Question: What is the best way of obtaining peace in our inner life and in our outer life?¹⁴⁴

Sri Chinmoy: In the outer life you cannot have peace unless and until you have first established peace in your inner life. If you treasure a few divine thoughts early in the morning before leaving your house, then these thoughts will enter into your outer life as energising, fulfilling realities. But they perform their task only according to their capacity. In the morning you pray to God for peace, and then you come to the United Nations. There you may find that some of your colleagues, who have not prayed or meditated, are quarrelling and fighting. They are in another world.

You may say, “I prayed for peace. How is it that my colleagues today are still quarrelling over minor things?” But you have to know that the peace you get from the inner world and offer to the world at large is not wanted; the outer world does not care for it. The world says it needs peace, but when you give the world the peace-fruit, it just throws the fruit aside. Again, if you had not prayed for peace, the situation in your office could have been infinitely worse. Your prayer has definitely made the situation better than it might have been.

Again, if your prayer had been more intense and more soulful, then the turmoil in your particular department might have been less. And if you had a most powerful meditation early in the morning, the power of your own prayer and meditation might have averted completely the wrong forces and the misunderstanding among your colleagues.

It is in the inner world that everything starts. The inner world is where we sow the seed. If we sow the seed of peace and love, naturally it will produce a tree of peace and love when it germinates. But if we do not sow the seed, then how are we going to have the plant or the tree? It is impossible! Unfortunately, we do not all pray for peace. We pray for joy, or for our personal satisfactions, or for the fulfilment of a particular desire. But there is one desire or aspiration that everybody has and that is the desire for peace.

The peace we try to bring forward from the outer world is not peace at all; it is only temporary compromise. Just look at the political situation! For a few months or years two parties remain at peace. They feel that while keeping to an outer compromise they will secretly strengthen their capacity. Then, when they get the opportunity or when the vital urge compels them, they fight. But the peace that we bring to the fore from the inner world through our prayer and meditation is a different matter. It is very strong, very powerful and lasting. When we have that peace in our inner life, our outer life is bound to be transformed no matter how much it resists. It is only a matter of time.