Where do we find inner peace?
What you are looking for is beyond good and bad. Look beyond that. Look even beyond happiness. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive. To find peace you only need to remember what is already there.
Inner peace comes out of realizing who you are. It is within your reach and always has been. Your personal mind or self, also known as your ego knows this and in a way fights for survival because it think it will not survive in the light of your conscious awareness of your true nature. In this way during our path of awakening or realizing, we can see our ego as our adversary, our enemy but if withdraw from hostile thoughts and take a moment we may see something different.
Making use of the ego, instead of getting used by it
We can realize that our ego is actually helping us to wake up. Without it we wouldn’t be able to reach within and re-discover our true self. It creates the resistance so that you are able to tell where not to go. It is like the opposite of a GPS. Instead of being something that guides you to your destination, ego sets up distractive waypoints guiding you away from it. When we realize this the ego becomes really useful.
If you look carefully you may realize that our ego is not a problem. It is our thoughts about our ego that gets in the way. You could also say that as long as ego is popping up and inviting us to play, there is opportunity to learn more. Despite of how evolved/awakened we might think we are, every now and then our ego will, like a restless child, trick us into playing. But once we realize what is happening we can choose to kindly withdraw from participating, without beating ourselves up for letting our ego drag us into yet another drama.
The crafty director
The ego is like a director who desperately wants you to get lost into its creation, to get so absorbed in the play that you forget that it is not real. Can you blame the director for wanting this. No. Can you blame yourself for getting momentarily lost in a well-crafted drama. You could and we do, but it is not necessary. Bare in mind that your self blame is another script that your ego will pick up and use to create another drama for you.
You could also kindly salute the ego with a quiet ”well played” every time you get tricked.
Ultimately there is no ego, but until we find ourselves there will be one.