Inner Peace
by Marlene Aguilar
People without inner peace compensate for this emptiness by seeking wealth and power. But no
amount of wealth and power can buy inner peace. And this is something so difficult for people in the west
to understand. The west believes, and has to believe, that materialism begets happiness.
In the 16th century North America was colonized by a people who were rebelling against the
strictures of British religious dictates. But these spiritual intentions were soon overtaken by man’s greed.
Ever since America has grown on greed and this has come at an enormous price; that is an imbalance in
society, where the lack of spirit and soul can no longer compensate for and contain the evil of greed. This
imbalance is so great that society dies from within.
I lived in the United States of America for 11 years and in that time I learned to understand America
and its people. One day I realized that I had learned all I needed to know about the country and the
people, I understood what America was all about and I no longer wanted to live there. And I hungered to
come home to the Philippines. My soul and my spirit wanted to be here, in the Philippines.
I have learned that the weak must tolerate the strong, as the Philippines must tolerate the US. But
the US must also learn to tolerate the pain of great power. With great power there can be no peace and
happiness. What my people need to understand is how to tolerate great powers and what this must mean
for us. These powers do not own our hearts, our minds, and our spirit. And they never will. I have peace
within me. I may not be powerful, nor am I wealthy, but I am who I am. You, as I, can feed your soul and
have peace within, despite the influences of whatever greater, foreign powers. We tolerate and we
superficially appease these foreign powers. We have to. But we can be free as we feed our spirits and our
souls.
The time will come when the US will destroy itself as have all the great powers throughout history.
From Persia to Greece, to Rome and to Europe and now the US. And next China. Power builds and power
is then destroyed from within.
And so I cannot believe in wars and revolutions as solutions to our problems, because inner peace
is the greater force. Inner peace is the most important force and no one can take that away.”
|
