Juli seems to be at peace. After an hour’s walk she can let go. Snuffles on the lonely meadow outside the university campus. Almost oblivious. No more incessant checking of the surroundings. No manic jumping over reactions. No compulsion to control and constantly alarm. Instead: Peace. And – seemingly – trust in the world.
But then: two students, invisible to Juli, approach via a path through tall grass. And they speak Spanish! Juli hears them and in a fraction of a second she jerks her head up, strikes twice, and flips spectacularly backwards in the air after her mighty pike towards the voices was limited by the length of the leash.
Now it’s up to me. Powerfully composed, I must now be. Calm and rock solid. The guided lead must be me. Now I must take over again. Give the frightened child, who forgot his guidance in the meadow because everything just seemed so beautifully peaceful, trust in the world again. Give real peace. Because: The peace in which July was in the meadow was not real peace. It was peace in the loneliness of the ego, which was only possible because by chance nothing frightening, nothing painfully pressing on her perception made her senses shimmer. The peace of the lonely ego. Temporary, local peace. Random peace. The peace of the materialistic man. Brought about by fences, lawyers or machine guns. Perhaps also through Playstations, Volkswagens and trekking holidays. Purchased peace. Bought paradise. Temporally and locally limited. Bought absence of fear. Fragile. Anytime. Random. So fragile! So limited…! Anytime…! – All the more painful, all the worse it was, when the two students, in their foreign language, out of nowhere destroyed Juli’s fragile, random paradise. All the harsher was Juli’s reflexive response. Juli’s counter-attack to save her ego-paradise. To destroy the perpetrators of pain. The culprits.
This accidental, bought, temporary, limited and fragile and lonely peace, this accidental absence of pain, is opposed by the real peace. This is eternal and everywhere. It is full of security and it is fearless. It is serene and powerful and full of knowledge. Man can surrender to it. To him Juli can – and will – surrender. Then they can surrender, because they know that they are guided, no matter what happens. That they are sheltered, no matter what the circumstances. Then they can look up questioningly and get powerful serenity and rock-solid peace in response.
Juli is ready to be led. She just has to learn it, because she is a toddler. And when she has learned it, then nothing will upset her. As long as I am guided and nothing upsets me. For I am her guidance. And I am guided by the source of strength. And this source never loses its composure and as long as I rely on it, I too can remain in powerful composure. No matter what the circumstances may be.
Man must exchange it. The peace he has bought. He must exchange it for the eternal and infinite peace in the meaning of his existence. Then there will be no more need to startle out of an illusion, no more counterattacks in defence of something that is as fleeting and as ephemeral as smoke….