It’s always the same question every day, and it’s always down every day to our thirst and quest of feeling good, doing better, feeling stability, feeling peace. A lot has been said about it, a lot has been promised and a lot has been written. You can even find books and manuals: “Happiness in 30 Questions and Answers”, “Inner Peace in Three Days” kind of “Learn Chinese in 2 Weeks without a Teacher”…. Lots of theories, lots of talks… But what do we really know about our inner peace, about who we are?
If you are buying fruits at the market, let’s say cherries, the shop keeper may swear the cherries in his shop are the best, that they are of the highest sort , of the best price and of a super taste… But you wouldn’t care. You’d reach with your hand to one of these fruits and taste it. You taste one… You don’t have to eat a full plate… just one. One cherry is enough… And aaaah! Yes! Here it is! Experience.
You’ve heard so much about peace, about making your life better, that you either stopped feeling the difference between what you’ve learned and what you have experienced and you start taking for granted what you’ve been told (it’s either credible sources that create this mess or steady repetition of the same so-called “facts”); or that you have become skeptical about whoever talks about this subject… But nevertheless, there will always be a difference between experience and information; and there will always be this quest… always the thirst for peace, serenity, joy, for feeling secure.
When you enter a room, the first thing you look for is familiar faces. If you are abroad and you hear somebody talking your mother tongue you naturally feel ease, you connect to this person… Whether you are aware of it or not, this thirst for peace, for feeling oneself at home is the only desire of which all other desires and wishes are just masks and curtains… It is the only desire which guides all other desires.
It just so happens that yoga is the tool we are using to obtain experience; other tools may also serve… But the advantage of our tool is that each time you practice hatha yoga or meditation you taste one cherry; you experience a glimpse of this peace and tranquility you have long since aspired to!
Where did it come from? How was it obtained?
It didn’t come from anywhere! It is not obtained either! It has always been there! In your heart… It’s just that you are more aware of it now. It’s just that you are listening… Yes… in your heart. All the oceans of peace, all the joy of the world are in your heart! Reach to it… trust it!
