76 A Conversation on Conflict
The sweet smell of Queen of the Night filled the air as we sat together on the steps close by the courtyard. It was just a couple of nights before the full moon and the planet shone bright overhead casting strong shadows on the ground around. It was the first clear night after a number of cloudy days, and as we talked one was aware of just how precious life is.
For many a year he had fought himself – obeying the rules – wanting to be rid of the pain of life,
and although he had given himself over to the task, still he had no peace, sorrow was pervasive;
and some time ago, having grown weary, his hours of meditation had turned into torpor and sloth.
He wanted to know how conflict might end, was it still possible for him to fulfil his heart’s desire?
“I wonder why it has taken so long for you to see that the approach you have made has borne no fruit?
Why has this struggle that you have manfully fought against yourself turned out to be such a barren path?
You have listened – have you not? – to the voice of another, instead of learning how to think for yourself?
Now you must find out who or what it is that has driven you to sorrow and also to seek escape.
You must look for yourself – no other can do it – and that will take honesty and commitment to truth.
Instead of this fight, instead of this flight, can you awaken to the truth that lies hid deep in your heart?
Can you watch with care what is taking place both inside and out, neither being moved by fear or desire?”
“But how to proceed?” he wanted to know, “I am able to sit, but it’s not clear what it is I must do.”
“It’s the ‘I’ that must do that is the source of your trouble. When you sit like I say when where is your I?”
“1 would like to learn, but before you see I had something to do, there was a task to occupy me.”
“Can you just sit still with no task to do? Can you learn simply to see the movement of sense and of thought?”
“You are here and it’s a blessing for me, but what must I do, what is the answer to the pain of life?”
“If you want to have peace put self aside, all problems will cease when he who creates them comes to an end.”
...we sat and we talked and went over it all many times, relating it in a language he could understand, but he never quite saw what it was that was causing the conflict in his life. He had lived with certain ideas for so long, and there was such authority behind them that he wasn’t able to break through the pattern and see the reality of his life.
During all the time that we sat and talked that night he never seemed to notice the fire that blazed on the hillside nearby, though it lit up the night sky, and even the children got out of bed to come and watch it. The sound of its burning mingled with the sounds of the night, but he was, now as always, so caught up in his own little world he was unable to see what was happening around him.
Have you not seen
the futility of words
how the banter goes on
back and forth
engaging the mind?
– it keeps you grounded.
Have you not heard
how a word is spoken
provoking dissent
or agreement
that is enthusiastic?
Mind talks to mind.
Have you not felt
the pain of division
that is brought
back to life
time and again?
Endless repetition.
Can you leave behind
the word and the sign
and pass beyond
all the frontiers
you have known before?
Beyond the words there is silence;
beyond division, unity.
As anyone who has got even a little way beneath the surface will be able to testify, the violence that has been ingrained in us during our history on this planet is much more than skin-deep, it seems indeed to be a part of our very make-up. The conditioning effect of thousands of years of fear and struggle have left their mark at a very deep level. It may be possible to remove every vestige of this conflict at all levels as the saints proclaim, I don’t know about that, but it seems a long, long way away from the reality of most people’s everyday life.
What I do know though, is that it is possible, when denial and resistance to the fact has come to an end, for these driving forces of the unconscious to emerge into the conscious mind, and that this seeing, this awareness, in itself serves to neutralise them as they arise – and this is not a long way from anyone who is prepared to be honest with themselves instead of allowing self-deceit to rule their lives. The only question is whether we can see and acknowledge the pain that is in us, and what is our commitment to the truth? Most people seem in the first place never to have understood the problem, and if they are aware for it, even dimly, they seek to escape from it through distraction. Perhaps it is only when the world turns out to be more sorrowful than one thought that people develop respect for their lives and are prepared to look again into the reality of the situation in which they find themselves.
Here is the wilderness,
here is the desert;
no need to run,
there’s nowhere to hide.
In the place where you’re still,
where you’re still and alone,
there is the wildness of mind
and the desert of self.