are ‘in your peace’. Wordsworth knew loneliness intimately (as we all probably do even in a crowd) but the nature of his peace, and the peace of his nature, allowed him to ‘behold’ (hold in his being) and celebrate the beauty of the daffodil.
We are all creators, all artists, all in the process of manifesting our life from inside out, not outside in. It is often only when we are fully aware that the ‘quality’ of our creation originates from, and is dependent upon, our state of being, that we value and consciously nurture our inner peace.
The ‘quality’ of our peace correlates directly with the ‘quality’ of our creation.
Question: What is peace exactly and how do you know peace ..exactly?
Reflection: Think back on something of high quality and of low quality that you have created in your life. Notice your state of being in each instance.
Action: Try this today. When you read the newspaper, look at the billboard, listen to the music, and see if you can measure the quality of the creator’s peacefulness that lies behind their creation. Don’t judge it, criticise or condemn it. Just see if you can ‘see’ it. At the end of the day look back and see your day as a painting, and discern what was the ‘quality’ of your peace behind the creation of your day. What would be the reading on your inner peace thermometer? Set out tomorrow to see only, and create only, the highest ‘quality’ of thoughts and images.
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