"Inner peace begins the moment you take a deep breath and choose not to allow another person or event to control your emotions."

I just realized the truth of this on a deeper level today. Not just as an intellectual concept, but from a place of heartfelt connection, applying this to my most challenging relationships. I am beginning to see how the universe is using other people in my life as characters in a cosmic play in order to teach me certain life/soul lessons. I'm able to distance myself from the emotions and see the situation from a higher vantage point.
Hence, the symbolism or personification of the wise guru sitting on a mountaintop. Modern Christianity co-opted that Eastern spiritual symbol, and over time, it evolved into the masculine God with a white beard in the sky, which is a very simplistic, unsophisticated characterization or interpretation. The wise old guru on the mountaintop is really a pictorial image, a symbol, a visual metaphor, of each of our higher selves.