Conflict

Conflict cannot survive without your participation.
Wayne Dyer

We are constantly in conflict with some thing or other. Eckhart Tolle even talks about a pain-body within us that wakes up every so often needing to feed on our own and other people's pain. It's like we don't even have control over ourselves. We are constantly getting into fights about things that really don't need to be fought over. And when we are not in conflict with other people, we are in conflict with ourselves. We are hurting ourselves and putting ourselves down, just as we do with others.

Conflict is what our ego feeds on. It makes us feel important, by giving us a sense of seperation and moral superiority. It gives us a sense of purpose; it seems to be what makes our life meaningful. In a very real way, we often don't really feel alive unless we are angry or jealous or resentful. But conflict is only good for our ego, it is not in any way good for the person we really are. We are really about love and we can't have love if we are busy fighting the other person.

But conflict can't survive without your participation. You do not have to choose to participate. We do so many things, including quarrel with others, out of sheer force of habit. We can change our habits, even if it takes a while. Imagine a world without conflict, with nobody fighting each other. It would be a paradise. With each time we choose to say no to some conflict (and it would help to start small and work up), it not only makes the world a better place, but it makes it easier for us, and for other people, to say no the next time to increasingly bigger conflicts.