HOW TO RESOLVE PERSONAL CONFLICTS?

 

SPIRITUAL PRACTICES, SELF-HELP AND GURUSHAKTI

When one proceeds to the finer and finer levels of the ego, conflicts automatically resolve themselves. By trying to resolve a conflict, you are creating a more significant conflict. The very idea of resolving a conflict is the seed of another discord. Because two things are required to complete a conflict to create this friction, and the clash itself is a conflict.

Firstly, two objects oppose each other, and the two objects coming in touch create friction. Friction is another conflict. The friction produces around itself or attracts round itself all the dust of the two pieces of wood that are rubbed together, engenders more and more conflicts. The only way out is to refine the ego through spiritual practices, through self-help, and then if those two things are done, Gurushakti is there, automatically on its own. It comes running without asking. Open the window; the fresh air just enters; you do not need to invite it. That is how conflicts are erased.

THE UNIVERSE STRIVES FOR A BALANCE ALL THE TIME

This means that to erase conflicts, it is not necessary to eradicate the ego because the ego is beyond the level of annihilation. And in the refinement of the ego, which is leading us to its finer levels, the grossness that was there is never destroyed, but it is discarded so that that grossness goes out and meets up with a similar kind of grossness. That is how the ego self purifies itself. Purification is the discarding of the grossness that is there. It is not a question of annihilation. Every wrong thought that a person thinks is never destroyed. It floats away in the atmosphere, and where there is similar negativity, it would go and attach itself to that. When a good thought emanates in a man’s mind, it is never destroyed. But when you come to a far finer thought, the previous good thought, forever existing in the universe, attaches itself to its similar kind.

So, look at the help man receives when he brings his ego-self or mind-self to a far purer subtler level. For every pure thought you think, do know that the energy of ten other pure thoughts is being attracted to you and strengthens the purity you have brought upon yourself. This whole universe is so composed that everything helps everything. Even in the human body, if you cut your finger, you will find that various white corpuscles from the body will rush to the wound to help the injury, an automatic process. Your mind has not called upon the white corpuscles to come and heal, but without your knowing, they rush to the troubled spot and help. This is happening similarly in everything in the universe. The universe strives for balance all the time.

RESOLVING PERSONAL CONFLICTS

If you look superficially at the sea, you will find the waves moving from over to over, reaching the shore. That is not happening, you know. The waves are just there all the time; they are not moving. They are just going up and down, up and down, up and down, giving the illusion that that portion of water is moving from there to there.

Similarly, that is what happens in this universe. There is motion all the time. The motion is there, but the motion is self-contained there on the spot, now and here. So, when it comes to resolving personal conflicts, one has to make an effort to take the ego or the mind to a subtler level, and the problem gets fixed. The best and the easiest way to take ourselves to the subtler level of the mind, to the refined section of the ego, is through our spiritual practices. That is the easiest way, and if a conscious effort backs that up, the process becomes smoother and more manageable. That is the royal road to getting rid of the conflict.

FROM SILENCE WE COME, AND TO SILENCE WE REACH AGAIN

It is the action of man that brings his consciousness to the troubled areas of conflict, and if a man tries consciously to get rid of his ego, he is strengthening the ego and deluding himself. What is deceiving? The ego is deluding because, like the mind, the ego has various sections. Divinity combined with relativity is nothing but a continuum from the grosser to the subtler, and so is the ego. The whole process of man or the universe is to reach the subtlest level of being, and when one reaches the most modest of relativity, he does not need to seek being. He is being.

In other words, you will find that this journey has been no journey. From silence, we come, and to silence, we reach again. Where have you gone? Nowhere. From whence cometh thou my friend, and where goest thou? Nowhere. It is only the dross, the dirt accumulated over the centuries; as that atom progressed and swirled through the universe, it picked up all the dust because it combined itself with all the elements in the universe. And having free will, at that time, he could have discarded the parts that clouded his vision. But no, he did not. Some of them were very pleasurable. So, all the pleasure found has to be repaid in some way, in conflict.

THE SECRET IS TO FIND AN EQUILIBRIUM BETWEEN PAIN AND PLEASURE

For every pain you have, remember that you will have equal pleasure in some way or another because pain cannot exist alone and must be accompanied by contentment. The rise of the wave will have its trough, it will always be there, and it is only the refined ego or the realisation of the deeper levels of the ego that will make us not feel all the pleasures and all the pains so intensely. So there, too, we come to an equilibrium.

The secret is to find an equilibrium between pain and pleasure; when that equilibrium is found, there is no conflict. Because, really speaking, conflict is the clash between pain and pleasure. One part of oneself thinks of a particular pleasure, and the other part thinks of its opposite. It is always like that. A woman puts on a beautiful dress, a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound dress. She will find pleasure in wearing that dress of a hundred and fifty pounds, but if she is put in circumstances where she does not have the dress of a hundred and fifty pounds, then remember that the pleasure that that one-hundred-and-fifty-pound dress could have provided, will be balanced by pain, always.

THE AVATAR COMES AGAIN AND AGAIN TO PRODUCE A BALANCE

The whole universe functions on the principle of creating balance. Sometimes it occurs when there is a disturbance in the balance, and then because of the disturbance in the balance, a Force is attracted that comes age after age as the Gita says to bring about the balance, which is never so lasting. That is why these Avatars have to go again and again. Momentum is set up, and a balance is created. But because of man’s warring nature – not with nations, that is not so important – but man’s warring nature within himself that creates an imbalance, and again after a few thousand years, He comes again and brings a balance, gives it a push-up, gets rid of a lot of conflicts, produces new understandings of what conflict is all about. Then again, as the wave goes down the trough, more conflicts will be raised again. This has been going on eternally.

Where do we stand in it? We are the entire universe and for eternity are always in a state of flux, and if anyone dreams of bringing the whole world to the age of some kind of enlightenment where there will just be peace and peace and peace all the time, that is a pipe dream.

BECAUSE OF CONFLICTS, THE UNIVERSE KEEPS ON GOING

The whole problem of eradicating conflict lies with man himself in his capacity. If it lies within himself in his ability, then ego is necessary because the ego is that which produces consciousness. If the ego were not there, you would not be aware of the conflict, and the whole constitution of the universe is made up of conflict, which is why the universe keeps on going.

Any law of mechanics will tell you that there must be opposing forces to make the wheel go around. This will always be there. So, what do we do? We use the ego, and we refine it. We make it pure, or we make it more transparent until the light shines through it entirely and enlightens us and all that is around us. The lamp burns not for its light but to cast light around itself. The sun shines because it is its nature to shine, but more so that it could give heat, warmth, and comfort to those cold. The beautiful Banyan tree grows to provide shade to the weary wayfarer. Make use of that because it is by that rest that conflicts are resolved, and that rest is provided through our practices. That rest is provided where we feel tranquillity without annihilating the ego, without trying to perform what is impossible.

THE EGO IS BUT A MANIFESTATION OF DIVINITY

There are specific laws that are there. Water runs down a hill and not up a mountain. These laws are there. They are eternal laws. The ego is there; after all, what is the ego, but a manifestation of Divinity that just got mixed up? That is all. And then, of course, comes karma and its various ramifications for it being mixed up. So, if the Manifestor is eternal, then the manifestation must be eternal too. However, it is modified. However, it is mixed up. What we have to do is to unmix the mixing, and that is called refinement of the ego.

… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1978 – 35