3-5. Peace can not be found through thought. It is the utter absence of thought through which Peace is remembered. Release everything and you will be Peace Itself.
There exist in this world a great deal of pernicious presumptions, predicated upon prevalent theories of reality that find their initial formulations within the belief that every aspect of life must originate from material principles. Through this mode of understanding, it is assumed that all that you seek must somehow be found through exploration - that what you look for in this world must always exist separately from you, and so you must undertake various journeys to arrive at its location. Certainly this is true of physical manifestations, geographic locations that are distant from you and material abundance, which must generally be earned or gathered in some fashion. Rarely does material wealth simply deposit itself upon your literal doorstep. Because of this, it can be quite easy to commit the error of believing that Peace is somehow to be found outside of yourself - a distant expression of the Love of God to be sought out and perhaps even “earned” through decades of dedicated effort. Or even more insular in its construction, Peace is presented as a “reward” for service rendered or comforts released in favor of a severely aesthetic lifestyle. These errors are commonplace and they can frequently manifest themselves in unconscious patterns of belief that have no value, yet that are espoused and propagated through popular culture en masse. None of these ideas have any valid reflection in Truth. Peace is not something to be found, for it is not a “thing” at all and it does not exist separately from your mind. You will not find yourself returning to a state of peaceful acceptance through the processes of thought, for indeed it is your very thoughts themselves that are interfering with your innate ability to be wholly aware of the infinite beauty of the present moment. Thoughts are constructs of the mind. They are vastly more complex than you have likely realized. Thoughts are formed through a long process of assembly, arising from the deepest regions of your subconscious mind and then gathering the requisite pieces needed to assemble themselves into their final form, subsequently rising to the very surface of your mind, at which point they appear to be fully formed and complete, in and of themselves. Yet there are no thoughts that are singular, for all of the many forms in which thoughts can be created rely upon vast webs of connections to prior concepts, articulated through an enormous network of interrelationships and associative generation of patterns of beliefs and assumptions, each reinforcing each other until they appear to form a cohesive whole that remains generally unquestioned by the mind experiencing the arising of any particular thought-construct. It is important to realize that while there are a great many steps that are necessary to create a fully formed though, the underlying processes occur very rapidly, within the context of time as it is understood in this world. With enough meditative practice, you can become sufficiently aware to be able to observe while any particular thought is formed, watching as it begin as a tiny concept, a barely visible inkling of a formation, slowly flowing from one region of your mind to another, gathering up support and reinforcement from other concepts and beliefs until it can be expressed as a seemingly whole and complete thought, albeit one that has deep dependence on so many other ideas that no thought can genuinely be said to have arisen in complete isolation. All of this will transpire in a fraction of a second. It will appear to be virtually instantaneous to the unaware mind. That is of no consequence, in Truth. Whether you are aware of the exact manner in which your current thought was assembled or not, it was indeed pieced together from a vast array of memories, prior experiences, currently accepted beliefs and forwardly gazing assumptions. Because of this, thinking does not and cannot lead to Peace. Why might this be? It is eloquently simple. Thinking is endlessly distracting, for you can only think of the past or future. The present moment requires no thought. The present moment is experienced - it is not thought about. This simple statement may seem rather irrelevant, at least at first, but it contains a vastly important distinction between thinking and awareness. You are constantly falling though an endlessly cascading series of present moments. Yet in each of these instantaneous microcosms of awareness, thinking cannot intrude. The present moment is wholly the realm of awareness and acceptance. It is only after the currently occurring present moment has passed that you will be able to form any particular thought regarding what transpired as you moved through it. Such is the origin of the concept of “loosing yourself” when you are deeply engaged in any particular task. And indeed you do loose yourself, or rather more accurately, you forget for a little while to continue to sustain your concept of yourself - your illusionary ego - while you are wholly engrossed with and fully in the present moment. And indeed such periods of time can be deeply relaxing, peaceful and seem to be possessed of either no time at all, or a literal infinity of time, for the concept of the flow of time ceases when you are wholly engaged within the present moment. Such is the expression of the present moment - it is the only aspect of the flow of time in which you can be fully involved in any particular process, freed of the ego and its inane and continuous banter, fully aware of just what it is that you are doing, saying or experiencing, living for all intents and purposes outside of even time itself, for each present moment is both instantaneous and functionally eternal, all at the same time. Such is the power of the present moment to free you, at least temporarily, from the banality and endlessly obsequious demands of the ego, allowing you to be fully present and unaware of the distractions that the ego will attempt to use to justify its continued domination over your awareness. The overarching Peace, serenity and limitlessness that you Experience in these moments, which are generally and quite unfortunately rare for most minds, are fully in alignment with the Peace of God. The more that you can release what you believe yourself to be, the more than you can reenter these periods of total alignment with limitless Awareness in its ultimate and perfect expression, becoming absolutely Aware of everything, without any limits and freed from presumptions in any form. No more than these Experiences of completely healed Awareness will you ever truly need to justify your continuing quest to release the bonds that your ego has for so long sought to cast over your mind, for the Peace and the tranquility that will be Known to you will so far outstrip anything that the ego could ever hope to offer that you will, eventually, realize that it has always been your deepest desire to simply be, wholly Aware of the present and utterly unwilling to expend any more energy thinking about the past or the future. For indeed, in Truth, neither the past nor the future are actually Real - all that has ever existed is the beautifully perfect present moment. It is the Home of Peace. Let it be your Home, too.