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We know that peace of mind is not a piece of cake. But we all ask for it as if it is. Might be before an exam, or during Maths hour, or after a bad chat with girlfriend.

There came a point in my life when I badly needed it. I was in a Peace Conference then. I asked the speaker, “where to get peace of mind?” He smiled and said, “Nobody can give it to you. You’ve to search for yourself.”

Search for yourself he said. The statement sounds good to print on a T-shirt. But where do I actually search? He didn’t say. I locked myself in a room and started pondering about it. After a moment, I decided to search for it in a place where you find anything—Google.

I started typing all the keywords related to Peace and Mind. And the search results showed a never-ending list of blog posts. I started reading one by one. Some had practical steps as if Peace of Mind is a DIY project.

A post said: Write down a list of what you don’t like and burn it. It sounded interesting. I started jotting down lists and burned them with a psychotic smile. I did it until my room filled with smoke and my eyes turned red. Didn’t help.

Well, there was another post: Write down the word “Peace” 21 times. I don’t know how this thing will work but the number 21 sounded romantic. Anyway, this is easy (at least my neighbors wouldn’t call fire police). It was all good until I realized how bad my handwriting is. It took me to a memory where my fifth-grade teacher punished me in front of my crush, for bad handwriting. With every word I write, I was turning more frantic. Didn’t help.






There was a post saying: 1001 ways to attain Peace. You know such posts work because of the probability factor. Who knows, at least one of those might help. I started reading:

1. Play with your dog—But I don’t have one
2. Resolve your relationship issues—But my Ex blocked me
   .
   .

26. Tell the truth—I can’t tell mom that I have a girlfriend
    .
    .
    .

529. Read blogs on Peace—Hell! That’s what I’m doing

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Scrolling through that long list helped me attain good sleep. Perhaps, the title was wrong. Nothing worked out, except the last: 1001. It says- Get a statue of Buddha and put it on your desk. Oh! Now that’s the easiest of all.

I checked for a statue on Amazon and added it to cart. It was good until the payment gateway showed up, where I realized that my bank balance was 3.50 bucks. Didn’t help, for god’s sake.

Perish all Blogs! I switched to videos.

He looked like a peaceful man with white beard and saffron shirt. I’m talking about the guy in the video. There was vintage violin background score. He was instructing: Close your eyes —I did. Take a deep breath —I did. Think about what you love the most —I did. Imagine you have that —Yeah! Going great, I did.

silence

The instructions stopped abruptly. I opened my eyes to check what’s wrong. And there was a pop-up on screen saying: “Sign Up for Full Course at just $49”

I lost even that little peace left in my head. I continued browsing for an hour or so for better ways. As time passed, so did my patience. I was frantically breathing searching for peace of mind… and then, there was a power cut.

Everything dark and silent.

Ironically, there was a sudden peace filling my mind. I sat down in the most relaxing pose ever.

I realized that it’s not one of those searches that helped me to attain it, but the moment my search stopped, it was there. Peace of mind. All this time I was desperately searching for it and the more I dig it, the more I was losing it.






The more I was searching for it, the farther I was moving from it.

Peace of Mind is to silence your mind. But when you keep searching for it, and when you keep thinking about how to attain it, your mind, in fact, makes more noise. It’s like trying to attain silence using musical instruments. Violin, guitar, mandolin, or whatever is the instrument, they don’t help you in composing silence. Because silence is in the absence of all the instruments. No efforts needed. It’s there.

Similarly, all this while I was trying different ways to find peace of mind. In the end, I understood something strange.

There are few things which you find, not when you search for it. But when you stop searching for it. And Peace of Mind is such a thing.

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