Returning to Harmony by Sister Jayanti

Returning to Harmony

by Sister Jayanti Harmony is natural to us. It is the original state of humanity, where our way of relating and interacting with one another and with all forms of life is naturally harmonious. Deep inside we know this – it is as if we remember it – and this is why we long for harmony and work so hard to find or create it. If there were no conscious or unconscious memory of that experience, there would be no sense of something missing, something awry, in our world at this time. If harmony is our natural way of being, then why is it not currently the norm?

Today’s world is an increasingly divided one. There is division and fragmentation within families and communities, between genders and generations, and between ideologies, faiths and nations. A sense of ‘them and us’ inevitably leads to comparison, competition and, often, conflict and undermines our deeper feelings of belonging, love and compassion. At the same time, we are seeing a soaring rise in health problems – mental and physical – across the globe, at all levels of society, which would seem to indicate some form of disharmony within us as individuals.

Within every human tradition there is the concept of paradise, utopia or a golden age – a world of peace, love and happiness, a time when human beings lived their lives in harmony with each other and with nature. What has happened that we’ve come so far from where we were? And, more importantly, how can we help ourselves to return to our natural state of being?

The tendency has been to try and find external solutions - by changing systems, changing policies, injecting more money, more technology and more information. Yet, despite all of this, we appear to be going in reverse rather than moving forward. Perhaps it is time to look at a different perspective entirely: to look at what’s going on inside ourselves and to see how it’s connected to the world outside - both on a personal level and a global level. Spirituality tells me that, when I sort things out within myself and come to a state of harmony inside, I am more likely to contribute to harmony outside on all levels - with people and with our physical environment. ‘Charity begins at home’ - with the self.

The experience of harmony Harmony is, first and foremost, about being at peace with one’s own self. It is that inner state in which our thoughts, our conscience and our expression – our words and actions – are all in alignment. This brings feelings of deep comfort and security and, at the same time, flexibility and flow. When we experience peace and harmony within ourselves, our decisions and actions are motivated by contentment and love. We have the strength and clarity to be able to behave in a way that is according to our deepest values – which brings the greatest happiness. Inner harmony enables us to bring meaning and truth to even the smallest matters. We give our full attention and bring the best of ourselves to whatever we are engaged in at the present moment. Like someone playing in an orchestra or playing a team sport, we are alert and focused on what we have to do as well as what is happening around us.

If we ourselves are able to maintain inner peace and harmony inside, our personal and professional relationships will automatically be more likely to be conducive to harmony. This will then naturally lead to harmony in our communities, in our countries and could ultimately be a small contribution to peace and harmony in the world. Inner harmony is thus the seed of harmony between us and around us and is what enables us to create structures and practices that sustain harmony.

A question of awareness Everything starts with our awareness: our sense of who we are and who we belong to. In most cases, our self-image and sense of belonging are bound up with our physical identity and the material world: what we look like, what we do, where we live, the family and community we were born into, and many other aspects of conditioning that we’ve picked up along the way. What if we could see beyond our physical self and everything associated with that – even beyond our personality – to our inner core: the eternal, spiritual self? When we are in the awareness of ‘I’ being the physical form, there will inevitably be some feeling of insecurity. Our body is temporary and so relationships, roles, possessions and circumstances associated with my physical identity are all prone to change and, ultimately, loss. This uncertainty drives us to look for comfort and support in external things. The pull of the physical senses can lead to dependencies and desires that can never be satisfied and undermine our selfrespect.

If, however, ‘I’ is experienced as a being of spiritual energy that expresses itself through our physical body, then that uncertainty and vulnerability is no longer there. Knowing that the ‘I’ that thinks, feels, remembers, and generally experiences and contributes to life is ultimately distinct from the material world brings a deep feeling of inner peace. This understanding of the deeper aspects of the self has largely been forgotten. We have become disconnected from our higher, spiritual selves and this is the fundamental cause of our overly materialistic outlook today.

As spiritual beings, we do not exist in isolation. We are connected with each other through an eternal connection with the Divine, the Parent of us all and the Source of all that is highest in human nature. As we connect with this perfect reference point, we increase our own power of truth and we also experience a deep connection with each other. The more we experience the highest within ourselves, the more easily we feel connected and in harmony with people around us. This is because we are free from needing others to give us a sense of self; we experience a higher sense of self-worth.

There is a continuum that works on the spiritual level and also manifests in the material world. It goes like this:

Our awareness defines our attitude. Our attitude colours our vision. Our vision dictates our actions. Our actions shape our culture. Our culture creates our world.

The words rhyme in Hindi: smruti - vritti - drishti - kritti - sanskriti - srishti. What we see and experience in the world – and what we wish to see and experience – depend ultimately on our awareness, our consciousness.

and behaviour. However, it is my understanding that these are all the inevitable consequences of the individual and collective consciousness of human beings – the manifestations of an inner disharmony. Logic then tells me that the solutions to humanity’s current state of dis-ease also lie there.

The inner being, the soul, itself has inherent goodness within. This goodness is based on five core innate qualities: peace, love, wisdom, joy and purity. We spend a lot of time and energy trying to find these in what we do, where we go, in the people around us and in the possessions we acquire. All the time these much sought-after ‘treasures’ are within us; they are who we really are inside. Because of the selfishness to which materialism gives rise, these qualities are mostly deeply suppressed. The level of violence that we see in society today can be traced back to this first violence that we do to ourselves: that of suppressing our inherent goodness.

When we reconnect with our inner core of goodness, we are less influenced by any negativity coming from outside of us. We are not so affected by the anger or arrogance of other people, or by distressing situations in front of us or in the news. It is not that we avoid or ignore them but they do not disturb us in a way that makes us react out of fear or dislike. Instead, we find that we have the self-respect and power to be able to respond calmly and constructively. With understanding and love, we see beyond the differences, the labels and the barriers – we see beyond the presenting behaviour – to the truth of the soul. We recognise the whole human family as our family and the physical world as our shared home, which naturally engenders relationships of caring and sharing and the desire to connect with and appreciate the other.

Meditation enables us to rediscover and re-energise our inner qualities. Becoming more aware of them and practising them in everyday situations can transform our thinking, our speaking and our doing and bring them back into alignment and harmony. It is then the inner being who is directing my interactions with the world, rather than the physical senses, influenced by the weight of the world’s negativity, controlling the inner self. Although we may be living right now in an era of compassion deficit, social isolation and post-truth, re-connecting with the inner self empowers us as individuals to live lives based on our core values of compassion, love and truth.

Sister Jayanti is Additional Administrative Head of The Brahma Kumaris and the organisation’s NGO representative at the UN in Geneva. brahmakumaris.org un.brahmakumaris.org