Peace, Love, Compassion, Forgiveness, and Gratitude
A transcription from the Compassion Tour in Ashland — October 2nd, 2016
I am grateful. I am grateful to be here today with everyone. I am grateful to the invitation of Unity, of the Ashland Culture of Peace Commission, and Global Force for Healing. And I am grateful to be the inspiration for such a great flow received this morning. I am grateful for that. I am grateful to see the light that is in every single person in this room and every single person that is not here. I am grateful for that.
This is about compassion. Underlying compassion is the foundation of inner peace. It’s the peace that we have already spoken about, the people that have come up here. The people that have been referenced to — Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Peace Pilgrim who’s been an inspiration in what I do and also in the heart of every single person that is here present and not present. Compassion begins, is preceded by inner peace. It’s that inner peace that is the foundation. It is the foundation, along with love, that is the actual life force that brings all of this into existence from the foundation of emptiness.
Through the emptiness comes the stillness. Through the emptiness comes the silence. Through the emptiness comes the form. In that emptiness there is only love and there is only peace. Compassion fits into the equation by recognizing one’s self and the other, in a dualistic sense, that that peace and love is truth. That peace and love would exist if not one single of the seven billion people were alive. It would still be. We are fortunate enough to be here to witness that as an individual, as a united consciousness. We are fortunate. We are privileged. We are being gifted with that in this present moment.
Let that marinate for a second. Let it marinate for a second. For longer than a second. Let it marinate. That the gift you are given is now. The gift of inner peace. It’s without distance. It’s without “doubt” is the word I heard used before. It is incontrovertibly a given in this present moment — that peace exists, in peace building or in peace making. The simplicity of it is that it already exists. So it’s more peace maintaining. We maintain it through the way that you think, the words that you use, through the life that you live, through the music that you play, through the art that you make that you are inspired to write down in the morning. Through the way that you engage with your family, plants, animals, with the world. It’s the relationship of that inner peace.
Compassion is recognizing that essence and when you recognize that essence in yourself, you become that which you seek which is that blessing which is already there. You become that light. You become that love. You become that which is. The word “becoming” ceases to exist and you are that because, inevitably, you already are. It’s simply the recognition of being that — being that love, being that peace, and no matter what comes at you, whether it be arrows or temptations, you turn them instantly into blossoms. Such that the fragrance that is smelt by others brings the beauty and the awe forward.
What happens then is that compassion becomes forgiveness. Whether it takes two seconds, or two years, or two decades, that forgiveness is being at peace with the past. Being at peace with the past because no matter what comes at you, even if you are nailed to a cross and someone takes your legs out, you start suffocating, even then you can say that I am in a state of inner peace that my compassion is so great that I forgive you. In that, there is gratitude. Gratitude is the resurrection. That you can actually be thankful for that suffering. You can be thankful for the individual that is causing you pain. You can be thankful for anything that happened beforehand that brought you to this present moment. This present moment now. You can be forgiving for the fly that keeps landing on your face [laughter] and recognize that it too is part of this present moment. The forgiveness, this inner peace, compassion, forgiveness, and gratitude.
The beauty about the gratitude is that it fosters more inner peace. The peace becomes so great that it fuels the compassion such that the expansion becomes so large that you begin to have an effect on those around you. Outside of that, you continue to have an effect upon others pass the illusion of death because life is outside of death. There is life before birth and there will be life after your death. Life, in and of itself, exists within the wisdom, within the truth and knowing that, you can provide that compassion and forgiveness and the peace that is needed whenever you need to. In the end there is gratitude — there is gratitude in the end.
Know that. Know that now. Know that always. Know that when that person who is in pain comes to you with anger, resentment, animosity, and know that that person who is in pain is suffering pain. If you approach that with a compassionate heart, what happens is that pain is instantly alleviated and the sufferer no longer suffers. The suffering itself no longer exists. You draw that individual into the natural love that is in his or her heart. You draw that plant into its own nature. You draw that animal into its own nature. And if each one of us worked on our own inner peace, I declare that it would bring harmony to the planet. We believe that war is outside. It’s over there at a distance. Yet ask yourself is there a war within? That’s what Arjuna did on the battlefield, asking Krishna about this war within. How do I release this war within? Ask yourself how do you release that war that is within you. And when you establish that within you, the war outside, or the wars that we see on television, there will be one less person at war. And with that I say thank you.
