Question: How can we attain lasting inner peace?

Sri Chinmoy: We can attain lasting inner peace, only when we feel that the Supreme Pilot, our Supreme Pilot is in the many as One and in the One as many. When we consciously feel this truth in our life, we get lasting peace in whatever we say, whatever we do, whatever we offer and whatever we receive. We do not get everlasting peace when our mind tells us that if the One is One, He cannot be many, and that the many cannot be One.

The day I feel my existence, my illumining heart in everyone, is the day I immediately become one in many. When I receive or bring down Peace from Above, immediately I feel that I am many, not one. Then when I assimilate the Peace in myself, I see the Peace has been assimilated in all of us. Then I have a conscious feeling of oneness, of the oneness in the many and the many as one.

Peace comes in and we lose it because we feel that we are not responsible for humanity, or that we are not part and parcel of humanity. We have to feel that God and humanity are like a great tree. God is the tree, and the branches are His Manifestation. We are branches, and there are many other branches. All these branches are part of the tree and are one with each other and with the tree. If we can feel that we have the same relationship with God and with humanity as the branch has with its fellow branches and with the tree as a whole, we are bound to get everlasting peace.