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Chapter 3
Inner Conflict
As you have been doing the exercises for the last few weeks, you have gained some experience with looking at the thoughts that go through the mind. You have seen that these thoughts are separate from the awareness that experiences them. You have had some practice looking at certain specific thoughts (those that see everything in black or white, as being either totally bad or totally good). It may now be useful to look at the origins of some of these thoughts, and the results of some mutually contradictory thoughts that try to achieve certain goals by mutually exclusive means.
Before looking at the specific thoughts that the intellectual and emotional centers often present to the awareness, let's look at some of the goals that people are trying to achieve by these thoughts. Everyone has four basic desires. Each of these desires has a gain and an avoid aspect, for a total of eight desires. That is, each desire has something that a person likes to gain and something that a person likes to avoid.
The simplest of these desires is physical sensations. Everyone likes to gain pleasant physical sensations, like warmth or pleasant tastes in food. Everyone likes to avoid unpleasant physical sensations, most notably pain.
The other three desires are usually a bit more subtle, and involve social interactions. The first of these is the desire to have other people pay attention to us. We begin to feel an experience known as loneliness if nobody pays any attention to us for a long time. We also dislike the opposite of having people pay attention to us, which is to be ignored.
The third desire is the desire for approval from others. It is not enough that people are paying attention to us (the second desire), we also want these people to like us and approve of us. We dislike having people disapprove of us, dislike us, or think poorly of us.
The fourth desire is a desire for importance, for power. We like to be able to control people, or at least influence them. We all have a certain natural desire to be dominant. We also dislike feeling inferior to others and being required to do as they say.
Now it is necessary for further growth of our understanding of ourselves for us to understand that every person has all eight of these desires (that is, the gain and avoid side of each of the four). There is no person on Earth who does not have these desires as an inherent part of their inner instincts. People may have these desires in different proportions and different priorities. Some people may have largely subjugated their desire for power in order to have approval, for example, or vice versa. Many people will be strongly tilted toward either the gain or the avoid aspects. That is, some people may be so concerned with avoiding pain that they do not dare to strive for much pleasure, preferring safety from pain. Others may be so heavily weighted toward gaining pleasure that they seem almost immune to pain (we usually call these people thrill-seekers). However, everyone has these eight urges to some extent. Anyone who says that they have no interest in one or more of these (like "I, of course, have no desire for power over others.") is deceiving themselves (which will be discussed in the next chapter - no peeking ahead). For now, let us just accept that these desires are a natural part of human instincts and go from there.
At a very early age (at birth, to be specific), we start trying to find ways to satisfy these desires. We do not think in words, of course, but we do begin to detect at a very primitive level that certain actions bring about a reduction in the pain and an increase in the desired comforts. The first technique that we develop is to complain (largely because certain crying instincts are built in). We find that if we complain (wail at lot, to start), someone comes along and gives us something to relieve the hunger (pain) and will give us warmth (physical pleasure) and attention. Thus, the first set of thoughts that we develop is to complain when we don't get our way.
After we have had something pleasant a few times, we come to feel that it is a natural part of the world order and that we have a right to it. We feel that we can continue to get what we want by demanding our rights. As a child, we do this by throwing temper tantrums. As we get older, we develop slightly (but only slightly) more sophisticated methods of getting things that we feel we have a right to. I say only slightly more sophisticated methods, because they still tend to be some form of demanding or belligerence to cow others into giving us what we consider our rights, not working to promote our ability to do the things we want to do. Note that in this book, when I use the word "right", I am defining it as those things that we want and in some way we feel are a natural part of the universal order for us to have. I am not using the word to refer to political "rights", which are a man made political set of rules, something else entirely.
After a person has spent a while complaining and sticking up for his/her rights, others around this person start to get tired of this. They start convincing the person to change his/her behavior to please them (a good spanking or two will usually accomplish this). The person develops an understanding that it may be necessary to do things to please other people. The person develops many ways to do this, such as flattery, doing favors for others, and so on.
One of the ways that the person learns to please others is to believe what they say. We learn to believe what our parents tell us in order to avoid angering them by disagreeing with them. Most importantly, we accept what they say is good or bad, right or wrong. This is one of the ways we collect many of the thoughts that something is good or bad, as discussed in the previous chapter. I mentioned in that chapter that we decide what is good or bad by what pleases us. Often it is what pleases us directly, like "You should be nice to me." However, sometimes we believe that something is good or bad, or we should or should not do something, because believing this gives us the pleasure of the approval of someone, particularly someone we are afraid of (or were afraid of when we originally accepted the belief).
One of the ways we learn to please others (or at lest avoid displeasing them) is to not complain or stick up for our rights. This creates inner conflict inside the mind. A bunch of thoughts are popping into the awareness saying to complain and stick up for our rights, and another bunch of thoughts are popping up saying to please others by not complaining or being belligerent and by believing them when they say that complaining is a bad thing to do.
Now it is necessary to understand that once we have accepted the decision to act in a certain way, that way of thinking takes on a life of its own when the awareness is not paying attention. The thought that it is time to act a certain way, like complain, is generated by association when a certain situation occurs, even if the current situation is not exactly like the former one and the particular action would no longer be effective. Likewise, when a particular believe has been accepted, even if it was originally accepted to please someone who is no longer present, a sleeping awareness will accept this belief as a fact when it is sent to the awareness by the intellectual center. If the awareness is not looking at these thoughts that say to do all these conflicting things, they all get passed on to the action center. The person is torn apart trying to do several conflicting things, or to believe several conflicting things. For example, they may believe that they have a right, based on the fact that they have had something several times and they want it again, while someone is telling them that they do not have this right.
There are several ways for a person to handle this inner conflict. One is to finally pick one of the opposing lines of thought and suppress the other. This usually leaves the person feeling unsatisfied or uneasy. If they decide to complain and stick up for their rights, they experience conflict with others around them, and occasionally some physical violence. If they decide to please others by doing what others say and believing them when they say that the person should not complain, should not stick up for their rights, and generally should not have things their way, the person feels like "I never get to have any fun."
Another way that people often resolve the inner conflict is to do both things, usually very ineffectively. A very common example we see is the person complaining bitterly about something, but only to someone who is not involved in the situation and cannot possibly do anything about it. Someone (a boss, spouse, parent, etc.) does something that you don't like. The intellectual and emotional centers send up the suggestion to complain about this. The sleeping awareness passes this on to the action center as a decision. Energy is generated to be very forceful about complaining and sticking up for your rights in this matter. By God, you're going to do something about this! But before you can actually do anything (it takes a few seconds for the physical body to get moving), another message is sent up to the awareness and passed on to the action center saying "Bite your tongue. This person could really hurt/fire/reject/disapprove of/leave me if I make them mad. Smile pleasantly and nod." The person smiles pleasantly for the person they are afraid of, but then goes out and complains to someone else. That someone else is someone who would not be offended by (and may even approve of) the complains against the person the complainer is mad at. Another method of both complaining and not complaining is to complain inwardly, gritting ones teeth and filling oneself with resentment, while showing little or no outward signs of complaining.
A very useful exercise to do this week (and to continue doing indefinitely) is to watch for these thoughts (complaining, sticking up for rights, pleasing others, believing what we are told) as they come into the awareness. Observe whenever you get the urge to complain, especially if the complaining cannot possibly help. Be aware that this is simply a suggestion. Be aware of your separateness from this suggestion. You may still decide to accept the suggestion. There are times when it can be quite useful to complain, like when you are getting poor service in a restaurant or store (if you complain to the right people, not your spouse when you get home). If you decide not to complain, do not fight the suggestion or try to bottle it up. Just be aware that it was a thought passing through the awareness and you do not have to act on it.
The same goes for sticking up for your rights. Be aware when the thought that you have a right to something goes through the mind. This thought can have many subtle disguises. For example, you may sometimes have thought something like, "You have no right to talk to me that way." What this really means, deep down, is "I have a right to have you not talk to me that way." Likewise, the thought "You should not treat me that way" really means "I have a right to have you not treat me that way." What for these thoughts as they enter the awareness. When they do, ask yourself, "On what grounds do I have this right?" Remember, a right here means something that you want and it is an intrinsic law of the universe that you have. Is there any intrinsic law of the universe that says that people should treat you nicely, or even fairly? (I'll give you a hint: The answer is no.) Be aware of these thoughts that you have a right to things and you must stick up for this right whenever they are infringed upon. Be aware that they are only thoughts popping into the awareness that you do not have to act on. You will find yourself being a lot calmer.
Be aware when you find yourself trying to please someone. This does not mean that you never what to do it. Sometimes it can be very useful to please others. (You catch more flies with honey, and all that.) It can even be rather enjoyable to make someone happy sometimes when there is nothing in it for you. But be aware when the thought comes into the awareness that you MUST please someone.
Be aware when beliefs pop into the awareness, especially beliefs that are hard to define like good bad, evil, should, shouldn't. (Remember them from last week?) When you find yourself believing anything, ask yourself where you acquired this "knowledge". Did you observe this yourself, or did someone tell it to you? If someone else told you this, why did you believe it? Was it to please them?
Lastly, be aware when you find yourself trying to satisfy the basic desires (physical pleasure, attention, approval, importance) and avoid the basic unpleasantnesses (physical discomfort, being ignored, disapproval, inferiority). This does not mean you necessarily do not want to satisfy these desires. There is no reason not to have a little pleasure in life. But by being aware of what you are trying to gain from some action, and being aware that you do not necessarily NEED these pleasures (or pain avoidance) in order to survive, you can be a lot calmer and more relaxed as you pursue them.
Watching for all these thoughts (and those of last week) and observing your separateness from them should give you a lot to do for the next week. If you are having trouble getting the hang of all of this, please feel free to take more than a week to work on it before going on to the next chapter.