Online with Rabbi Ted Falcon, Ph.D.

Here's the essential problem with peace. It's not something you get to. It's something you are. "Shalom" means wholeness. And the kind of peace that shalom describes is a peace that flows naturally from the wholeness of our beings. This peace is not a static state but a state of free and open evolution. In our wholeness we are infinitely creative beings.

The peace we already are is not owned by our ego selves. When we confuse our identity with our personality we collapse into worlds of competition and comparison in which our wholeness can not be appreciated. So the peace the ego seeks is always conditional and about to be violated by our reactivity and fear.

Peace is a spiritual reality. When we awaken to our Greater Self we are able to embrace our fretful and fearful ego in the arms of compassion. It is this embrace which gifts our ego self with the reality of peace.

Peace is a practice. Whenever we notice that we have slipped into a belief in fragmentation and separateness we can invite ourselves to remember the Greater One we are. Let yourself be embraced by the Presence of Peace awakening within you. Understand that you are that Presence. Remember the Presence that awakens within each precious human being. Practice the peace you are.