How Can I Gain Inner Peace?
Peace, in general may be defined as harmony or freedom from dissension between people or groups.
When we speak of inner peace, we are talking of ending a war within ourselves. Have you ever heard the saying, "The most difficult battle you'll ever face is the war withink yourself."
In my own life, I have found this saying to be absolutely true. The daily struggle for inner peace is a struggle between the flesh (material goods, personal desires and appetites) and the spirit (my value system). How do I bring the flesh and the spirit into harmony with each other and thus gain inner peace?
St. George of Nyssa, a fourth century Bishop, suggested, "Once we subject the wisdom of the flesh to God's law, we shal be recreated as one single person at peace. Then, having become one instead of two, we shall have peace within ourselves." (1) Sounds good, doesn't it?
But I found that before I could "subject the wisdom of the Flesh", I had to know what that wisdom was. I needed to know my felt bodily sense, my gut feeling of what was really keeping me from inner peace.
I attended a weekend workshop entitled "Bi-Spirituality Through Focusing." It was based on a book, Bio Spirituality, written by two priest-therapists who suggested that a process called "Focusing," as taught by Dr. Eugene Gendlin of the University of Chicago, is a practical method of body consciousness, a searching for bodily awareness, that is in fact a spiritual way of knowing not with our minds alone, but with our bodies. Focusing is a simple way of attending to meaning that is felt in the body, the interconnectedness of mind (head, reason) and body (solar plexus felt sense). Campbell and McMahon assert that there is "a felt truth, a felt meaning, a felt direction within each of us that can free us and guide us into the future. In touch living connects! It allows values and behaviors to change." (2) (For the source of a detailed description of focusing, cf. Bio- Spirituality endnote 2.)
It allows the light within (our spirit) to connect with the light without (our bodies and the rest of the physical world).
I have personally used the process of focusing for a number of years. It works! It does help me discover what is really keeping me from feeling peaceful at the particular time I am "focusing." It helps to synchronize my inner and outer selves with each other and with my environment. It helps me to cultivate peace within myself. I become peace (peaceful).
By achieving this inner peace I show that this faith I bear (Christian) is authentic. It is a faith that caused me to change. If we believe as I do, that Christ is the true light of my life then this light must be evident in my life by what I do.
My inner peace must enable me to reach out to others to live virtuously to become light to others after I become light within myself.
Through living out the virtue of Justice, I give God his due, ie., worship and first place in my life. I try to respect the rights of every person and behave accordingly. As is written in Liviticus, 9:15, "You should not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor."
Each of the other virtues, especially Prudence and Temperance enable all of us who have gained inner peace and are persistent in retaining it, to show how this inner peace affects us and others.
We all want to be at peace with ourselves. This is what it means to live happily. The Beatitudes that Jesus proclaimed respond to this desire. When we feel and act that "Blessed are the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure of heart, and the peacemakers." (3)
When we can rejoice and be glad, even when reviled and persecuted, and we are then really showing that we are called from death in every form by The Light, Jesus Christ, He becomes the source of our inner peace, the harmonizer, for he is peace itself!
Endnotes
1. p. 107, Liturgy of the Hours, vol. 4. Catholic Book Publishing Co., N.Y., 1975.
2. Peter A. Campbell and Edwin M. McMahon, Bio Spirituality (Chicago, Illinois: Lyola
University Press, 1985), p.6. This and subsequent references for this work are reprinted by permission of the Publisher, Lyola University Press.
Author note: I was taught "focusing" using the 1985 edition. There is a second (1997) edition that has an expanded Foreword and Preface. Chapter titles are the same but there are two new appendices.
3. Matthew 5: 3-12, pp. 1014 | 1015, The New American Bible, Catholic World Press, 1987
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