Our homes will be very quiet at this time. But I have often found that the quieter my surroundings, the more vividly I sense my connection with you all. It's as if, in solitude, the soul develops organs of which we're hardly aware in everyday life.
~ from LOVE LETTERS FROM CELL 92 by Dietrich Bonhoeffer with thanks to Jane Storck
Sisters and brothers: We direct to your minds that peace is not merely the absence of war, but the constant effort to maintain harmonious existence between all peoples, from individual to individual, and between humans and the other beings of this planet. We point out to you that a spiritual consciousness is the path of survival of humankind.
A deep peace descended such as I had never felt before. My whole past, words, tears, everything sank into it. The only thing that remained was the here and now, transparent to light and to God... There was neither barrier nor distance between God and the world. Lying on the grass, I felt Love within me and I was filled with light, peace, and gratitude.
PEACE comes within human souls when they realize their relationship, their oneness, with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Creator whose Center is really everywhere within each of us.
Peace is not absence of strife. Peace is acceptance and surrender to that which is. Peace is the profound awareness of the one true source from which all things emerge . . . and to which all things return.
Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world.
Those who have not found their true wealth, which is the radiant joy of Being and the deep unshakable peace that comes with it, are beggars, even if they have great material wealth. They are looking outside for scraps of pleasure or fulfillment, for validation, security, or love, when they have a Treasure within that not only includes all those things but is infinitely greater than anything the world can offer.
We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the mount.
