The former Chasidim used to sit still one hour, and then pray for one hour, and then again sit still for one hour.

Talmud 

Peace

There are two kinds of peace. There is the peace `in one's bones' in oneself. This is the first priority, because at times a person has no peace in himself, as it is written: `There is no peace in
my bones because of my sin' (Psalms 38:4). When a person develops genuine fear of Heaven he can attain peace within himself. Through this he is able to pray. And prayer leads to the second kind of peace universal peace, when there is peace in all the worlds As peace spreads in the world the whole world can be drawn to serve God with one accord.

Moral purity leads to peace.

The real meaning of peace is to fit together two opposites. So you shouldn't be disturbed when you come across someone who is the exact opposite of yourself and thinks the exact opposite. Do not assume you will never be able to live amicably with him. And similarly if you see two people who are completely opposite types, you should not decide it is impossible to make peace between them. Quite the contrary! Perfect peace is achieved through the effort to
make peace between two opposites, just as God makes peace in His high places between Fire and Water, which are two opposites. The way to achieve peace is through complete self-sacrifice to
sanctify the name of God. Then it is possible to pray with genuine devotion . 

God always takes into account the good that people do. It may be that something not so good was mixed up with it, but God pays no attention to this. If this is God's way, how much more so
should we attempt to do the same. Never look for the bad side of other people or hunt out their shortcomings and weak points when it comes to religion. Look only for the good and always
search out the merit and worth in them. You will then be at peace with everybody.

R Nachman

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The scouts of a distant storm

The scouts of a distant storm
have pitched their cloud-tents in the sky
the light has paled;
the air is damp with tears in the voiceless shadow of the forest.
The peace of sadness is in my heart
like the brooding silence upon the master's lute
 before the music begins.
My world is still
with the expectation of the great pain of thy coming into my life.


Rabindranath

The Pleasure of Peace

The Lord Buddha taught, N'atthi santi param sukham: No other pleasure is greater than peace. What this means is that there are other pleasures, such as the pleasure of watching a play or a movie, mixing with society, having a spouse, the pleasure of gaining wealth, status, and praise. These things are actual pleasures — but they all contain hidden stress, they all require continual contriving, adjustment, and repair — which is where they differ from the pleasure that comes from peace, a pleasure that is cool and tranquil, without any hidden pain, without any need for a great deal of contriving — a pleasure that is easily attained, right here in our own body and mind. We can give rise to it while sitting alone in a quiet place or while surrounded by society, as long as we have a sense of how to make a separation, inclining the heart toward the pleasure of peace so that while the body may be involved in turmoil, the turmoil doesn't reach into the heart.
Even when we are seriously ill, with pain racking the entire body, if we have a sense of how to put the mind in the pleasure of peace, the pain won't be able to disturb the mind.
And once the mind is calm — it can calm the body and cure its pain, at the same time experiencing the pleasure of peace — and there is no greater pleasure.
The Lord Buddha taught us to practice in three ways:
To begin with, he taught us to put our words and deeds at peace through virtue, not allowing any gross faults or dishonesty to arise in word or deed.
He taught us to give rise to the pleasure of peace in the heart through concentration, training the mind not to think thoughts of lust, anger, greed, delusion, fear, restlessness, or uncertainty — things that make the mind irresolute and indecisive. Once these things can be abandoned, the heart is calm, giving rise to the pleasure of peace within.
He taught us to put our views at peace through discernment, reflecting so as to see that:
All things are undependable and inconstant (aniccam).
They can't last. They must alter, deteriorate, and disband. (Thus they are said to be dukkham, or stressful.)
They don't lie under our power or control. We can't force them or plead with them to follow our wishes. (Thus they are said to be anatta or not-self.)
When we see these truths, the mind becomes strong, resilient, stable, and resolute, unaffected by events — because we have seen the truth, with our own discernment, that such things are undependable and unstable; that they have to change, deteriorate, and disband; that they don't lie under our power.
Don't waste your strength of mind trying to force them. Keep the mind free and stable at all times, unaffected by events — and this will keep the mind firmly established in the pleasure of peace.
The mind will be free and gain power — mind power — which we can use to make all our duties and affairs succeed in accordance with our goals.
N'atthi santi param sukham:
No other pleasure is greater than peace.
It takes a peaceful mind to support a peaceful body, and a peaceful body to support a peaceful mind; and both a peaceful mind and a peaceful body to attain all the success that you wish.

by Chao Khun Nararatana Rajamanit (Tryk Dhammavitakko),

translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 7 June 2010, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai/nararatana/iridescence.html . Retrieved on 27 October 2011.

To become divine is the aim of life

The centre of life is neither in thought
nor in feeling, nor in will, nor even in consciousness,
so far as it thinks, feels, or
wishes. For moral truth may have been
penetrated and possessed in all these ways,
and escape us still. Deeper even than consciousness
there is our being itself, our very
substance, our nature. Only those truths
which have entered into this last region,
which have become ourselves, become spontaneous
and involuntary, instinctive and
unconscious, are really our life—that is to
say, something more than our property. So
long as we are able to distinguish any space
whatever between the truth and us we remain
outside it. The thought, the feeling,
the desire, the consciousness of life, are not
yet quite life. But peace and repose can
nowhere be found except in life and in eternal
life, and the eternal life is the divine
life, is God. To become divine is then the
aim of life : then only can truth be said to

be ours beyond the possibility of loss, because
it is no longer outside us, nor even
in us, but we are it, and it is we ; we ourselves
are a truth, a will, a work of God.
Liberty has become nature ; the creature is
one with its creator — one through love.
It is what it ought to be ; its education is
finished, and its final happiness begins.
The sun of time declines and the light of
eternal blessedness arises.
Our fleshly hearts may call this mysticism.
It is the mysticism of Jesus :
' I am
one with my Father ; ye shall be one with
me. We will be one with you.'

Amiel

Truth and Peace

The heart is not made peaceful by lying speech, (just as) 
water and oil do not ignite (lamp) light. 

(But) there is peace for the heart in words of truth. Truths are 
the seeds of the snare for (the tranquillity of) the heart.


RUMI

Resting in the River

My dear friends, suppose someone is holding a pebble and throws it in the air and the pebble begins to fall down into a river. After the pebble touches the surface of the water, it allows itself to sink slowly into the river.
It will reach the bed of the river without any effort. Once the pebble is at the bottom of the river, it continues to rest. It allows the water to pass by.
I think the pebble reaches the bed of the river by the shortest path because it allows itself to fall without making any effort. During our sitting meditation we can allow ourselves to rest like a pebble. We can allow ourselves to sink naturally without effort to the position of sitting, the position of resting.
Resting is a very important practice; we have to learn the art of resting. Resting is the first part of Buddhist meditation. You should allow your body and your mind to rest. Our mind as well as our body needs to rest.
The problem is that not many of us know how to allow our body and mind to rest. We are always struggling; struggling has become a kind of habit. We cannot resist being active, struggling all the time. We struggle even during our sleep.
It is very important to realize that we have the habit energy of struggling. We have to be able to recognize a habit when it manifests itself because if we know how to recognize our habit, it will lose its energy and will not be able to push us anymore.
Ten years ago I was in India visiting the ex-untouchable community of Buddhists. A friend who belonged to the caste organized the trip for me. I was sitting on the bus, enjoying the landscape outside, contemplating the palm trees and the vegetation. Suddenly I turned and I saw him looking very tense. There was no reason why he had to be tense like that. I thought that he was trying to make my visit pleasant and maybe that was the reason he was so tense. I told him, "Dear friend, I know that you want to make my trip pleasant, but I am already very happy. I've already enjoyed the trip. So why don't you sit back, smile, and relax?" He said, "Okay," and he sat back and he tried to relax.
I was pleased and I turned my face toward the window again and I enjoyed the palm trees and other things. But just a few minutes after when I looked back at him he was as tense as before. He was not able to relax, to allow himself to relax. I knew that he belonged to that section of the population that had been struggling for many thousand years. He was discriminated against. He had suffered so much, his ancestors and himself and his children. So the tendency to struggle has been there for many thousand years. That is why it was very difficult for him to allow himself to rest.
We have to practice in order to be able to transform this habit in us. The habit of struggle has become a powerful source of energy that is shaping our behavior, our actions and our reactions.
When an animal in the jungle is wounded, it knows how to find a quiet place, lie down and do nothing. The animal knows that is the only way to get healed-to lay down and just rest, not thinking of anything, including hunting and eating. Not eating is a very wonderful way of allowing your body to rest. We are so concerned about how to get nutrition that we are afraid of resting, of allowing our body to rest and to fast. The animal knows that it does not need to eat. What it needs is to rest, to do nothing, and that is why its health is restored.
In our consciousness there are wounds also, lots of pains. Our consciousness also needs to rest in order to restore itself. Our consciousness is just like our body. Our body knows how to heal itself if we allow it the chance to do so. When we get a cut on our finger we don't have to do anything except to clean it and to allow it the time to heal, because our body knows how to heal itself. The same thing is true with our consciousness; our consciousness knows how to heal itself if we know how to allow it to do so. But we don't allow it. We always try to do something. We worry so much about healing, which is why we do not get the healing we need. Only if we know how to allow them to rest can our body and our soul heal themselves.
But there is in us what we call the energy of restlessness. We cannot be at peace with ourselves. We cannot be peaceful. We cannot sit; we cannot lie down. There is some energy in us to do this, to do that, to think of this, to think of that, and that kind of restlessness makes us unhappy. That is why it is so important for us to learn first of all to allow our body to rest. We have to learn how to deal with all our energy of restlessness. That is why we have to learn these techniques of allowing our body and our consciousness to rest.


Thich Nhat Hanh

Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me;

for I am meek and lowly in heart:

and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.


Christ

Presence

May today there be peace within
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith
May you use those gifts that you have received
And pass on the love that has been given to you
May you be content knowing you are a child of God.

Let this presence settle into your bones
And allow your soul
the freedom to sing,dance,praise and love

It is there for each and every one of us

आज तुम्हारी आत्मा में शांति हो
ईश्वर में विश्वास हो कि तुम वहीं हो
जहां तुम्हें होना था
मत भूलो कि आस्था से अनंत द्वार खुलते हैं ।
जो प्रतिभा, जो कौशल तुम्हें दान में मिला है
उसके पात्र बनो
और जो अनायास प्यार मिला है
उसे सब में बांटो
तुम्हें यह जानकार संतोष हो कि
तुम ईश्वर की संतान हो ।


उस पावन की मौजूदगी
तुम्हारे पूरे अस्तित्व में घुल-मिल जाए
और वह तुम्हें इस तरह मुक्त करे कि
तुम्हारा हर स्पंदन नृत्य हो, गीत हो , प्रीत हो ।




यह राह हम सब के लिए खुली है ।




ST.Theresa