A Quiet Beginning by the Creek
Each morning, I would scramble up mountain sides to find a peaceful spot by running water or a Mountain View. It was my time for silence, tea, and journaling. On one of these mornings, I brought with me The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle—a gift from a client. As I read a few pages, I experienced what I would later understand as a shift in consciousness. My thoughts, worries, and emotions seemed to fade, and in their place, a deep peace washed over me. It wasn’t something I had to create; as my thinking mind and emotions receded, the peace within me was revealed. It was a profound realization: when everything else drops away, peace remains. This is the peace that transcends understanding—the peace of simply being.
A Daily Practice of Peace
For the next five years, Tolle’s book became my guide. I would read just a few pages, sometimes even a paragraph, and experience that same shift. Each time, I felt no need to read further—because once the shift occurred, all that was left was the serenity of simply being. I realized that the peace I encountered through his words mirrored the peace I had long experienced in my journaling practice.
The Tea-Mitage: A Place of Reflection
Years later, I built a small hut—what I called my “tea-mitage”—where I could sit, sip tea, and journal in silence. During one of these quiet moments, I came to a profound realization: not only was there this innate peace within me, but also a deep contentment with what is. I learned to love things just as they are, without the sense of lack. In this state of being, there was nothing I needed to feel fulfilled. My cup, it seemed, was already overflowing with a quiet joy. Today, I understand this joy as the happiness referred to in many spiritual teachings.
The Manifestation of Love
One day, as I looked up from my journaling and gazed at the field of grass and trees outside my tea-mitage, it became abundantly clear to me: everything and everyone arises from love. We are all manifestations of love, and love itself is the essence of our being.
The Discovery of Peace, Happiness, and Love
It wasn’t until much later that I truly grasped the significance of these shifts into peace, happiness, and love. To quote Rupert Spira, “The discovery that peace, happiness, and love are ever-present within our own Being, and completely available at every moment of experience, under all conditions, is the most important discovery that anyone can make.”
The Journey Begins
In this book, we begin our journey of self-discovery. In Section 1, we explore the peace and happiness we seek and what prevents us from realizing them. In Section 2, we dive into the investigation of who we think we are, starting the path toward realizing our true nature of peace and happiness. In Section 3, we explore the question, "If I am not who I think I am, then who am I?" Here, we shift our focus from the content of our self-observations to the subject itself, and we bring love into our exploration of our True Nature. Finally, in Section 4, we let go of our seeking and drop into the experience of simply being—abiding in the peace and presence of who we truly are. Take the next step in exploring your inner peace and happiness.
