64. Why Conflict is Easy to Come by?

Why is it so easy to be in some kind of friction and conflict with people all the time? Why annoyance, anger, deceit, jealousy, criticism and hatred come easily, and why reverence, gratitude, integrity, empathy and compassion are difficult to come by?

Survival Instinct.

Friction and conflict necessarily imply a rigid boundary. All the former qualities promote friction, and the energy generated in these emotions is used up to fortify the boundaries of the personality; whereas all the latter ones, promote inclusiveness, and the energy generated in these emotions dissolves the personality. The mind, the artificial intelligence that it is, knows this very well. Your individuality can survive only if friction thrives. And therefore, the most fundamental of its algorithms—that of survival—ensures to always have some friction buzzing in the background, and brings up such experiences more often. Furthermore, you even consider the particularities of your friction with the world (dissent with person X, criticizing person Y etc.) as part of your unique identity. Thus prevails the addiction to the sadistic pleasures (which is eventually pain) born of those frictional emotions. We may give any number of external reasons for having those emotions, but ultimately this is only a desperate internal attempt to survive, or Abhinivesha (one of the five fundamental afflictions) as Patanjali calls it.

When the latter emotions are pitched up, their intensity dissolves you, and it is elevating and blissful. We do experience these emotions, but accidentally and rarely. Largely we are a hard shell that is in conflict with the rest of the existence. We get bruised and deformed into a peculiar shape, and on top of that take pride in it that "I am unique". Survival instinct, which is actually a mechanism needed only for the physical organism, somehow gets unnecessarily extended to our inner dimension as well.

But the more conscious you become, the more you realize that it is the latter qualities that, by diffusing your individuality, by negating friction, give you true joy, freedom, lightness, firmness and expansiveness. Then ensues a tug of war between this longing to dissolve and the instinct of preservation of your beloved personality. The deep rooted unconscious algorithm slowly begins to get overwritten, until one day you are really willing to dissolve completely.

The next time some irritation crawls up inside you, remember that essentially it is your own survival instinct strengthening itself with the pretext of something 'wrong' outside. The external situation only stimulated and manifested the core friction that already lies within. The individual wants conflict, he seeks conflict, he thrives on conflict, whatever energy is generated in conflict is invested in fortifying the individual, but eventually he blames the world for giving him conflict and acts all innocent. This is a twisted out mess that needs a lot of beating by life to straighten up. We can wait for it to happen. The other choice is that we can become aware of this right now, and take responsibility for whatever we go through within ourselves; instead of cursing, we can be thankful to the external situation for manifesting what lies within, and making us aware of it. The same energy can then dissolve the individual.

So is there nothing wrong outside? That is not the point. External action can be consciously performed as needed, but scapegoating it for the inner friction is self-deception. If needed you can even fight a battle, but you need not be in friction within yourself - युध्यस्व विगतज्वरः (Cast off this inner turbulence and fight, Gita 3.30)