From Womb to World—Birthing Peace & Harmony

Our deepest desire is to be happy, to feel at peace and effortlessly content.

If we’re on a spiritual path, we’ve learned that lasting peace and happiness is an “inside job.” It’s about recognizing our indestructible essence—the radiant joy at the very core of our Being. This is a happiness that doesn’t depend upon anything else. It’s an inner peace and joy that doesn’t require the body, mind, or world to be any different than it is, right now.

As parents, can we set the stage for our children, also, to experience the everlasting joy of their True Nature? And how is this related to harmonious interpersonal relationships and so-called “world peace”?

From the moment of your child’s conception, through gestation and birthing, and then years of parenthood, you can indeed nourish peace and harmony. You can help your children learn how to be happy even in challenging circumstances.

World peace begins and ends with respectful and harmonious interpersonal relationships—which begin with a healthy relationship with yourself—which depends ultimately upon discovering your inherent Divinity: your true identity as Pure Awareness.

CREATION & DESTRUCTION IN THE NATURAL WORLD

As you’ve probably noticed, Mother Nature has wrathful as well as peaceful moods. There are mountain valleys resplendent with gentle wildflowers. And there are thundering avalanches. There’s the pristine beauty of a quiet sunrise. And the raging force of a hurricane. There’s the harmony of songbirds. And the heated chase of a lioness after her prey.

The natural world is defined by cycles of creation and destruction. The Hindu trinity of Brahma (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer) represents the wisdom of such transformations. For every birth, there is a death. Anything that appears will eventually disappear. This is just the way it is.

So, violence—in the sense of death/destruction—is not a problem. It’s happening all the time. Mountain ranges ascend and then descend, over millennium. Ripe fruit drops from the branches, decomposes to become fertilizer—food for the tree’s roots. And the cells of our human body are continuously dying and being reborn, which is what makes healing possible.

THE TRUE CULPRIT

If death, destruction, and dramatic transformation are not a problem—just how the natural world dances—then what is the source of psychological suffering, discontent, dis-ease, that gnawing sense of lack?

What the spiritual masters tell us is that the root-cause of psychological suffering is ignorance of our True Nature. Such ignorance is the only real problem, because resolving it allows us to tap into unconditioned peace and joy.

Does this mean that we don’t take action to transform our bodies, minds, and worldly circumstances? Not at all! It’s just that we engage in such activities from happiness—rather than depending upon such changes to give us happiness.

We understand that the true source of lasting happiness is not in the world, but rather in the indestructible core of our Being.

DISSOLVING RESIDUES OF TRAUMA

If death/destruction—on large and small scales—is just part of how the natural world functions, then how should we understand physical or psychological trauma?

Trauma occurs when the body-mind is not able to fully digest an event perceived to be dangerous—so a residue of this event remains in the body and/or subconscious mind, even after the danger has passed. Such trauma-residues prevent us from being fully present in the here and now.

In the face of a potential threat to the body’s safety, the sympathetic nervous system activates the fight-flight-freeze response. This maximizes the body’s potential for survival—so, in moments of actual danger, it’s a really good thing!

But when residues of trauma remain, the body-mind tends to get stuck in the fight-flight-freeze mode. Its capacity to relax back into the rest-and-digest mode of the parasympathetic nervous system has been hindered.

BIRTHING A NEW WORLD

The good news is that residues of trauma can be resolved. They can be fully released, fully liberated from the body-mind. And for mothers and mothers-to-be, there are very good reasons to engage in such a healing process.

The mother’s nervous system is deeply interwoven with the nervous system of her in-utero child and newborn. So a healthy and trauma-free maternal nervous system translates into a baby’s healthy nervous system.

When the nervous system is functioning in a balanced and harmonious way, then even challenging experiences can be digested, without leaving trauma residues in the body-mind.

Body-centered modalities like yoga, tai-chi and Feldenkrais are excellent tools for unraveling physical residues of trauma. And hypnotherapy is a wonderful tool for supporting the resolution of both physical and psychological residues of trauma.

THE WORLD APPEARING WITHIN ME

Truth, love, and beauty belong to our True Nature. They are what give the shine and true value and absolute meaning to our life experiences. They can never be threatened, never be enhanced nor degraded. Just more fully welcomed.

This is the treasure that remains ever-radiant and indestructible in the face of the creation-maintenance-destruction patterns that define the body, mind and world.

Who we are essentially is the infinite eternal “space” of Pure Awareness, within which the world appears and disappears: day-by-day, year-by-year, moment-by-moment. Understanding this is the truest expression of “world peace.”

What’s also true is that when we wake up to our True Nature, our human body-mind becomes a field of healing energy—where disharmony tends naturally to transform into harmony, cruelty into kindness, confusion into clarity. And this is the greatest gift we can give to our children.

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