Tuesday Reflection: Peace Has No Price
Many of us are still asleep—not because we lack intelligence or ability, but because we have not yet turned our gaze inward. We search everywhere except the one place that matters: within. To see the light, one must first enter and understand the darkness that lives inside. This darkness is not the monsters of the outside world, not the corruption of society, nor the evil of others. It is subtler, closer, more intimate: it is the fear that grips our heart, the insecurity that clouds our mindset, the judgments that weigh down the soul. Only by facing this internal night can one recognize the radiance that is waiting. And only then does the truth become clear—peace cannot be bought, bargained for, or bestowed by another. Peace has no price. Yet, the path to peace is rarely chosen and most often times we’re forced to find it … but when we lost all that bound us outside of us delusion, vanities, illusions we became what we sought for all along. The majority of us, look outward, distracted and seduced by the endless noise of the world: media that tells us who to be, how to look, dress, behave, social norms that dictate what is acceptable, material pursuits that promise fulfillment but leave us emptier, and the dramas of other lives that divert attention from their own. This outward chasing is like running in circles—pursuing a horizon that always recedes. The more we seek outwardly, the further we drift from ourselves. The real problem is not that peace is absent. Peace has always been here, quietly waiting beneath the chaos. The real obstacle is resistance—the unwillingness to be still, to confront one’s own thoughts, to sit in silence without reaching for a distractions. This is so, for silence terrifies many because in silence the masks fall, the roles collapse, and the raw self appears. It is this encounter with the self, this moment of unflinching presence, that most avoid. But peace demands nothing less. It does not require perfection, achievement, or answers. It requires only presence. It asks us to stop the endless seeking and instead, rest in what is, to accept the fullness of the moment without judgment. This surrender may feel like the hardest task of all, but it is the only way the soul can remember its wholeness.