Inner Peace

My wife and I were having a discussion last evening about what has to happen before one can experience inner peace.

She mentioned something profound that I think is fodder for this blog.

She said, “Before one can have inner peace one must first love oneself unconditionally.” I agreed with that and then my mind wandered to various extrapolations of firsts that life offers in anticipation of inner peace.

A toddler must have the courage to take the first step before he or she can walk. If you have ever raised children you know the look a baby has when the first step is taken. It is a doorway into the exploration of life. The child's smile, the expression, is filled with expectation and accomplishment and the enjoyment of parental praise.

Take that ahead a few years to when a child first balances on a bike and rides a two-wheeler for the first time. Another smile of accomplishment.

Keep the progression going to the first time a teenager drives. Again another smile of progress and accomplishment in life. It is then that responsibility takes on an adult awareness.

There are so many other firsts and smiles throughout life that we often forget about them in our hopes and wishes for success and subliminally inner peace.

Spiritually aware accomplishments continue throughout life, even unto old age. When the elderly acknowledge their finiteness, either through meditation or illness, it is a profound revelation and acceptance that the body is ending and life continues and in that revelation comes a spiritual inner peace.

The sooner one forgives oneself for anything and everything, including dying, the more apparent and embraceable is the greatest gift of all to humankind. Inner peace.