My name is Jay Chiragam.
Thank you for joining me in this practice today on the topic of are you in conflict with anyone?
Being in conflict with someone somewhere at some time seems to be an inevitable and perhaps frequent event during the course of our lives.
Mostly they don't last long.
They blow over either by taking things through or the issue which tends to be fixed just loses its significance against the bigger picture which is always moving and changing.
But sometimes,
Just sometimes a conflicted relationship gets stuck and even escalates.
Sometimes they seem to be lasting for years.
Sometimes people find a way to hold on to it for their entire life.
It is then that our ignorance of the dynamics of conflict is not only obvious that it has become an obstacle.
We feel the pain and the need to allow it to pass.
The basic ingredients of all conflicts are the same regardless of the issues at stake.
However,
When we are in the middle of any conflicts,
It is hard to see and understand these ingredients.
It is tough to see real causes.
Their rising emotions are both distracting and blinding.
And today I am going to share with you five insights about conflict and how you can apply these insights to help you walk your path towards liberation.
Liberation from all conflict everywhere and for all time.
The first insight is your responsibility with any conflict situation in which you are involved is your contribution to the conflict.
And the way that you resolve it is to shift from dissolution to resolution.
And I'll explain what that means.
The process of responding to any personal situation is something that happens within you.
No one can make you feel anything without your permission.
If you've been in conflict with someone for some time,
You are likely to be creating fear or anger towards them and therefore expressing restraint as you engage with them.
The other person is not responsible for your emotion or your behaviors.
Easy theory,
But hard to see in the actuality of the exchange.
It's also a don't want to see whenever you simply think about the conflict.
It's always easier to hold them in your mind as the perpetrators.
But if you sit down,
Sit down quietly on your own and find a neutral position from which to reflect upon this conflict that's unfolding as if you were the third party watching,
You will likely realize that there is a cyclical exchange of energy in every conflict.
The cycle of your experience of the conflict and therefore your contribution to the conflict begins within your consciousness.
And it's also sustained within your consciousness.
It doesn't begin with what the other one says or does.
It begins with your perception of what they say or do.
If you perceive them negatively,
You will have negative thoughts,
Feel negative,
Create a negative attitude and behave negatively,
Thereby giving out negative energy.
You don't have to do that.
Perception is your choice.
There is always a choice.
But that's the first thing you forget in the heat of an exchange.
When there is a conflict,
There is a mental and emotional pain.
So ask yourself,
Who creates this mental or emotional pain within you?
You do.
Who creates at least half of the conflict?
You do.
So who has the power then to dissolve at least half of the conflict?
It's you.
And where do you dissolve it?
Within your consciousness,
Within yourself.
When seen in this light,
Liberation from conflict is simply a decision,
Isn't it?
At any moment,
You can decide not to be in conflict.
All you have to do is to change your perception.
That becomes much easier when you alter your intention.
So then what is the intention behind all conflict?
You go something like this,
I want something and I'm going to get that something regardless of what they want.
And so a simple definition of conflict would be something like,
It's a belief that if they get what they want,
I cannot get what I want.
Now this is the root cause of all war.
So it's within our power to change our intention at any moment.
That's why the road to conflict resolution starts with the change of intention and perception.
It may be as simple as a thought such as,
It would be interesting to see what we could both gain from this.
And in that moment,
With that thought,
You have begun to dissolve your contribution to the conflict and thereby you have begun to lessen your pain.
This is why all conflict resolution can only begin with conflict dissolution.
One party has to dissolve their contribution to the conflict even if it is only temporarily so that the process of resolution can begin.
So dissolution comes before resolution.
Insight number two.
The quality of energy you put into the conflict is likely to be the quality of energy you will get back.
By this I mean the shift from wanting to giving.
You all have heard what you give is what you get and what you get is the return of what you have previously given.
This is the law of reciprocity.
Sometimes we've heard of it as what you sow is what you reap.
This is one law and its many principles is what makes the world go around.
When you become aware of this one law,
You become much more careful about the quality of energy you give to others regardless of who they are or the situation that you share with them.
Drop a stone in water and watch the ripples it creates reflecting off to the any boulder in the pond and then it returns to the point of its origin.
So when we drop in to create our life in the great big pond of life itself,
We are each walking radiators.
At a subtle level we radiate attitude and at a gross level we radiate behavior.
Either way what ripples out from us is what will return in a similar form.
Unless of course the other is slightly more enlightened and they decide not to give back the same negative energy but to return a positive attitude and a proactive behavior.
In which case in that moment they would be called a leader.
Are you prepared to not only dissolve your animosity towards the other but to change the quality of the energy that you give them?
To do that requires a shift in emphasis from wanting a certain energy from them to giving a certain energy to them.
This law must be reciprocated.
In a conflict situation this begins with giving respect to the other.
That's not so easy if you're still stuck in the illusion that they are responsible for your emotional pain.
And it's not easy if you're still mistakenly believe that they are entirely responsible for this conflict of relationship.
Only once some level of mutual respect is reciprocated can there be meaningful exchanges.
But we may have to be patient for the reciprocity to kick in.
It will eventually if we are consistent in our respectfulness.
Because that's the law.
Every day offers multiple opportunities to experiment to see this and to prove this to be true for yourself.
Insight number five.
Number three.
You cannot make anyone do or be anything because you cannot control another human being.
By this I mean the shift from control to influence.
In any conflict situation you are essentially giving your power to the other.
You are disempowering yourself.
In seeking the root cause of how and why you disempower yourself so frequently in this way you arrive once again at your belief system.
Everyone has assimilated a number of beliefs throughout their childhood through the education,
The cultural influences,
Etc.
And it turns out one of the most pervasive of these beliefs is around the issue of control.
Almost every time we feel stressed or feel powerless or feel like a victim it's because we are not able to do what we subconsciously believe we can and should be doing which is to control others.
Most of us will have assimilated this particular belief that we can control what we cannot control as we watched our parents becoming upset and blaming others because those others were not doing what our parents wanted.
We also learn to believe that we are being controlled by our parents and so expect to grow up and join the controller club whose primary expectation in life becomes the world should and will dance to my tune.
And hand in hand with this belief is the idea at a slightly deeper level that the others are responsible for my happiness.
This cannot be further from the truth.
And it's easy to prove it's not true when we watch two people responding to the same event perhaps a competitive sport or a movement in the stock market.
You'll see one is celebrating another one is upset and miserable.
Now we can however influence others.
If you're a parent a manager or anyone dealing with people as part of your role it is your job to influence.
But the most frequent mistake we make is that we try to control.
The sign that we're trying to control another is that we become emotionally upset when they do not do or be what we want.
So it is possible to stop wanting something from the other to stop believing that they are responsible for my happiness to stop trying to make the other behave a certain way and to stop the other to be or do or say something that we want them to say be or do.
Is it possible to only want the best for the other?
If you do it completely changes the dynamic of the relationship.
When you do you have made the shift from control to influence.
Insight number four.
The resolution of all conflict begins at the mental level when you accept the other as they are in the moment.
By this I mean the shift from resistance to acceptance.
If you ever want to mentally or emotionally disarm another person in any conflict situation simply accept them as they are and their position as it is.
Now I'm not saying that you agree.
Acceptance is not the same as agreement.
Neither does it mean that you condone what they have said or done.
It does mean that you begin to communicate and travel together on the journey towards resolution because acceptance is not only the first step.
It is just a step.
By accepting the other as they are by acknowledging and appreciating the other's point of view without judgment you start to weave trust and respect into the relationship.
And only when these two ingredients are present is a real relationship possible.
Trust and respect.
And so when you shift from resistance to acceptance you move from being closed to open.
In being open to the other you're in effect starting to walk with instead of walking against each other.
And today the fifth and the final insight I want to share is that you are mentally attached to an outcome that is not happening in the physical dimension.
Only detachment can help you resolve a conflict.
By this I mean shifting your attitude from attachment to detachment.
In all of your conflicts you have an image in your mind of the result that you want.
It may be something you to do with the situation or a behavior that you want from another.
It is not happening in the physical dimension so you are not getting what you want.
The truth is the conflict is happening because of your attachment to that specific result and the method you are using to create the result is the wrong method.
When you don't get what you want or it's being blocked you automatically start to think your happiness and your satisfaction is being denied by the other.
In truth your happiness is being sabotaged entirely by yourself because of your attachment to the outcome that you want.
But if you think it's being denied by them you will blame them.
Project your pain on them.
Play the role of victim and then try to defeat them in order to become victorious and thereby get what you want.
Such is the way of all conflict and all war.
In order to get what you want you then try to control the other first in your mind and then with your words and then finally with your behavior.
In an organization or even in a family this is doomed to failure unless you pull rank.
But if you pull rank you will eventually lose the trust,
Respect and the commitment of others.
Holding rank is just the lazy man's way of getting what they want.
And let's say even for a moment you do seem to get what you want you will likely and mistakenly strengthen the illusion that the other people make you happy.
When you are attached to the image of a specific outcome,
When you are attached to the idea that the other has to change that's what keeps you close to the other options,
The other possibilities,
New ways of making progress.
It shuts down your creativity and your ability to work with the other to find solutions.
Before we can resolve conflict it's necessary to dissolve our part of the conflict and that means learning the art of detachment.
It does not mean that you don't care about the other or that you avoid the other.
In fact it's only possible to extend care and connect authentically when you're not attached to anything.
Otherwise you're too busy with your attachment defending it,
Protecting it and fearing the loss of it.
And in that mental busyness you are less able to connect with the other openly,
Transparently and authentically.
Now let's face it the reality is human relationships are messy,
People are unpredictable,
Sometimes we ourselves are unpredictable and every exchange is different.
Many will seem difficult.
That means all of these insights that I've shared with you and their application are not rigidly sequential as I've stated it.
Resolving conflict is not about clever techniques and neat methods but once you're familiar with the wisdom that sits behind each of these insights that I've shared,
Once you see the validity of the internal shifts then the appropriate behavior will naturally emerge from you.
Then you will intuitively begin to know when and where you can apply each one or a combination of these insights at the right moment.
Thank you.
I want you to please put your hands on your heart and notice how you feel right now.
Imagine there is a ball of unconditional love that sits at your heart center.
Unchanging,
Constantly giving,
Radiant ball of loving energy.
Let this light fill and surround your entire being.
Radiating outwards from this epicenter in your heart center.
And next,
Allow this light to extend outside of yourself,
Radiating out,
Creating an aura.
And visualize this aura extending towards that person or people that you may be in conflict with.
Holding them in the heart of your compassion.
Allowing any old images and those hard stances,
Those rigid ideas of control or they being the cause of your suffering,
Playing victimhood,
Whatever those conditions might have been in the past.
Allowing this light of your compassion to dissolve that ever so slightly.
Allowing making space and giving room for creating a new path forward.
Bring your hands together in prayer position.
I ask that you please share in one word how you feel right now and drop that one word in the comments.
Thank you.
