The Peace Formula

We have a tendency to look at ourselves as the masters of our destiny and seem to believe that we have complete autonomy over how we want to shape and live our lives. Various stories and anecdotes that we have heard while growing up seem to reinforce this message that has often been bombarded onto us by the consumerist and capitalism intensive culture that we live in. MTV style posters that cry “write your own destiny” start pushing us, from a very early age, to believe that we are indeed the ultimate proprietor and enjoyer our lives. If only that were universally true!

We know for sure that we are not the omnipotent proprietor of our lives because if that were true, we wouldn’t have ever let anything undesirable happen to us or our loved ones. However, we all go through numerous situations in our lives that we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy – so clearly, the reigns of our lives are in our hands only to a certain extent. This is called free will; rest is all in the hands of the eternal supreme power. We spend our entire lives fighting over material possessions – my land, my money, my home, but we fail to realize that these are just temporary toys that our body has been gifted to play with, in this birth. Our actual identity lies with our soul and not with our material body; hence the false belief that we ‘own’ a material object or relationship is nothing but an illusion.

This illusion of ownership and the belief of being the proprietor bring with it an attachment to material life that leads to bewilderment, anger, anxiety, fear of loss, and dissatisfaction. Such thoughts are the source of most troubles in our lives. The more material connections (money, objects, relationships, etc.) we have, the greater is our attachment to them, hence greater is our internal need to preserve and protect them – which eventually becomes a breeding ground for most of our troubles.

In the Bhagvad Gita, Chapter 5.29, Sri Krishna says to Arjuna –

bhoktāraḿ yajña-tapasāḿ sarva-loka-maheśvaram

suhṛdaḿ sarva-bhūtānāḿ jñātvā māḿ śāntim ṛcchati

Meaning, a person in full consciousness of Me, knowing Me to be the ultimate beneficiary of all sacrifices and austerities, the Supreme Lord of all planets and demigods, and the benefactor and well-wisher of all living entities, attains peace from the pangs of material miseries.

The concept of Karma Yoga clearly explains that we must not mistake ourselves to be the enjoyers and masters of our lives. We are nothing but servants of the eternal power and our only right and duty in this world is to serve Him. That is the only thing that we are entitled to. It is also the only thing that we are expected to do. God has bestowed us with some free will so that we utilize it in figuring out, for ourselves, our relationship with Him. Everything around us belongs to God and He is the only enjoyer of all that exists. We have no right whatsoever to even briefly imagine that we have a right to the fruits of our action, devotion, or efforts.

Knowing that everything belongs to God and that our existence is governed by the rules of the material nature, is knowing the peace formula.