The peace which results from social comfort, passing gratification, or worldly victory is transitory in its nature, and is burnt up in the heat of fiery trial.  Only the Peace of Heaven endures through all trial, and only the selfless heart can know the Peace of Heaven.

Holiness alone is undying peace.  Self-control leads to it, and the ever-increasing Light of Wisdom guides the pilgrim on his way.  It is partaken of in a measure as soon as the path of virtue is entered upon, but it is only realized in its fullness when self disappears in the consummation of a stainless life.

                    “This is peace,
      To conquer love of self and lust of life,
    To tear deep-rooted passion from the heart
      To still the inward strife.”

If, O reader! you would realize the Light that never fades, the Joy that never ends, and the tranquillity that cannot be disturbed; if you would leave behind for ever your sins, your sorrows, your anxieties and perplexities; if, I say, you would partake of this salvation, this supremely glorious Life, then conquer yourself.  Bring every thought, every impulse, every desire into perfect obedience to the divine power resident within you.  There is no other way to peace but this, and if you refuse to walk it, your much praying and your strict adherence to ritual will be fruitless and unavailing, and neither gods nor angels can help you.  Only to him that overcometh is given the white stone of the regenerate life, on which is written the New and Ineffable Name.

Come away, for awhile, from external things, from the pleasures of the senses, from the arguments of the intellect, from the noise and the excitements of the world, and withdraw yourself into the inmost chamber of your heart, and there, free from the sacrilegious intrusion of all selfish desires, you will find a deep silence, a holy calm, a blissful repose, and if you will rest awhile in that holy place, and will meditate there, the faultless eye of Truth will open within you, and you will see things as they really are.  This holy place within you is your real and eternal self; it is the divine within you; and only when you identify yourself with it can you be said to be “clothed and in your right mind.”  It is the abode of peace, the temple of wisdom, the dwelling-place of immortality.  Apart from this inward resting-place, this Mount of Vision, there can be no true peace, no knowledge of the Divine, and if you can remain there for one minute, one hour, or one day, it is possible for you to remain there always.  All your sins and sorrows, your fears and anxieties are your own, and you can cling to them or you can give them up.  Of your own accord you cling to your unrest; of your own accord you can come to abiding peace.  No one else can give up sin for you; you must give it up yourself.  The greatest teacher can do no more than walk the way of Truth for himself, and point it out to you; you yourself must walk it for yourself.  You can obtain freedom and peace alone by your own efforts, by yielding up that which binds the soul, and which is destructive of peace.