Experience Appearing as Conflict: A Nondual Enquiry
Question:
I would like to ask about “experiencing” the news and “war” / where there is the sound of “human suffering”.
Response:
What comes alive for me is the recognition that the nondual nature of experience includes all suffering. It’s the felt reality of being free within it – which in my experience translates into being free to feel what’s here intimately. This is the greatest love I can share: through being. To feel it closely and know it fully as myself.
One flavour of freedom within suffering is that, in the same way that we are in deep intimacy with the roses in the garden, we are in deep intimacy with all that is seen, heard, tasted, and touched. It’s not a choosing – we are this, feeling itself as everything. It’s not a suffering that’s owned, and the fact that it belongs to no one actually allows one to become closer to it without trying to resolve it.
The second freedom within it is that, as I feel what is here I find that it is the same ‘stuff’ – the same thing. This too is the freedom of being (in a more direct, absolute kind of way). This is how I recognise that duality and nonduality, relative and absolute – are one.
I also find that, the closer I am with the experience of feeling what arises in me through the witnessing of suffering – the deeper the sense of compassion. Compassion arises simultaneously with all suffering, when felt directly beyond judgement. Judgement is compassion in disguise – compassion trying to know itself.
What is conflict?
What we perceive as conflict is simply the seemingly turbulent interaction of life’s energies, much like a cold weather front colliding with a warm front. Conflict may appear as a ‘no’ to what is and the suffering that accompanies this aversion, based on the illusion of separateness and the belief that we must defend what’s ours. Paradoxically (if only for the mind), this ‘no’ occurs because reality always responds ‘yes’ to all its expressions, including the apparent ‘nos’.
Conflict is the futile resistance to certain expressions. Conflict exists only as a problem because we judge our current reality against an imagined state of “non-conflict,” mistakenly believing that the present moment should be different from what it is.
Of course, we don’t like conflict; it doesn’t feel right, does it? We prefer to live in harmony until we feel the need to uphold our identity, whether individual or collective. Disharmony feels out of sync with reality, and this feeling is a sound intuition pointing to reality’s fundamental unity, but this ‘no’ also misses the uncensored inclusion, or unity, of all experience.
Harmony, or unity, is the ceaseless state of wholeness; it isn’t about connecting two or more things to form one – that’s the unnecessary act of union. Whenever we try to unite, we overlook the natural unity of reality. We turn on the news and see reports of war and human suffering. We think, “I need to change this. I need to fix this,” or “This shouldn’t be happening. I am powerless.” The truth is that it is happening because what occurs is inherently included in wholeness. Things happen because of reality’s unconditional ‘yes’, since reality only ever experiences itself. Notice this fact could be called ‘natural yoga’ (nisarga yoga).
You can observe this now: recognise that every experience you’re currently having, regardless of how it feels, exists within the sole realm of experience. You are this boundless, creative, and all-accepting field. Unity already exists, despite appearances, and this can be noticed. The conflict is superficial because reality is unbreakable. This realisation doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take action to help, if we can.
Psychoanalyst Robert A Johnson says that if we can stay with the sense of conflict long enough, “the two opposing forces [within us] will teach each other something and produce an insight that serves them both. This is not compromise but a depth of understanding that puts my life in perspective and allows me to know with certainty what I should do.” And Nisargadatta Maharaj once said, “There is nothing that can help the world more than your putting an end to ignorance! Then, you need not do anything in particular to help the world. Your very being is a help, action or no action!” Sri Nisargadatta also described a way of being that rests in discerning the complete acceptance of what is through a deep recognition that each moment could not be otherwise. From this recognition comes a natural ease with life’s unfolding, where pain may still arise but no longer has the power to fracture one’s wholeness. One either responds to restore balance where possible, or simply allows things to move as they will.
From a non-dual perspective, conflict and disharmony are merely different expressions of one undivided reality, much like dissonance is a natural and expected part of a musical symphony. Rather than being something fundamentally wrong, what appears as conflict is simply the natural way that outwardly differing energy patterns interact to resolve themselves and reach a new dynamic balance. Everyone is always trying to return to homeostasis. We are just trying to return home, even though we are already at home.
