This life and world are full of opposites. Wherever you look, you see opposites. Fire evaporates water and water puts out the fire. Water flows down, while fire rises up. They are completely opposite in nature. Swabhaavatthah — that is their nature. If you say that water should not flow down, it is impossible, because its nature is to flow downwards.
The same holds true for fire — it naturally goes up, whether you like it or not. So, when a storm arises, just be with it. Do not try to get rid of the storm, or expect it to have a different nature other than its own. Be with it; go into it. And, of course, you have the practices of Sudarshan Kriya, meditation, and pranayama to help you weather the storms. They all help purify your whole system, and settle you down.
Looking for perfection creates imperfection inside you. You want peace, but you have become restless wanting peace. You want everybody to be peaceful, and situations to be peaceful, but these cravings create big turmoil inside you, and give rise to storms inside. How is it possible? Peace comes from within, not from without. If you are peaceful, your surroundings become peaceful, your situation becomes peaceful, and people around you become peaceful. This peace comes from knowing that you are the centre of this universe. Whom are you looking at? To somewhere else, or someone else? Wherever you go, you will carry your own mind, and wherever you go, you will create your own storms. It may appear to be calm and quiet for some time, and then it will be the same again unless you stop and realize this — you are the Being. Otherwise, nothing will help in the long term. There is no other permanent solution.
The wise man does not say, “The storm should not rise in my mind.” Instead, he now wonders about how this storm rises and how it cools down. This is an amazing play of the personality inside your huge, unbounded nature.
