Let's be honest: the world is a spastic convulsion of violence, and we are that world. We must begin here; we must admit this truth without protest, embarrassment, or equivocation; without blame, defense, or explanation. It is true, pure and simple. Whatever peace exists is but a facade, behind which is more brutality. True peace has never been achieved, nor will it ever be achieved, whether by individuals, families, societies, or nations. We must go beyond peace.
Peace is thought of as the absence of conflict, violence, or war, and their muted latencies: deception, resentment, and anger. This peace is related to its opposite, its murky twin, and is only a suppression of violence. We may achieve, this kind of peace for a moment only--and then that moment moves and the dark side of peace breaks out, bombastic and vehement. At best, the peace that can be achieved is only a phase of the whole moon, the dark side of which is hatred and violence. It may last a day, a year, or a hundred years; yet within this extended moment of peace the vibrating seeds of war are waiting to burst open, like a pregnant pomegranate. True peace has never been achieved. We must go beyond peace.
The conflict, violence, and war we want to end will not end, because we have not seen its cause. The cause is fear. The cause is ignorance. The cause is homelessness.
Fear is the by-product of living exclusively within our defined identities: man, woman; white, black; American, Iranian; thin, fat; Catholic, Hindu; holy, sinful; heterosexual, homosexual. Living within these identities, we are always afraid of the "other," that which we are not. Our survival is dependent upon the survival of our identities, and those that are different will always be a threat. Even if peace and harmonious accord are established, fear remains. It is only a matter of time before we are again in conflict with the "other." We will always be suspicious, and therefore afraid.
Ignorance is identity itself, which becomes fear as it struggles to survive. The Sufi poet Rumi wrote, "A True Human Being is the essence, the original cause. The world and the universe are secondary effects." Ignorance is believing that we are the secondary effects, not the original cause. Our ignorance creates these masks of secondary effects; our fear is our forgotten essence.
Homelessness is to be separated from our most common, native residence, our place of belonging. We can not be at home in identities and fear; they are both uncommon, both distortions, both brutal in their isolation. Ignorance and fear send us into the unforgiving streets of homelessness, where turf battles and broken peace are the sum total of our history. We must go beyond peace.
Peace has never been achieved because ignorance, fear, and homelessness remain within us, like enemy spies. We must go beyond the peace that can be achieved, for that peace is only a phase of violence. We must experience what is beyond this kind of peace.
That which is beyond peace has been experienced, not by a few, but by many, by most, maybe by all; we, too, can experience what is beyond peace and war. That which is beyond peace is the original cause, the first principle: an unbreakable silence within each of us, a spiritual radiance, a fire-storm of heartbreaking equilibrium. It is not an accord with violence; it is a communion with that spirit which bestows life and beauty in such measure and clarity that ignorance, fear, and homelessness dissolve and disappear instantly, gone, gone, gone never to return. Beyond peace is an equilibrium that can not be disturbed.
This equilibrium has many doors that are unlocked and waiting to be used. One door is love. One door is beauty. One door opens a millisecond before death. Another door is between two thoughts, and another door is found resting like a harbor seal on the flat shiny rock of the breath as it pauses between in and out. There are many doors to that which is beyond peace.
Why then, if we want peace, do we not go through the doors to what is beyond peace? The reasons are the same as the causes of violence: fear, ignorance, and homelessness. It's as though we are caught in an exquisite conundrum, or walled within a horror house of evil mirrors. Where is the answer? Where is the exit?
The answer and exit is beyond peace: in the original cause, the first principle, the unbreakable silence. You know this. I know this. Go there. Go to the silence. Go through the many doors. Think of nothing else. Do not hesitate. Do not think. Do not deliberate.
We must go immediately through the doors to that which is beyond peace and war, beyond conflict and fear, beyond violence and ignorance. There is our home, there is our essence, there is our truth.
May everyone be at peace, in love, and know their most perfect Self.
Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, and consultant who has spent twenty-five years exploring the nature of self, reality, and consciousness through meditation and self-inquiry. Hermosa Beach, CA. Fax: (310) 379-4885. E-mail: robrabbin@aol.com. Internet: www.robrabbin.com.