Peace Pilgrim: An American Avatar
Peace Pilgrim
Dear Friends,
I have had the luxury to indulge myself in the joy of a fabulous book called , “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words.” The book is a compilation of the writings of Peace Pilgrim – a modern day Christian Anglo sannyasin (a Hindu religous mendicant).
For 28 years Peace walked across the United States logging 25,000 miles before she decided to stop counting. She walked to spread the message of peace. Peace herself was the message. She walked without fear and without material possessions, never taking money into her hands, unless someone threw it out the car window at her, and then she delivered the money to the nearest church.
She wore the same clothes through all seasons- pants, a sweatshirt with her name on the front and the miles she walked on the back. Under these she wore shorts and a T-shirt. She bathed in rivers and lakes and let her clothes dry on her body. She wore no hat nor carried an umbrella. She slept under bridges, on the side of the road, in fields, the homes of people who offered her shelter, or in prison cells when she was picked up for vagrancy.
Peace averaged 25 miles on foot per day. She woke at 5 a.m. and slept at 9 p.m. and enjoyed perfect sleep and perfect health her whole life.
Peace walked in continuous and unceasing prayer, chanting a mantra, which she called a personal prayer. Her prayer was, “Make me an instrument through which only truth can speak,“ She was a natural Christian mysic and servant of God.
Her message was love, open-heartedness, simplicity, goodness and service. “I felt a complete willingness, without any reservation, to give my life—to dedicate my life—to service, ‘Please use me!’ I prayed to God. And a great peace came over me.”
This book is full of the highest of spiritual teachings—no less magnificent than the teachings of the great Hindu sage, Ramana Maharshi, or our beloved Mahatma Gandhi.
Here is one of her teachings: “I recognize that there are some well-known, little understoood, and seldom practiced laws that we must live by if we wish to find peace within or without. Included are the laws that evil can only be overcome by good, that only good means can attain a good end; that those who do unloving things hurt themselves spiritually.”
Another teaching, “There is a guidance which comes from within to all who will listen. Through this guidance each one will feel drawn to some path in the scheme of things.“
Peace Pilgrim is inspiring in absolutely every way. She was a totally enlightened human being, and walked her own path with the inner guidance of God, and with an unfathomable energy that came from an infinite source.
Peace lived totally without fear and felt totally protected at every moment. I feel so blessed to have found this book on my bookshelf, and to learn that someone of this towering nature walked from sea to shining sea, spreading the deepest and most profound spritual lessons across the country. I would call her an American Avatar. (In Hinduism, Avatar means the incarnation of a deity in human or animal form to counteract some particular evil in the world).
The edition of the book I have was published in 1994. There is a note at the back of the book that says you can get a free copy here:
Friends of Peace Pilgrim
43480 Cedar Avenue
Hemet CA 92544
Phone 909-527-7678.
The world is certainly in need of another God-imbued soul to help free the world of the veil of fear that is suffocating it now.
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Peace be with you,
Deborah Olenev CCH RSHom (NA)
