Often we look at the outside world and find it in a state of seeming chaos or disorder. We feel compelled to transform the situation from turmoil into peace, yet we are often disappointed in our best attempts to do so. One reason for this is that we cannot bring what we do not have to offer to the world. Peace starts in our minds and hearts, not outside of ourselves, and until its roots are firmly entrenched in ourselves, we cannot manifest it externally. Once we have found it within, we can share it with our family, our community, and the whole wide world. Some of us may already be doing just that, but for most of us, the first step is looking within and honestly evaluating the state of our relationship to peacefulness.

Interestingly, people who manifest peace internally are not different from us; they have chattering thoughts and troubled emotions, as we all do. The difference is that they do not lend their energy to them, so those thoughts and feelings can rise and fall like the ocean’s waves without disturbing the deeper waters of peacefulness within. We all have this ability to choose how we distribute our energy, and practice enables us to grow increasingly more serene as we select the vibration of peace over the beat of conflict. We begin to see our thoughts and feelings as tiny objects on the surface of our being that pose no threat to the deep interior stillness that is the source of peacefulness.

When we find that we can locate ourselves more and more in the deeper waters and less on the rough surface of our being, we have discovered a lasting relationship with peace that will enable us to inspire peace beyond ourselves. Until then, we help the world most by practicing the art of choosing peace within.