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Peace Chain
by Jinjer Stanton
It begins by taking self outside the clamor of calamities. If, for a few moments every day, we let go of worrying about the war in Iraq and the competency of the president and his advisors; if we draw our attention away from the misery in Calcutta and the chaos in Afghanistan; if we release the murder and mayhem close to home and the politics at work, and turn inside, we begin to build a chain of peace.
We let go of the inadequate supper or the drive home and simply breathe. We let go of the children arguing and pay attention instead to the movement of breath in our lungs. For just five or ten minutes we pay close attention to the way our lungs expand and contract. We follow the breath all the way in to the point where it turns and we begin to exhale. We follow it out until it turns again and we begin to inhale. Gently we allow our awareness of our breath to carry us deeper and deeper within.
Admittedly, at first, this may not seem useful or productive, but if we persist without expectation, simply doing it because we decided to do it, there comes a day when miracles happen. We find ourselves in a spacious place without past or future and we return to the world we think we know in a state of deep peace.
As we do this again and again, the peace stays with us for longer and longer until it becomes who and how we are each day. We respond to the world rather than react to it. The children argue less and when they do argue, the arguing does not throw us into turmoil. The drive home becomes less stressful. The politics at work bother us less, and may even change because we no longer are a vital link in the drama. People around us become less desperate.
Studies have shown this. Simple meditation by a single person has profound effects on the people around him or her. The person who meditates becomes a pool of quiet peace and people behave differently in that person's presence. In fact, studies have shown that when one percent of a given population meditates, the entire population experiences a decrease in violence. All without anyone forcing anyone else to do anything.
Why does this happen? Because, as spiritual teachers have told us time and again, we are all connected. We are all part of one another. When someone on the far side of the globe dies of malnutrition or terrorism, it is we who die. We feel it even if we know nothing about it. This is often used as an excuse to take up arms against poverty and injustice.
While we should, indeed, take action, perhaps it would be more effective for us to begin by meditating. If we cultivate a garden of peace within ourselves, that peace touches the lives of people far distant from us who may not have anything in their immediate environment that suggests peace. And the actions we are moved to take are not in opposition, but in support of greater harmony in the world.
And if many of us begin to meditate? First, murders and assaults within our cities will decline. As more of us meditate, our elected officials will begin to act from a more centered place themselves, whether they meditate or not. Policies will change whether those elected officials were our first choice or not.
In distant countries where turmoil now reigns, the internal peace will grow stronger. Terrorists and despots will grow tired of hate and fear and will look for new ways of relating to the world. No one will have coerced them, it will simply grow out of their being as naturally as a flower. They will consider the possibility that the opponent is simply another human being struggling as they are struggling to do the best they can.
And as these changes occur in the world at large, the peace flows back to us, nourishes us and supports us becoming the highest and best that is in us to be. It is as though a great chain of clasped hands stretches around the world. All we need do ... is meditate.
For more information and for meditation techniques go to Miracles of the Spirit/Just One Percent.