Peace is not something that one can borrow from someone. The onus lies on us to abandon thoughts and achieve peace. Peace is when the mind is devoid of thoughts just as a calm lake without any ripples.  Even if thoughts arise, they aren’t many and the feelings aren’t intense.  It sounds so simple. But in reality one may not achieve it in his entire lifetime.

A student who had just finished his final year examinations was planning his future.  He planned to take special coaching, get a good job, a beautiful wife, a big house, a car and later he also planned to expand his business.  He decided that this was the aim of his life - to progress and to achieve all pleasures. With his aims on a piece of paper, he went to a saint who glanced at it and crossed it right away. All he wrote on it was ‘Peace of mind’.

The young lad felt disheartened.  He crumpled the paper and threw it in the cupboard. Years later, when he was enriched by the rigmarole of his life’s experiences, he happened to open the cupboard. A paper dropped on him. It was the paper which had a map of a successful life. He recalled his years gone by and realized that he had indeed achieved all that he had planned for but had lost his peace of mind.

All these years, had he meditated, practiced spirituality or chanted the Lord’s name, he would not have had to shed tears of remorse and helplessness.