“The Peace that Passes all Understanding”

Why is that very special peace that is referred to in the Bible, called “The Peace that passes all understanding?” It has nothing to do with peace between warring nations or individuals. Neither does it have anything to do with actively seeking to be calm and peaceful. It springs unbidden like a joyous and excited puppy leaps into our arms when we arrive home.

It cannot be understood because there seems to be no logical explanation for the feeling that suddenly comes over a person, usually without any external cause. External surroundings sometimes influence it but you can be in apparently identical surroundings another time and not undergo the same experience. Haven’t you ever been all alone on a hillside, beside a stream or walking along a beach when quite inexplicably, a feeling of total and utter peace and contentment steals over you? Why now and not at other times when you have been in the same place?

I believe it happens because for a short time and such feelings are usually short-lived, a combination of things – your thoughts, the sounds of birds or of water, the colour of the sky, the warmth of the sun, a combination of these, or whatever – triggers a memory from before you were born. A time when you were a spirit dwelling in a world of spirit; a time when you knew beyond doubt the interconnectedness of all life, animate and inanimate; a time when you had no doubts about the eternal nature of the spirit of life; a time when no physical senses came between you and your certainty that love permeates everything and that evil truly is a lack of love, rather than something separate, encouraged by a mythical figure known as the Devil.

In that place and at that time you were totally at peace, understood that you were exactly who you were supposed to be and where you were supposed to be but also aware, without it causing you unease, that there was an infinity of growth and experience waiting for you in worlds physical and spiritual. When we are born into a physical body, the five senses mask this innate awareness and understanding. Instead we become all too aware of how finite things are on this Earth of ours and we are saddened because we know many who are near and dear to us will be taken away and there is nothing we can do to prevent it. The almost constant awareness of impending loss is one of the most difficult things with which we have to cope during our incarceration in a physical body. We gain relief from these dark fears during sleep, when we are permitted to return and visit the scenes of our former life in the world of the spirit.

Occasionally, just now and again, we are permitted waking relief in the form of that peace which passes all understanding. When it happens to you, treasure it; revel in it and under no circumstances try to analyse why. Analysis is the antithesis of magic, and make no mistake, such moments of utter, unreasoning, spiritual, peace are magic and a pure gift from God.