CHAPTER 4

THE SEARCH FOR PEACE

Sometimes I feel so terribly dejected

The distress that I feel is making me wretched.

I can’t find a way to let go of the pain.

I wonder if I’ll ever rise up again.

The tears do come, and there’s no stopping them.

I feel like a wretch and my covering is thin.

It’s so very hard just to find who I am

And the person I am seems caught in a jam.

I wonder if my angel is really still there,

Because he seems distant, I don’t feel his care,

But the tiredness will ease, of that I am sure

And I’ll relish again his love and much more.

I suddenly feel a warmth in my heart

And know that the truth is really a part

Of this love that is here, right here inside,

As I rest, and lay all of my trials aside.

I was losing the thread in this test of my life

But the light did win through all my turmoil and strife

As the love that was there I started to see –

All the splendour of truth that will soon set me free.

I feel that we’re searching, being so afraid

To find the peace that was promised, but seems to evade.

But it’s there, deep within us, for us to retrieve

As Spirit holds peace for the world to receive.

© C. Hamilton 1998

What is peace? Peace is a feeling of contentment, of joy and of knowing. Peace is to turmoil, as love is to fear. With peace in our hearts there can be no war, as with love in our hearts there can be no fear. The Oxford Dictionary describes peace as "freedom from or cessation of war; treaty of peace between powers at war; freedom from civil disorder…quiet, tranquillity, mental calm…"

Yet it is much more than that. According to Marianne Williamson peace is described as a condition unto itself. "There is more to being healthy than the absence of illness, and there is more to peace than the absence of war." She goes on to say, "We can't fight war without warring. Our goal at this point must be the creation of peace. Where love is absent, war of some kind is inevitable. Let us be very clear, as we sign our names to the invisible declaration of independence from the ways of war: The commitment to love is treasonous to the ways of the world. War does not threaten the status quo; in many ways it bolsters it. Only love is a threat to the established order, for love really changes things. Only love breaks all the way through.... Our modes of thinking have not kept pace with our technologies... We can send a man to the moon but we can't keep peace in our families and neighbourhoods. That is because the former task does not demand compassion."

Greg Braden in his book, The Isaiah Effect, tells of his visit to the Abbot of a monastery in Tibet. He asks the Abbot what is the most important message he can take back to the world. He is told "Peace is the greatest importance in our world today … in the absence of peace, we lose what we have gained. In the presence of peace, all things are possible: love, compassion and forgiveness…" He goes on to say that when people find peace in themselves their peace can be mirrored to the world. The Essenes, a sect of religious people from pre-Christian times, had a discourse which said "Peace is the key to all knowledge, all mystery, all life".

One may wonder does humanity really want peace? Mankind has had wars and skirmishes and arguments with his brother and country for as long as our history is recorded. It seems hard to believe that the greatest experience of our soul is to find peace with each other. Despite our troubles in life, we are here to experience the pulls and pushes of life, hard as they seem. Our ultimate goal, however, the one that we are all inwardly seeking, and that is to find peace in our own hearts. This can only be found through self-love and self-acceptance, which gives birth to love, understanding and brotherhood to all mankind, no matter who they be.

Sometimes we do not want to be healed of the turmoil that resides within us. We are so used to it, that it is foreign for us to shake our enemy’s hand. It is foreign for us to put down our weapons and smile at our brother, whether he is black, white, red or yellow. We are so used to war and turmoil, discontent, anger, judgement, self-righteousness, greed, and condemnation that we actually create wars by our fear of confrontation, and thereby resist the peace that could be ours. This is what so many are doing today. They are building a resistance to peace by inducing their fear, and in the process, are actually antagonising matters and creating a war. If we could replace these fear-based feelings with Love, Peace and Brotherhood it could, and would change the world.

This most unlikely scenario could really change the world. If our world leaders could send loving energies to each other, each being receptive to the other’s energy, they would gain understanding of what was in the other leader’s heart and soul. Both would then find that they were not so different. It could bring about a total change in each of them. If, for example President George W Bush were to go into a meditative state and send loving energies towards the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, this would over-ride all his feelings of anger and hate and fear. This would in turn be received at the other end if the Afghanistan leaders were receptive. This could be the beginning of peace within these countries. Unfortunately we cannot see into the hearts of the terrorists, and I feel that unless we can "walk a mile in their shoes" and see where they are coming from, we will not be able to really understand them.

The majority of people within the western countries feel that terrorism has to be stopped, but is killing more people – and mostly innocent people at that – going to really stop it? At the present time, the above scenario seems highly impossible, but who knows, if enough people in the world pray for this possibility, that it may not have a chance of success?

People all over the world are seeking peace. They are sick of the wars and fighting that has gone on for thousands of years throughout the world, not only on a global scale, but within their home lives and their businesses, their families and their friends. Most are not even aware of what they seek. There is so much conflict within them. They are finding their jobs, their home lives, and their way of life not satisfying any more. And yet many do not even know why they are searching.

If you ask anyone what they really want, they would most like say they wanted peace. But is this the case? If this was so, why do we have wars? Why do we have fighting, arguments, disagreements and crime? So many have proclaimed they want "World Peace", but the situation between the Americans and the Afghanistan terrorists at the present time belie this fact. Surely if we were really wanting peace these things would no longer be. We may proclaim to want peace, only to go out and have an argument with our neighbour!

It takes something in our lives to really shake us up, before we realise what it is we are seeking. I believe the events of September 11 have been a catalyst to awaken many souls. Sometimes it takes the knowing that we are to die, an accident or illness, or the death of a loved one, to cause this kind of digging deep into our souls. We find we are frustrated with the way our life has been. We used to be happy with it. But now, somehow there is this feeling of dissatisfaction, and we do not even know why. We are looking for answers. The places we used to find answers seem to no longer fill our needs. People are turning away from the churches that once provided them with sanctity. Our insides crawl with the need to find soul food, and we do not understand why we should even feel this way. The old ways are just no longer working for us any more. We are moving into new territory. We are moving forward, and once we have made the decision to go forward, there is no going back.

Our world seems to be shattering around us. We feel alone. We feel that no one understands. This is causing many people to become depressed. They are seeing their old world crumble. Their nice secure jobs no longer have any meaning for them. Many people leave secure and well-paid jobs to search - for what? They don’t want to go to work. They can’t talk to their partners. Some just seem to have changed and they no longer see things the way they used to. They now see things differently. Life seems to be upside-down.

Dissatisfaction and discontent are becoming more predominant as this new age approaches and escalates. Some people are going insane. Killings are far more unpredictable and prevalent, as these changes are turning people’s lives around and they do not understand what is happening to them. They seem to just go out of control. Depression has been diagnosed more often in the last ten years or so, than it ever was before. People are just not handling life. And why are people not coping with life? Is it because their own soul is calling to them, trying to awaken them, to the need for peace? They are not even aware that this is their soul’s calling, but they cannot progress and evolve, unless they let go of the old ways, and find the inner peace that is within their very soul. We have been told that by sitting quietly and listing to the still small voice within we can reach this state of peace.

Everybody is searching for something, yet few know what it is they seek. It is said those who think they know, know nothing, and those that know, know how much they don’t know. In other words, a fool will tell you he knows all, yet he knows not. A wise man remains quiet, knowing that the more he discovers wisdom, the more he sees that there is to know as truth is ever growing. He knows that the soul will find its own truth in time only through searching. We are ever searching for our truth.

This restlessness within the soul is producing our desperate need to change. It is causing us to seek a new path. Somehow, no matter how hard we try, peace always seems to evade us.

We have been told:

Peace is here. Your only problem is that you have to tap into it, and many are resisting this. When your Bible stated that the angels sang "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to all Men", it was not a symbolism, but a fact. Once your higher consciousness is reached, peace is automatically yours.

When the new child, the Christ child, was born, it was to be a new beginning for mankind. This child, as he became a man, walked the earth with a higher consciousness than most of his fellow men of that time. He came to bring about the beginning of what could have been a golden age. But mankind wasn’t ready. Now the Christ within each of you is awakening, and it is truly the beginning of an age of peace – an age of light and a new golden age.

So many are still in resistance because they are afraid. They are afraid of going against the status quo; of what others will think of them; of how they will ‘survive’ if they follow what seems to be ‘wishy washy bunkum’. They have not yet come to realise that it is in their own power to create a future where peace and joy reside. The fear of what has been their past has such a stronghold upon them, that they cannot even conceive of letting it go. It is all they know. They are afraid of stepping into the void of nothingness and trusting only in themselves.

The outer trappings still hold far too much sway with them. They are afraid if they let go, they will lose their mind, as they have heard stories, or known of others, who this appears to have happened to. They only see what has happened outwardly. If they could but see the inward changes, and see that the changes that occurred were but an awakening – an awakening within those individual souls to their own inner Selves. Sometimes these selves were not liked. They were avoided and pushed into the hidden recesses of the mind, and for many years, the outer appearance had been a layer of materialism to hide behind. So when they finally did face their inner Selves, they rebelled and went through long and painful periods of adjustment.

These painful periods of adjustment are what appear to be disease, or breakdowns, or depression, because these souls do not seem to fit into the outer world any longer in an accepted way. They have diverged from the path they were on – the path of following others in the materialistic world. They have begun their inward search.

If man becomes unbalanced in either direction, it is likely to cause great disharmony with the soul. Living in the outer world but not of it – that is, holding the focus within through the love of Self – our inner Self, the one who knows all – is what is our most important goal at this time. Hold your focus, hold your light, and walk each day in the outer world, knowing that you are creating your own future, your own peace on earth, from within you.

This channelling describes much of what is happening in the world around us. So many are being diagnosed as depressed, and so many more are coming down with diseases that have not been heard of for generations. There is a greater increase in suicides for reasons that do not seem to make sense to us. Many are finding irritations like skin diseases, heart problems, eating disorders etc. afflicting them. It is becoming apparent that these conditions are all a state of imbalance in one form or another.

It is now so important to find the middle path. It is essential for our future ascension for us to find the path of balance between our soul self or spiritual self, and our physical materialistic self. We cannot allow one, or the other, to overtake us. For if we do, we will find ourselves caught in the imbalance of this energy that is neither good nor bad, but energy that must be realised for what it is. It is an energy that gives us an opportunity to change and grow for the benefit of our own greater Selves and our own eventual ascension.

It is important for each person to honour himself or herself as Spirit – to acknowledge the awakening of the Christ within. We all have a Christed being within us. It is finding this Christ within that will enable us to find our inner peace. Congratulate yourself on who you are, on what you have achieved, and on how far you have come. Each and every soul is awakening in some way, and each person needs to congratulate himself or herself on how well they are doing.

Facing our Troubles

Walking away from our fears and our problems is not the answer. Those who are facing torment within are given these opportunities for growth because they have the strength to overcome them. We have often heard the saying "God doesn’t give us more than we can handle". Well, it is to strengthen our souls that we are given these heavy burdens to carry. On a higher level we ourselves chose these very circumstances for our own growth and opportunity. There are times when our troubles seem to pile up on us, and it is only because we fail to see the opportunities in them, that we find it so hard to progress. Though our troubles seem to outweigh us at times, it is all illusion in the greater scheme of life. If we can see beyond the illusion and accept all that comes to us as a gift, all things will unfold for us from there.

A channelling that I received when I was low said that :

Your troubles are not to be heeded. They will pass. All things are part of the tests that one must pass in order to travel onwards to the higher dimensions that are awaiting you at the end of your journey. These tests and trials are but temporary residences of your heart. They exist as an illusion – a self-imposed illusion through which you must pass in order to see the true beauty and the true light which is you.

Each baby step you take towards your truth will bring you closer to that which you really are. Fear not that these pains, these illusions of dread, are real – for true reality lies in the beauty of who you are.

Each time you exert your free will in an effort to face your challenges – you grow. And that growth is as a light shining in your aura. You take on a colour of exceptional beauty in each choice you make which opens your heart towards love. Fear and trouble is the illusion, and it is playing itself out so perfectly upon your planet at this time. It creates the challenge and therefore gives the light a greater chance to shine. But in truth it is but an illusion – part of the game of life – waiting to be discovered, understood and accepted so it may dissolve as surely as water evaporates into steam to become one with everything else – to join with All-That-Is and simply BE.

Reality is Love. There is nothing else. Let the troubles of the world dissolve like melting drops of dew, leaving behind their beauty – their essence only, which does naught but deepen into the true brightness of purity, peace and Love.

Can we imagine a world where peace resides? Can we imagine a world where there is no more war or fighting? Can we imagine a world where harmony, love towards all others, sharing and prosperity reign? I believe it is not only possible, but it is essential for the survival of our planet. She is determined to ascend, with or without mankind. Do we want to go with her on her journey of awakening? If we turn away from the TV’s, radios and newspapers and look to the visions of our dreams we can pretend and create our world of peace. The new reality of love will bring more peace than we could ever create in our dreams.

We cannot take our heavy emotional baggage with us as the earth rises to its new vibration. Therefore it is now time to release it so that we are free to move on. We talk of peace, but we turn around and fight it with weapons. We smile at someone, only to talk about them behind their back. Do we really want peace? When we truly know ourselves, then we will know the answer to this question.

It has been discovered that soft, ethereal notes of music can bring peace and soothing balm to an ailing soul. Yet ironically enough, music can also be a form of discordant sounds with quite disturbing vibrations, such as some disco-type music, which can disturb the very peace within one’s soul. It prevents the mind from focussing within, and finding that place where contentment and quiet reside.

Peace is the ultimate goal of our soul and it comes through awareness. It is when we find our personal power that we become aware of what we are really capable of. When the world finds peace, all our dreams will be realised. The people of this planet will find that when they can forgive themselves and release their past, they will find the peace that is in their hearts waiting for them to acknowledge. It is then, that they will truly realise just how powerful they are.

Through meditating on a regular basis we can find the peace within our souls. Many times we hurry through our daily lives so fast that we don’t take time to do this. But it helps, even if it is just a walk through nature. Having a deep communal understanding with nature is another way of finding an inner peace. It is in learning to appreciate what we have, and understanding that the more we open ourselves to the gifts we already have then our hearts will fill with love and peace.

It is said that peace has to begin within. The surest way to find peace is to know that we have the power within us to bring this about. If we can discover who we really are, meditate regularly, think constructive thoughts, turn fear into confidence, let go of old habits, resolve challenges, release guilt, forgive others, love and accept ourselves, and work through and release grief by living in the moment, we can create great joy for ourselves. We also tap into our own power, which becomes an incredible source of strength within us.

Chris Hamilton -