Peace
Your soul seeks peace, – that peace the world cannot give!
But only after the struggle has been fearlessly fought will you attain this peace which you seek in vain as long as you shun to enter the struggle. – – –
But if you return as victor to yourself, nothing will truly disrupt your peace any longer! – – – – –
Many imagine that once their struggle has ended they will have obtained peace.
Such imagining is foolish, for the end of the struggle can become your ruination, if you have not yet recognised that no struggle can be ended for the sake of obtaining peace! – –
No one has ever fought for true peace if he has not carried within himself the will to finish the struggle only as the victor!
Yearning for peace is a great temptation; woe to him who succumbs to such temptation!
It makes him into defenceless prey for his invisible enemies and, unprotected, he becomes the victim of their tyranny when even resistance without victory would have forced the foes’ weapons into his own service…
Therefore, if you want peace, do not be robbed of the courage to fight, and do not cease the struggle until your inner foes offer you peace themselves! – – –
Only then will you truly be joyful in your peace! –
Beforehand, your weariness in struggle will only lead to apparent peace, and what you thought you had won will only leave you with the choice: either to be the permanent servant of your enemies, or to seek a new struggle in which you can perhaps fight in a way that you gain the victor’s laurels…
You have often been badly counselled and told that any who would come to me must only seek peace. – –
But I want vigilant fighters; a peace which does not fall as the ripe fruit of struggle from the tree of destiny is contemptible to me and truly only folly to me; I could save you sooner if you were facing defeat in the struggle than if your lack of courage caused you to abandon the battlefield. – – –
The heroes of the great struggle for whom I became eternal peace could fight until the last drop of blood still flowed in their veins; truly: they have gained victory even if it might often have seemed as if they were only victims of their struggles. – – – – –
But I want to see you just as victorious one day!
I want you likewise to find eternal peace within me! – – –
Peace for me means the certainty of those who have struggled and won the certainty that nothing can call them any longer to struggle!
Peace is simply that calmness in itself which is both the prize and the inspiring goal of all inner battles!
Peace is freedom from all dire compulsion to struggle anew!
Freedom to me is the power attained over everything which once was called foe and opponent!
Only those who have found this peace in themselves can find their eternal peace in me! – – –
To them I want to be the stronghold of their peace! – – – –
They will have the peace in me that ‘the world’ cannot give, – the peace which only those can win who, victorious in themselves, finally win me! – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –