Inner Peace

{Based on letters and talks of the Rebbe, Rabbi M. M. Schneerson}

“The world is a place of constant change and unrest. Each point in time is distinct from the point before and the point after. Every point in space is its own world, with its own conditions and state of being. It is a world of fragments constantly rushing like traffic in anarchy.

Look at your own life: You do so many different things, one after the other without any apparent connection between them. Inner peace is when every part of you and every facet of your day is moving in the same direction. When you have purpose, you have peace.”

I recently read this above excerpt, and it caused me to stop and think. There are certainly times when I do apparently unconnected things, yet I am buzzing along all day, being highly productive, having wonderful conversations in which I am the giver and receiver, and being totally open to the joy of life. A magical day of green lights all the way home.

Inner peace is a state-of-mind practice. One of my students left the course in really good time for a 2:00am flight, but protesters in Brazil stormed the road to the airport and blocked the only highway for miles. Crews, employees and passengers were not able to reach the airport, and flights had to be postponed and cancelled. This young lady was right in the middle of the chaos,  yet never deviated from her purpose. Circumstances were certainly not perfect; she was frustrated, scared and her safety was in danger, but her state-of-being was calm. She never gave up. Hours and hours later, they arrived at the airport and she caught a flight the following morning.

This week in Atlanta it started to snow and literally millions of people left work all at the same time just after midday. Within minutes every single highway, interstate, side street and intersection was clogged like a drain; snow settled and iced almost immediately. At first we inched along and then we stopped, sometimes for hours, sometimes all night. One young couple was trapped by the roadside when the state trouper came to move them along. “We’re having a baby” they explained calmly. The baby was born in the middle of a city-wide traffic grid-lock in sub zero temperatures with the help of a first aid kit and three very purposeful people; four if you count the baby. That’s practicing inner peace.

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