Discover the difference between organic and processed peace.
The priest in my neighborhood is a Franciscan monk of Hindu origin.
His life story is crazy.
He was born in a small village in India.
He studied in Europe and the United States.
He got a job in a multinational company in Canada.
After a few years of earning a lot of money and living the kind of life that makes you want to emigrate to Canada, he had an existential crisis.
He took a leave of absence. And he returned to India.
In Calcutta, she contacted her aunt, a nun at the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. — The famous order founded by St. Teresa of Calcutta.
And she spent the whole year with her aunt, helping people who were dying of various diseases.
After that year of service to the underprivileged, he returned to Canada, resigned, and became a priest.
He told his story in a sermon.
The interview
From the moment I heard his story, I did not stop until I got him to have coffee with me and answer just one question.
Do you feel at peace after leaving everything, or do you miss your old luxurious life?
The monk was very generous with me and gave me a brutal life lesson.
He first told me that there are two kinds of peace.
According to the monk, there are two types of peace: processed peace and organic peace.
- Processed peace is the “artificial and additive” peace you get from everything outside you: money, friends, partners, travel, food, and possessions.
- Organic peace, which is the biological peace with zero additives, is the one that is always inside you, even if you sometimes forget it.
The monk explained that organic peace is like a river rising from a spring connecting the water from the depths to the mountain.
The problem is that we need to find a way to block the source of that river.
The Paradox of Processed Peace and Organic Peace
The monk told me something I will never forget,
“The more processed peace you have, the more organic peace you block.
Because your obsession with the material world fills the source of your inner river of peace with what I call rocks: anxieties, fears, desires, ego.
And also the processed peace demands more and more additions.
But you don’t care because the processed peace, although artificial, is peace in the end.
Until one day the reason for your processed peace disappears or expires.
And that’s when it all goes to hell.”
The monk’s confession.
The monk told me that the trigger of his existential crisis was that his processed peace had expired: what made him happy stopped making him happy, and he needed more and more external things to have some processed peace.
And he explained to me the following,
“When our happiness depends on a person, when that person, for whatever reason, leaves our life, he takes our peace with him.
When our happiness depends on a job, when we get fired, that job takes our peace.
When our happiness depends on our money, when we lose it, that money takes our peace.
However, if we feel happy when we have no partner, no job, no money, we will easily attract the material.
Because the smartest thing to do when you lose everything is to have peace of mind (organic peace) to make the right decisions.”
And that blew my mind.
Takeaway
Processed peace is artificial. IT IS NOT NATURAL.
Only organic peace, born from within, is authentic peace, without preservatives or coloring 😉
And its expiration date is yours, as long as you live.
However, the processed peace as it is born from the outside world lasts as long as that which gives it to you. And that can be days or years, but only part of your life.
So don’t forget to dedicate yourself to cultivating your organic peace and everything will be fine.
A virtual hug
AG