A Simple Mantra for Peace Within

We have often heard that great people often convey the most profound message in a very simple or mundane language. Here is a sample of that from Ramana Maharshi: The story goes that an old man travelled a long distance from his home to have an audience(or darshan) with Ramana Maharshi. As he was restless and agitated, he wanted to seek solace in Maharshi’s presence. As soon as he met the Maharshi,he poured out his frustrations and cried out loud saying – ” I am very agitated – Get me Peace,Get me peace “. Ramana Maharshi quietly told the old man in Tamil – “Chumma Iru” and left(which may be translated as ” Shut up & keep quiet”). The old man felt offended as he thought the Maharshi abused and insulted him. He narrated the whole thing to a friend who was familiar with the ways of the Maharshi. His friend explained to him that this is the profoundest advice one could get for his present malady. Isn’t it true that one gets to experience peace only by silence – only by shutting up one’s mind from all negative emotions such as anger,jealousy,frustration etc. The moment our mind is truly silent, peace will automatically descend and fill us completely. In fact there can be no simple solution to attain peace. No one on earth can give us peace except ourselves. The concept of SIGNAL & NOISE comes in handy to understand this problem. Signal is the positive energy while Noise is the negative force such as anger,frustration etc. One has to constantly practice the art of negating ‘noise’ and accept only ‘signal’. Since ‘noise’ doesn’t add any value to any given situation,it should be differentiated from useful ‘signal’ and therefore thrown out of the mind unceremoniously,the very moment it raises its ugly head. For instance what is the purpose served by any of the negative emotions? They merely dissipate our positive energies and to that extent prevent us from giving our best shot to solving a given problem. And to practice the advice of Ramana Maharshi to shut up and keep quiet (‘Chumma iru’ in Tamil)is the very first step in that direction. P.S: For the next 2 weeks, I will be away in Chennai to enjoy music festival. And therefore there will be some respite for my readers from my blogs, as I hope to practice the advice of Ramana Maharshi blissfully.