# Inner peace

Inner peace refers to a state of being mentally and spiritually at peace, with enough knowledge and understanding to keep oneself strong in the face of discord or stress. Being "at peace" with oneself and the cosmos is considered by many to be healthy (homeostasis) and the opposite of being stressed or anxious.

## Quotes

* As rivers flow into the ocean but cannot make the vast ocean overflow, so flow the streams of the sense-world into the sea of peace that is the sage.
** Bhagavad Gita 2.70.
* May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
** The Bible, Numbers 6:26.
* What you think, you become. What you feel, you attract. What you imagine, you create.
** [[Inner Peace Quotes|Inner Peace Zone]], Numbers 8:28.
* This is peace, this is the excellent, namely the calm of all the impulses, the casting out of all "basis", the extinction of craving, dispassion, stopping, Nirvana.
** Gautama Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya, v.322, as quoted in World Scripture : A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts (1991) edited by Andrew Wilson, p. 392.
* Peace is peaceful.
** "The Dude" in The Big Lebowski.
* Know thyself.
** Anonymous aphorism inscribed in the forecourt of Temple of Apollo at Delphi, where the Pythia prophesied; often misattributed to Socrates, who quoted it.
* If a man sings of God and hears of Him, And lets love of God sprout within him, All his sorrows shall vanish, And in his mind, God will bestow abiding peace.
** Guru Granth Sahib, Japuji 5, M.1, p. 2.
* The question of real, lasting world peace concerns human beings, so basic human feelings are also at its roots. Through inner peace, genuine world peace can be achieved. In this the importance of individual responsibility is quite clear; an atmosphere of peace must first be created within ourselves, then gradually expanded to include our families, our communities, and ultimately the whole planet.
** Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, as quoted in Inner Peace, World Peace : Essays on Buddhism and Nonviolence (1992) by Kenneth Kraft, p. 2.
* Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
** Jesus Christ, as quoted in John 14:27 (KJV)
** Variant translation: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
*** (NIV).
* The course of human history is determined, not by what happens in the skies, but by what takes place in our hearts.
** Sir Arthur Keith, (sometimes wrongfully cited as Sir Arthur Kent), as quoted in Living Philosophies (1931), published by Simon and Schuster, Ch. X, p. 147.
* In the remembrance of God do hearts find satisfaction.
** Qur'an 13:28.
* We talk about world peace. Peace needs to be in the heart of every human being because that is where it belongs.
** Maharaji (Prem Rawat), address in Wembley Stadium, England, (22 June 1997).
* Before we can make friends with anyone else, we must first make friends with ourselves.
** Eleanor Roosevelt, as quoted in The Life You Were Born to Live : A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose (1995) by Dan Millman, p. 38.
* I feel within me a peace above all earthly dignities, a still and quiet conscience.
** "Wolsey" in Henry VIII (c. 1613) by William Shakespeare
* Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.
** Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now (1997)
* The Buddha taught that even your happiness is dukkha -a Pali word meaning "suffering" or "unsatisfactoriness." It is inseparable from its opposite. This means that your happiness and unhappiness are in fact one. Only the illusion of time separates them. This is not being negative. It is simply recognizing the nature of things, so that you don't pursue an illusion for the rest of your life. p. 117
** Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now (1997)
* The whole advertising industry and consumer society would collapse if people became enlightened and no longer sought to find their identity through things. The more you seek happiness in this way, the more it will elude you. p. 118
** Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now (1997)
* I have learned to offer no resistance to what is; I have learned to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things and conditions. Thus have I found peace. To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad. It seems almost paradoxical, yet when your inner dependency on form is gone, the general conditions of your life, the outer forms, tend to improve greatly. Things, people, or conditions that you thought you needed for your happiness now come to you with no struggle or effort on your part, and you are free to enjoy and appreciate them - while they last. All those things, of course, will still pass away, cycles will come and go, but with dependency gone there is no fear of loss anymore. Life flows with ease. The happiness that is derived from some secondary source is never very deep. It is only a pale reflection of the joy of Being, the vibrant peace that you find within as you enter the state of nonresistance. Being takes you beyond the polar opposites of the mind and frees you from dependency on form. Even if everything were to collapse and crumble all around you, you would still feel a deep inner core of peace. You may not be happy, but you will be at peace.
** Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now (1997)
* This is the Spirit of Infinite Peace, and the moment we come into harmony with it there comes to us an inflowing tide of peace, for peace is harmony. A deep interior meaning underlies the great truth, "To be spiritually minded is life and peace." To recognize the fact that we are spirit, and to live in this thought, is to be spiritually minded, and so to be in harmony and peace. Oh, the thousands of men and women all about us weary with care, troubled and ill at ease, running hither and thither to find peace, weary in body, soul, and mind; going to other countries, traveling the world over, coming back, and still not finding it. Of course they have not found it and they never will find it in this way, because they are looking for it where it is not. They are looking for it without when they should look within. Peace is to be found only within, and unless one find it there he will never find it at all. Peace lies not in the external world. It lies within one's own soul. We may travel over many different avenues in pursuit of it, we may seek it through the channels of the bodily appetites and passions, we may seek it through all the channels of the external, we may chase for it hither and thither, but it will always be just beyond our grasp, because we are searching for it where it is not.
** Ralph Waldo Trine, In Tune With The Infinite : Or, Fullness Of Peace, Power And Plenty (1910), p. 135.
* To be at one with God is to be at peace. The child simplicity is the greatest agency in bringing this full and complete realization, the child simplicity that recognizes its true relations with the Father's life. There are people I know who have come into such a conscious realization of their oneness with this Infinite Life, this Spirit of Infinite Peace, that their lives are fairly bubbling over with joy.
** Ralph Waldo Trine, In Tune With The Infinite : Or, Fullness Of Peace, Power And Plenty (1910), p. 136.
* Peace: Real peace always comes from within. Without the practice of insight meditation and universal brotherhood, the inner peace cannot last long and our existence would be threatened.
** Thích Nhật Từ, Inner Freedom: A Spiritual Journey for Prison Inmates (2008), ISBN 1741893909.
* Men do not mirror themselves in running water, they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.
** Zhuangzi, Ch. 5

## Disputed

* What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us. And when we bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.
** Attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, in Promotion of Pharmaceuticals : Issues, Trends, Options (1993) by Dev S. Pathak, Alan Escovitz, and Suzan Kucukarslan, p. 74, and to Henry David Thoreau, The Life You Were Born to Live : A Guide to Finding Your Life Purpose (1995) by Dan Millman, p. xi, but no occurrence of it prior to the 1990s has been located.

## See also

* Ageless Wisdom Teachings
* Bhagavad Gita
* Four Noble Truths
* Meditation
* Patanjali
* Prayer
* Yoga