The secret of peace

To live is to submerge oneself in the great flow of life, to participate in one way or another in the course of the world, to look at things with veneration, treat all creatures with tenderness, to feel gratitude and reverence for everything that exists.

Therefore, when a person’s heart is detached from his greedy links and has renounced to avarice and the itch to possess, he has been finally purified from all that vitiates and poisons the sources of joy. It is then that we will return to the first dawn when everything was good.

In times of too much melting snow, the river overflows its banks, floods the valleys and pulls down homes, animals and humans to their deaths. That is its law. The hawk feeds itself by hunting down defenseless smaller birds. The breeze is refreshing, the frost is cold, and the sultry weather is hot. Living beings are born, grow and die. In the spring the swallows arrive and in the fall they leave. Everything is alright.

To live is to respect the laws of the natural world, not to feel irritation on account of them, it is to go with the flow with glee and tenderness, to allow things to be what they are meant to be, and to allow them to pass your way without forcing them to reroute. This is the secret of peace.

Extracted from the book “The Art of Being Happy” by Fr. Ignacio Larrañaga