Judging by the prestige associated with the Nobel Peace Prize which was just awarded to President Barack Obama, the question of how to attain peace is one of the most fundamental matters facing humanity at large. The “peace formula” expounded in the Vedic literature of India gives humanity a concise answer to this question. According to the Vedas, peace can be had when one understands that God is the proprietor of everything. Until that time, there will be no peace, there will be only discord and disagreement. Individuals and nations will fight for proprietorship over regions and countries. Soon, they will fight for proprietorship over planets.

The Vedas tell us that there is a place where all the inhabitants accept that God is the proprietor of everything. In that place, all the relationships are peaceful and full of love. That place is called Vaikuntha, or the spiritual universe. Many of the Vedas include detailed descriptions of Vaikuntha, or the spiritual universe. The Vedas explain that just as this material universe has multiple planets, there are multiple planets in Vaikuntha. The Vedas describe what life on those planets is like. They describe what the inhabitants eat, how they dress, etc. Furthermore, in Vaikuntha there is no birth or death. Thus, relationships in Vaikuntha are not only peaceful and full of love, but they are eternal.

The Vedas are the oldest known sacred writings. His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder-acharya of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, translated more than 80 volumes of the Vedic literature into English, as well as giving voluminous commentaries on the Vedanta. The best-known of Swami Prabhupada’s translations, “Bhagavad-Gita As It Is,” has been translated into 48 languages.

In a 1972 lecture in the Philippines on “Bhagavad-Gita As It Is,” Prabhupada contrasted life in Vaikuntha with life in this material universe. Prabhupada said: “Here we are full of anxieties ... When my death will take place? What will be the political situation? What shall I eat? Where shall I sleep? Always full of anxieties. ... But there is another world, where there is no anxiety. That is called Vaikunthaloka.”

Everyone wants a world free from anxiety. Each one of us can have it — immediately — if we accept that God is the proprietor of everything. It is a matter of individual consciousness, completely independent of our government and our family. But how many of us are willing to accept that God is the proprietor of everything, even our own bodies? How many of us are willing to simply accept what God gives us as our allotted share, without fighting for more?

Rita Gupta is a member of the Champaign-Urbana Krishna Center. She is a former faculty member of the University of Illinois College of Law and a graduate from the UI College of LAS.