The Peace that Passes Understanding
In the Christian New Testament, we find reference to ‘the peace that passes understanding.’ When I was heavily involved in Christianity, I had an intellectual understanding of what this meant but, no visceral, actual experience of it. It took ‘waking up’ through the Eastern spiritual traditions to really understand this Peace, since I didn’t find Christian mystics to lead me to it.
When ‘waking up’ happens, the ‘center of gravity’ of our experience shifts from the ego-mind to the Awareness that watches or registers the ego-mind arising. I sometimes call this the Registrar; some call it The Witness. This Registrar is effortlessly registering every thought, feeling, physical sensation, and sensory perception. This Registrar is really another disguise, though, and doesn’t have a knowable identity. Mystics and others call it by many names: Brahman, God, The Absolute, The Divine, The Radiant Darkness, and Emptiness being a few.
In spite of tumultuous circumstances (whether we call them ‘outer events’ or ‘inner turmoil’), The Absolute is always there registering everything that arises, sustains itself for a time, and passes away. Once aware that I Am That, it’s clear that the deepest part of human beings isn’t all the fluctuations of life or body or mind but, The Absolute. Knowing, intuiting and experiencing oneself to be the Absolute, is to sit in the Silent, Clear, Stillness that is doing all the registering of everything currently arising, whether pleasurable or painful. It is to sit in the Eye of any storm, and to experience the essential Stillness of The Absolute. This is the peace that passes understanding.
May all people who read this ‘wake up’ in this lifetime: it is possible!