Secret of Mental Peace
Charles Moss Duke Jr. (b. 1935) is an American astronaut. He was on the NASA team. He completed several journeys in space. In 1972, he even travelled to the moon!
In February 2008, two members of our Centre for Peace and Spirituality met Mr. Duke in New Delhi. He gifted our team with an autographed photograph of his. In this photograph, he is wearing a spacesuit and is standing on the surface of the moon!
Mr. Duke kindly agreed to be interviewed by our team. The interview, which was video-recorded, was about spirituality. During the interview, Mr. Duke was asked if he was satisfied with his life and if his life was happy. Explaining his condition, he said, “I had no peace in life. I thought the moon would give me peace. I thought all these goals, all these accomplishments, this great career, would give me peace, but it didn’t. So, I thought I’ll change career. So, I left NASA as an astronaut and went into business. I made a lot of money, but I still had no peace in my life. There was still something missing.”
This is the story not just of Mr. Duke alone. Rather, it is the story of almost every single person in the world today. Today, opportunities to earn money, fame and power (and, for some, to travel to the moon!) have increased manifold. People are running after such things. Many manage to obtain them. Such people are considered to be super-heroes and super-achievers. But experience shows that these super-heroes and super-achievers often turn out to be super-failures. Despite obtaining the wealth, power and status that they hankered after, they fail to obtain inner peace and joy, and, finally, they die.
It is claimed that in today’s times one can score big successes. But experience tells us that many such big successes turn out to be big failures as far as the inner life of a person is concerned. Many super-achievers suffer from tremendous stress. Additional wealth only turns out to be a cause for additional tension, and even additional illness, for them.
Today, stress has become so pervasive that an entire industry has cropped up in response to this situation. It is called ‘de-stressing’. In special de-stressing centres, there are experts appointed whose task is to try to cure people of stress. But despite all this, people’s stress levels are continuously rising! It is said that today, the biggest threat is not World War Three but, rather, mounting levels of tension and stress.
This situation reminds us of a verse in the Quran: “Surely in the remembrance of God hearts can find comfort.” (13:28) This point was expressed by the Prophet Muhammad in the following words: “There is no joy except the joy of the Hereafter.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 2961) This means that by making God one’s supreme concern one obtains peace and that the ideal life one is seeking can be obtained only in the period after death. In the phase of life before death no one can get the ideal life he desires.
This issue is directly related to God’s creation plan. God, the Creator, has made this present world as a testing-ground. The present world cannot become for us a place for the fulfilment of all our desires. This world is, for every person, a stage in one’s journey, and the Hereafter that is to come is our eternal home.
If you are travelling in a train and want to have during your journey all the facilities and comforts that you enjoy at home, you will definitely be disappointed. You will not get what you want. This is because a train is a train; it cannot be a substitute for your home. In the same way, in the present world, the fulfilment of all of one’s desires is impossible for us. The person who hopes for the complete fulfilment of his desires must work for the Hereafter, where, in the eternal home of Paradise, this might be possible for him. It is this truth that is expressed in the Quran (37:61) in the following words: “It is for the like of this that all should strive.”
