The Peace of God, Which Passes All Understanding

Thank God I’ve been freed from crippling identification with my mind. Life seems a bit more open, these days. I was just browsing Facebook when I saw Johnny Bovril’s latest status update. It said: “Johnny Bovril is finding it difficult to fight reality.”

Of course, my first thought was: Well then, stop fighting it, mate. Because of course it’s difficult to fight reality. In fact, it’s impossible. Reality always wins.

All my problems in life stemmed from the fact that I was in resistance to what is. I could not accept things as they are. I always felt things would or could or should be different. It wasn’t my thinking that was all messed up: it was the universe.

No wonder I was drunk and angry.

In order to get sober I had to let go of my old ideas. I had to come to realise that my thinking was wrong. My thinking is still wrong actually, in the sense that it doesn’t tell me the truth, and is very often disconnected from any sense of reality whatsoever. That’s why I pay less and less attention to it. It’s like a loveable but vaguely retarded cousin jumping up and down in the corner trying to get your attention.

I also had to cultivate acceptance. Like cultivating any kind of a habit, this took practice. I had to drop the delusion that I was in control of life; the delusion that I’d ever been in control of life.

To abandon myself is an on-going process.

When I truly relinquish any idea of control, life becomes quite remarkable. Because I have no idea what’s going to happen from one moment to another, it's infinitely surprising. I begin to be filled with curiosity about just what’s going to happen next. And because I know that everything is as it is - and therefore as it should be - and that every experience I have is the experience I am meant to have in this moment, however the situation looks to me, I am no longer in resistance to it. Consequently I can accept it and experience it fully.

Fear begins to drop away. I become less tense and constricted. I don’t struggle. I relax and take it easy.

Life rolls out towards me like it always has: of its own accord. I sit in the middle of it, in wonder, in the Peace of God, which passes all understanding.