inner divisions

All our anguish is born of inner divisions

If you take a close look at your own suffering, your psychological suffering, you will see that you are fighting with life. This anguish comes from wanting things to be different to how they actually are. So you could say we have made an enemy of reality. We have put ourself against some aspects of existence.

If we want to change this, if we want our suffering to end, we have to take a very honest, careful look at our own mind. Firstly, when we say we want things to be different to how they are, that conflict, that opposition is not really with the outside world. It's with our perception of the world, and that perception is in our own mind, as is the desire for things to be different. So this is the first step, to realise that it is an internal conflict. You might think you having an argument with your wife or husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your boss, your siblings, your children, but really, if there's torment in it for you, that torment is entirely inside yourself – the cause of it. And it's good to realise this because until we do we are disempowered. We are not really going to be able to change the outside world that much. But our own mind, that's a different situation. There we can hope for change. 

So first of all, notice, realise that the sense of conflict is really inside oneself, inside one's own mind. And if you get that far, then you might be able to pick up on some subtleties that happen in the mind. Firstly, there is a part of our psychology which wants this sort of conflict. By creating conflict, apparently with the outside world, it reinforces the feeling of I, of me, because now I'm in our opposition to something. And that feeling of being in opposition creates the sense of a separate identity. When you are not in opposition to something, you can melt with it, you can merge with it. Perhaps you have had that experience with a lover after making love, or just eating a divine food that is so delicious that for a moment you forget yourself. You've probably had moments in your life like this, where that sense of I begins to melt away. The separation between you and the so called outside world begins to break down. There is a merging, a melting together.

But there's a part of our mind that doesn't want that. It's the ego, the sense of self as separate. So notice this because this creates a lot of trouble. For example, if you look very deeply into some of your desires, you will often find that the exact opposite desire is also within you. You might want to eat a piece of chocolate cake, but another part of you is saying no, that's not healthy, I don't want to eat the chocolate cake. So desires often arise like this – perhaps always – and at some point we either eat the chocolate cake or we don't. But either way, one of our desires has not been met.

So become aware of these tricks that the mind is playing. It is creating psychological forces that are pulling in completely the opposite direction of each other. And that's this inner conflict I'm talking about. Wanting one thing, but also wanting exactly the opposite. Or perceiving one thing and wanting something different. That perception is also highly coloured by our ego mind. We might say we want the sun to be shining, but the ego mind, knowing that desire is there, will perceive things to be cloudy. That perception of how life is, is also being distorted in order to create an inner conflict. Whilst we have that inner conflict, again the sense of I and the importance of feeling that I am and I have choice, I have control, that all seems very critical, whilst there is a feeling of conflict.

This happens at other levels in our human society as well. Politicians love to create a feeling of conflict between one nation and the next. There has to be some conflict to give the nation its importance. If there is no conflict, why do you need an army? Why do you need a police force? Why do you need border controls? Why do you need passports? All the machinery of state, and the power of the politicians, rests on the being an implied conflict, a danger, a threat.

And so it is also within our individual mind. We create the feeling of threat, or danger, opposition, conflict. We generated it in order that we can feel important, that there is a role for me, for the I – I mean the psychological element within ourself, that feels ourself to be a separate being. Just as a nation that has no conflict does not need border controls, so you as an individual, if you are not feeling in conflict, do not need boundaries.

When you are feeling safe and secure in your lover's arms, you can afford to melt away. You don't need the boundary, and it can be like that with the whole of life. Try going out into nature. In nature if you are feeling safe enough, you can also allow that separation to melt. And in this melting of the boundary, as we feel ourselves to be non separate from what is around us, the possibility of conflict disappears. Conflict requires a boundary. It requires a sense of separation.

When there is no boundary, no separation, conflict cannot arise. And if there is no conflict, there is no anguish, there is no psychological suffering. Just as if your body, unless it is heavily traumatised in some way, is a unified physical body. Your right arm does not fight with your left arm, your legs work together to move you along the path. They complement each other. They are a team. There is no conflict between your right leg and your left leg, because they are part of one being. And so it is when you realise that you are part of one large being. You can call it existence. You can call it god. You can use whatever name you will. When you are feeling this unity, this non separation, you will not worry about words at all. In this there is an end to our anguish.