The peace that comes from faith does not lead to passivity in action; it leads to purity in vision and intention.
When we are faced with difficulties that seem unmanageable and turn to God in faithful prayer and surrender, we often experience a mystical peace—a peace that makes no logical sense because the circumstances haven’t changed. The Bhagavad-gita 4.39 points to this remarkable phenomenon when it declares that the faithful relish a peace that is unshakable.
Such peace is often misunderstood as passivity, as if it means to just sit down, do nothing, and let things slide to our detriment. However, this conception is based on a foundational misconception: the idea that peace requires peaceful circumstances or that the peaceful can’t be dynamic.
Faithful prayer and surrender don’t necessarily always magically change our externals; rather, they change our internals, removing the fog that clouds our inner vision and intention. Such a fog is caused by impurities that distort both what we see and what we seek. Due to these impurities, we see only material things as desirable and seek only material means to obtain them.
What our heart longs for most is love—specifically, love that lasts. Such love can only be provided by our Lord, who is eternal and with whom our bond is eternal. Through faithful prayer and surrender, we become cleansed internally of impurities. Thereafter, we become situated in purity of intention, seeking to come closer to God and to become better instruments of his will. The specific problems we face become incidental and peripheral; our central driving concern becomes developing and deepening our relationship with him. Knowing that he is in control and that he will get us through whatever difficulties we are facing, we gain peace from the purity of our intention to be in harmony with his love.
And because our intention is to harmonize with his love, we also want to express that love through appropriate actions. Thus, the peace that comes from faith doesn’t make us passive. We do what is within our capacity, focusing not on merely solving the problem through our endeavors, but on expressing our devotional intention to serve our Lord even amid the difficulty.
As a result, even if the particular problem is not solved by our efforts, we don’t lose our peace, because for us, success depends not on whether we solved the problem, but on whether we tried to serve our Lord. His plan is bigger than merely solving the problem for us, and he will see us through, irrespective of the specific way in which the problem unfolds.
Summary:
- The peace that comes through prayerful surrender can seem like passivity to those who expect us to get worked up over difficulties.
- Prayerful surrender leads to purity of vision and intention, where we seek not material gains, but to express our love for God.
- This purity of vision and intention does not foster passivity; instead, it encourages us to act out of loving service, without getting overly disturbed by the outcomes.
Think it over:
- Why may the peace that comes from prayerful surrender seem like passivity?
- How does prayerful surrender foster purity?
- Why does purity of vision and intention not lead to passivity in action?
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04.39 A faithful man who is dedicated to transcendental knowledge and who subdues his senses is eligible to achieve such knowledge, and having achieved it he quickly attains the supreme spiritual peace.
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