World peace is a lofty goal, one that is so large that people can justifiably, in their own minds, explain away their importance in the grand scheme of things. It seems like such a large project, with so many complex moving parts, that to avoid excessive cognitive dissonance and mental overload, the ego simply avoids it altogether. You can almost hear the mind saying, “Oh, what difference can little old me have?”
Well, of course, the rebuke is that the greatest journey starts with the smallest step, and that would be right. And still, such a journey can easily be avoided and dismissed through the self-protective mechanism of cognitive and emotional overload: “It’s too big for me.”
There is another way, one that is within our reach, one that allows us freedom of self-agency while also impacting the greater whole: inner peace.
I want to draw your attention to nature and the principles we find echoed and repeated throughout it. “As above, so below” is not merely religious rhetoric. Whether we understand it spiritually, metaphorically or through the patterns we observe in living systems, we repeatedly find the small reflected in the large and the whole expressed through its parts.
We’re All Connected
Quantum physics shows us something extraordinary about the nature of connection. Quantum entanglement demonstrates that particles which have interacted can remain correlated in ways that cannot be explained by our ordinary, everyday understanding of separate objects.
And at the largest scale, we all emerged from the same cosmic beginning. The atoms that make up our bodies emerged from the same universe, forged through the same processes that created stars, planets and eventually life. Somewhere beneath the macro form of human perception, the separateness we experience every day is not the whole story.
Quantum physics does not mean that changing our thoughts magically changes another person at a distance. But it does challenge the simple idea of a universe made entirely of independent, isolated things. And when we move from physics into biology, ecology and human relationships, our interdependence becomes much easier to see.
We are connected, and what we do affects the systems of which we are a part.
Size Doesn’t Matter
Quantum physics aside, how can we possibly make a difference when most of us barely have time to read this article?
We are beginning to understand in biology that signals and information are inseparable from our physical form. Waves of information are part of the sea within which our molecules swim and interact. Furthermore, tiny, previously disregarded signals can lead to significant and often unpredictable consequences.
The work of Russian-born physical chemist Ilya Prigogine helped reveal the importance of nonlinear dynamics in complex systems, where small fluctuations can sometimes contribute to cascading changes and large-scale reorganization. All this to say: tiny things can have massive impacts.
Back to us “tiny things.” Our small, easily dismissible changes can have cascading impacts on the greater whole. What can sometimes sound like spiritual mysticism—the intuition that what happens within us somehow matters beyond us—finds a more grounded parallel in what we understand about complex systems: small changes within interconnected systems can sometimes travel much further than their point of origin.
We’ve established that we are connected and that small changes can have cascading, often unpredictable impacts on a larger system. So the question becomes: Where can you bring peace into your own life right now and create a resonant field of harmony from your center outward?
Like tuning forks stimulating resonance in one another, so too do we share our “sound” with our community.
Internal Peace
Inside ourselves, behind the task lists and emotional triggers, there is a place of total peace. This “place” is just so still that we miss it in a world that has trained us to look for movement. We can access it by being still, and the more we touch it with our conscious awareness, the more we are able to be it in our everyday lives.
The sort of internal peace I’m speaking about has no comment on political viewpoints or moral perspectives. This internal peace is the sort of peace a black-belt martial artist has: a stillness that chooses to respond in appropriate ways from peace.
This doesn’t mean that only peaceful action emerges from the system. It means that peace is our origin point, and from that peace we choose what response we bring to bear. We honor our responsibility—our ability to respond.
There may be moments when our response needs to be strong. There may be injustice that needs confronting, boundaries that need defending, or truths that need speaking. Inner peace is not about becoming passive. It is about discovering the place from which we choose our response rather than simply being driven by our reaction.
Change Begins at Home
This “access to peace,” so to speak, is a cumulative phenomenon. The more we tune into it, the easier and more present it becomes in our lives.
The invitation is this: right now, close your eyes and listen deep inside. Behind the noise, before the thoughts, see if you can hear the sound of silence. It might sound like what you imagine the faint background hum of the Universe sounds like.
Try it just for a moment.
Did you do it? Did you hear “the nothing”?
The challenge is how much more you can stop looking. How much more can you power down your training of looking for movement and allow awareness of this internal peace that has always been there, just waiting patiently and lovingly for you to notice?
We don’t have to create it. Perhaps we simply have to become quiet enough to notice it.
Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It
This is fundamentally useful for almost every scenario you could find yourself in. Between meetings, between tasks, after waking, just before bed—give yourself permission to listen in. Behind the noises around you, before the thoughts of your life, listen into the source of you, the origin of your being.
Do this for 30 seconds, 60 seconds or a few minutes each time. Without needing to go anywhere or achieve anything. Without analysis, and with a simple, kind, loving acceptance, simply notice that which is at your most central point.
And then notice what happens when you return to the world from that place. Notice the way you speak. The way you listen. The way you respond to someone who challenges you. The way you carry yourself into your family, your work and your community.
At home bring a ‘what would peace do’ presence to the most annoying of situations. When you husband leaves their clothes on the floor or your child refuses to tidy up or get ready for school. Take your deepest breath in and allow the space to exist without resistance. How does it unfold differently? Notice and go deeper into peace within yourself. This is an echo out to the world. How you are at your center is an infectious virus to those around you, and even in the wider world.
In this moment of now your true self has no opinions to defend, no needs no wants. Your true self is at peace, always.
Perhaps this is one small way we can participate in something as impossibly large as world peace. Not by believing that five minutes of meditation will end war, but by recognizing that the world we wish to create is also created through us.
Peace begins at home. And the closest home we have is ourselves.
Perhaps this is one small way we can participate in something as impossibly large as world peace. Not by believing that five minutes of meditation will end war, but by recognizing that the world we wish to create is also created through us.
Try this 7-minute mediation to help access your inner silence.
