What the Bhagavad Gita says about peace
Peace in the Gita is not a quiet life. The man being promised it is standing on a battlefield, and nothing in the book suggests his circumstances are about to improve.
2.70 gives the defining image. The person who attains peace is like the ocean: rivers pour into it constantly and it stays level. Things keep arriving. What has changed is that arrival no longer produces displacement.
2.66 is the diagnostic running the other way, and it is unusually direct. Without steadiness there is no peace, and without peace, where is happiness? The order rules out the common approach of arranging conditions until contentment appears, because the conditions are not the variable.
18.53 shows where it actually comes from, and the structure is worth seeing. Six things are released, then the sense of mine goes, and only then does the word for peace appear. It is what shows up in the space those used to occupy, which means it cannot be added to a life that is still running them.
The verses 14
2.64
But a person who moves among things with his senses free of pulling and pushing, with himself in hand, comes into a settled clearness.
2.65
In that clearness all his sorrows fall away.
2.66
Without that joining there is no understanding, and no steady attention either.
2.70
Rivers pour into the ocean and the ocean stays where it is, filled and unmoved.
2.71
The person who gives up wanting and goes about without craving, without "mine", without "I am the one" - that person comes to peace.
2.72
This is what it is to stand in the infinite, Arjuna.
4.39
The one who trusts it gets it - devoted to it, with the senses in hand.
5.12
The one who is joined, giving up what his action will fetch, reaches a settled peace.
5.29
Knowing me as the one who receives all offerings and practices, the great lord of all worlds, the friend of every being - he comes to peace.
6.7
For the one whose self is conquered and who is at peace, the highest self is settled - in cold and heat, in pleasure and pain, in honour and dishonour alike.
6.15
Joining himself in this way always, the practitioner with a restrained mind reaches peace - the highest peace of release, which rests in me.
6.27
For this practitioner, his mind at peace and his restlessness quieted, stainless, having become the infinite - the highest happiness comes to him.
12.12
Knowledge is better than practice done by rote.
18.62
Go to him for shelter with the whole of what you are, Arjuna.