The Apprentice of Peace: An Uncommon Dialogue

By Xlibris US

The Apprentice of Peace: An Uncommon Dialogue, is a unique platform from which we can all learn and grow, and find the peace missing in our life.

We find this peace by addressing the issues of our self growth to realize our potential, committing ourselves to the realization of what that potential looks like, and accepting the circumstances we have created for ourselves, whether good or bad.

What we see in the world is a reflection of what is going on inside of people. Their inner turmoil translates into a world of chaos, frustration, anger, hostility, and ultimately death; mentally, as well as physically.

The Apprentice of Peace is the example that will encourage a change in the mind state and attitudes of the people and how we treat each other. This uncommon dialogue challenge's you to be the highest example of yourself that you can be. We are to take our roles in the world as it's peacekeepers and peacemakers and be the shining beacons of social responsibility and common sense through heart centered conduct and righteous action.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 29, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499059670

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Ronnie ‘Qi’ Harvey. The Apprentice of Peace

Wellness Studio

ISBN:      Softcover            978-1-4990-5968-7

                eBook                 978-1-4990-5967-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/23/2014

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Apprentice of Peace

Chapter 2 Peacekeeping

Chapter 3 Peacemaking

Chapter 4 Peace of The Masters

Chapter 5 Divine Peace

Special Thanks

We would like to extend a special thank you to all those that were supportive on this endeavor. In the process of bringing you this material we have persevered through many trials and appreciate all of the encouragement, guidance, training, and lessons that we have received in the process. This is the beginning of a long journey so we are hopeful that you will enjoy this and continue to grow with us along the way. Please feel free to send us your thoughts on the book and keep up with us on our website, aopeacewellness.com, or send us an email at [e-mail].

Ronnie Qi & Pos Lu Chan

The Apprentice of Peace

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How do you believe in yourself when it doesn’t show in your actions?

When you are searching for self-peace, it is your actions that speak the loudest for you. Actions indicate the willingness and effort to make a change for the better and find your own self-peace.

Self-peace for which any individual will strive to obtain for themselves is completely unique and entirely their own.

There are three parts to self-peace. The first part is the realization that peace is needed. There are plenty of times, instances, or examples when peace breaks through the mundane activities of life and screams to be heard.

Your soul has had enough, and it is time for a change. You can no longer continue to live like this. The soul of your being is asking for a break from all the gossiping, backbiting, and negative turmoil that has become your life, asking to be, realigned with its natural state, which is a state of peace.

The realization of what peace offers to the troubled soul can often launch someone to heights previously unknown or send someone crashing down into the depths of the deepest, darkness, afraid of the truth and the change that peace might bring about.

The realization may come after many years of confusion, despair, and self-deception, but it’s the realization that will start the process. You may have had many realizations of what it’s going to take for you to achieve peace in your life. As long as you have made this realization, you have the first key.

People consider themselves happy and content and continue to live their lives without a thought of the peace that is missing from their life. They consider themselves happy. They feel that their lives are great, but these may be the people who are sick,, the gossipers, the selfish, the close-minded and those stuck in their ways. We are not being judgmental but these people will always find themselves wrapped up in business that is not their own. Ungrateful and unforgiving, at the same time unaware that their present condition is not good for them, is it bliss to remain ignorant? Is it much better to live on the outside boundaries of peace than to embrace it and live within?

Here is where the realization is needed to show you the errors of your ways. There is no error without the realization of your error, and you’ll continue to live in error when you don’t confront these issues you face in your life.

You can look at it from many angles, but the peace I’m talking about can only be attained through introspection. Introspection makes you take a serious look at yourself, making you honest about the things you don’t like about yourself butthings that make up who you are in your daily conduct and dealings with society as a whole.

We live carefree and oblivious to the stress we cause ourselves. We do not take into account our attitude or opinions concerning ourselves or those around us. These mishaps and oversights most definitely keep us on the outside boundaries of achieving peace for ourselves. It’s the realization of coming to terms with what and who you are that will bring you peace.

The dialogue in this book is about peace, but this peace is not easy to achieve. Finding peace for ourselves is something we must commit to. It takes digging and searching, learning and accepting. Sometimes our way to peace is to go through the person we are not and break down the image and persona that we have built for ourselves.

Once we look at ourselves in this new light, we begin to understand what peace has to offer us. The soul has known peace, so it is ingrained in all of us, but the road that leads to it has been forgotten. That’s why we find ourselves engaged in different types of activities that are counterproductive to our peaceful nature, and without realizing it, we find ourselves stuck in an unproductive lifestyle.

The main ingredient keeping you from achieving peace is not taking the time to stop and think about the peace that is missing from your life, but to seek an answer to it. That is a realization that peace is missing and peace is needed, and once this thought is cemented, it becomes the foundation you start to build upon.

The second part of the process of achieving peace for yourself is the committed effort. The committed effort to work toward your realization. The committed effort to embrace peace, not run from it. The committed effort to hold yourself to the ideal that will bring you peace.

The committed effort will show in your actions, and it can be heard in your voice. The committed effort is the difference between living a productive, positive life compared to just going through the motions of the everyday, typical existence of those who are unaware of the beauties of peace.

Through this committed effort, you gain strength, and your ability to stay committed strengthens as well. Your outlook on life becomes more open as your life starts to change. Once you start to see the peace in yourself, you start to see the peace in everything else. With a conscious awareness, you do right because it’s right and distinguish the fact when you’re wrong, you’re wrong and accept when you’re wrong without shame or guilt.

There are those that would perpetuate the fact that they are right when they are, in fact, wrong, even over the slightest matters. Giving a committed effort to realizing peace for ourselves confronts this attitude. We learn to be wrong when we’re wrong, accept it, and move on.

When finding peace for ourselves, we find out that being right is not always right. You’ll find out that there’s a certain peace whether you’re right or wrong, as long as you can accept it.

As easy as someone committing to quitting smoking cigarettes, someone can batten down the hatches on their life and make a committed effort to changing their life for the better. The person smoking didn’t stop overnight. It started with steps, easy goals, from smoking twenty cigarettes a day to fifteen, and so on. We won’t be able to stop our self-destructive behaviors without taking steps to minimize them every day we interact in the world.

Change begins and matures from the small things. From waking up in the morning, preparing yourself for your day, exercising, and looking in the mirror telling yourself that you love yourself (because if you don’t love yourself, you’ll never feel loved). These could be steps to reinforce your change, depending on what you are searching for or seeking.

The golden rule, just treating people the way you want to be treated, will bring peace to you, which is a form of commitment that can’t be wrong.

The things we do are that which will bring peace into our lives. For instance, the smoker who quit smoking, took steps to quit eventually did. Or for that matter, the people who got up and started to tell themselves that they loved themselves, acting like they loved themselves. Starting their day off with a positive mind frame and building up momentum to continue with their resolve not to be bothered by the man that cut in line or the lady that was rude in the elevator or the boss who overloads them with work. All these things have no control over us unless we let them.

If you have peace in yourself, you’ll see it’s not you, it’s them. You’ll see that which you were unaware of before your realization. You’ll see that your committed effort has strengthened you and has made it easier to accept the conditions and the manner in which people carry themselves.

You’ll find yourself recommitting to your effort not to be like them, recognizing your faults, and freeing yourself of that burden. By burden, I mean giving away your control, a way of understanding that you may be tested but don’t have to fail the test by giving into old reactions and responses. That is the bottom line of your committed effort to continue to let go of things that are really harmful to yourself.

Every time we dignify someone’s ignorance with a response or our attention, we lose a piece of our peace, especially in the matters of trivial affairs. When we think of peace, we think of a place still and serene, not bothered by events outside your power by choice.

To move into the future without apprehension or skepticism is solely due to your steadfast commitment and effort to realize what peace means to you, and how committed you are to staying the course is the question.

How do you believe in yourself when it doesn’t show in your actions? Someone who is giving a committed effort has nothing to worry about because his actions are coordinated with his effort. There’s no better way to show belief in oneself than to have his actions coordinate with his effort to change.

First, the realization is needed. Then there’s the committed effort toward that realization and, finally, the accepting principle.

Where there’s a search for peace, it’s not always highlighted like the yellow brick road. What you find on your way there, you may not like: the accepting principle.

Truly, for those who have taken the time to take a serious look at themselves seriously and found something about themselves that they didn’t like about themselves, acceptance is the only way to open a line of communication and to open up a dialogue for what they perceive to be wrong with themselves. For instance, you may not think you are smart, but you continue to learn. That is an accepting fact. You may not think you’re beautiful, but it does not hurt your self-confidence because you know you’re beautiful in your own way. That is an accepting fact. Accepting things as they are is critical because things don’t always go our way, and being able to accept that offers us the freedom of peace. To know that you can accept rejection, anger, and ignorance but not be the perpetrator of it yourself is peace.

We live in a world where you give what you get. If someone at some point in time was treated with behavioral poison, in time, they will be spreading the same behavioral poisoning to others, and we must accept this because this cycle has been repeated over and over again. Our acceptance is due to the fact of our realization, and we realize that we cannot be a part of this repetitive cycle any longer.

Your committed effort gives you the strength to break free and sets you apart from the poison spreaders, because it’s not you, it’s them. Your committed effort can been seen as an example for them, so they can realize it’s them and not you and that you were just the vessel that opened their eyes to the self-control and self-peace they have been lacking. This we must accept as our roles to be examples of our self-peace personified.

Acceptance may be the hardest thing about finding self-peace, besides realizing the need for it. We’re not born in an accepting society. Those of us who grew up poor but didn’t let that become our crutch or our accepted status went out