We may want peace and we may see the necessity of having peace but we do not live a peaceful life.
And the world is preparing for war, ideologies fighting each other. They do not consider human beings but only the extension of power and so on. So we cannot possibly look for peace from the politicians and governments. That is a fact.

They have talked about pacem in terris, peace on earth and there has never been peace on earth. On the contrary religions have helped to bring about wars. You know all about it so I won’t go into it. They have tortured, condemned, excommunicated, burnt and then the next moment they talk about peace. Probably the Buddhists and the Hindus are the only ancient Buddhists and Hindus, in their religion they have accepted the dictum;Don’t kill but they do kill.

That is just an idea again. And the Islamic world is full of what they are - you know all about it. Those religions that are formed, established on books become bigotry, fundamentalists, and they become terrorists also of the world. And institutions and foundations, groups have promised peace. But they too do not give peace.

So where does one find peace? Because one must see very clearly, without peace we are like animals, we are destroying each other. We are destroying the earth, the ocean, the air. And politically and religiously we look to leaders to unify and bring about peace in the world. But they have not succeeded either. Governments, politicians, religious people, those groups that are searching for peace, none of them have given human beings, you and me, the speaker, peace. So where do we find it? Without that fundamental necessity we cannot possibly understand greater things of life. 

So together we are going to go into this, not verbally, not intellectually, but find out for ourselves as human beings, without any guide, without any leadership because they have all failed. Without any priest, without any psychologists, can we have peace in the world, in the world and in us? First, can we have peace in ourselves?

The word ‘peace’ is a rather complicated word. One can give different meanings to it depending upon our moods, depending on our intellectual concepts, romantically, emotionally we can give different meanings to it. But can we together, not give different meanings, but comprehend the word and thesignificance and the depth of that word? It is not merely the freedom from something: peace of mind, physical peace, but the ending of all conflict, that is real peace, not only in ourselves but with our neighbours and with the world. Peace with the environment, the ecology and all that, to have deep rooted peace, unshakeable and not superficial, not a passing thing but timeless depth of peace.

One has sought peace through meditation. All over the world that has been one of the purposes of meditation. But meditation is not the search for peace. Meditation is something far different, which we will go into presently.

So what is peace and how can we establish and lay the foundation so that we build on that - psychologically speaking? You understand sirs, we are talking over together. I am not pointing out.
The speaker is not the authority but in talking over together things become very clear. If we can talk over together without any bias, without any prejudice, having no conclusions or concepts what peace is, then we can go into it together. But if you have opinions about peace, what peace should be, thenyour enquiry stops.

Opinions have no value, though the whole world is run on opinions. Opinions are limited. Your opinion, or the speaker’s opinion, opinions of the totalitarian governments, or the opinions of the church people and governments and so on, they are all limited. Your judgement and the opinion which gives values are all limited. I hope we understand the word, what it means to be limited. When you think about yourself from morning till night, as most people do, it is very, very limited.