by user_dd | Sep 2, 2020 | Alchemy
A New Equilibrium
In Conjunction, there was a general embracing of opposites. In Fermentation, there was a sheer dedication to truth and impeccable perception. Now, in Sublimation, Love and Wisdom find their union.
Sublimation begins, and Fermentation ends, when pure, ecstatic Love floods in. It is a Love unbound, not attached to anything, all-embracing, unconditional. It is not romantic. It is not brotherly. It just IS. It arrives on its own when the lesson of Fermentation has been fully understood, which is the fallibility of seeking.
In Sublimation, actions flow from both Love and Wisdom. To an outside perspective, focused on cultural norms or expectations, not all actions will appear loving from a person in Sublimation. They won’t always be acceptable. But they don’t come from a purely ego-centric or conditioned place.
Expansion of “Self”
This is also a point where greater capabilities emerge. With a more highly developed awareness, one may experience powers and strengths such as clairvoyance, telepathy, energy sensitivity, intuition, precognition, psychometry, or generally a greater sense of flow and alignment in life. These are not necessary to the experience of Sublimation, but those with proclivities in such areas may see an expansion. Things that were previously challenging may feel like they come more easily now. Some internal obstacles may simply vanish. One may have more vitality or youthfulness.
Sublimation is a whole new experience of self and reality, both being redefined. There is no need to attach to any identity, though identities can be easily worn and discarded like clothing. There may be a greater ability to adapt to social and cultural circumstances, without “buying into” them. There is neither attachment or avoidance, simply fluid motion through life.
This or That?
The main realization of Sublimation, as one moves through it, is fully understanding the relationship between the immanent and transcendent, or “physical” and “spiritual.” There may be a liberating impulse, but until you really grasp there is nothing to be liberated from, then this phase is not yet complete.
Everything is considered sacred. Nothing is looked down upon. Good and Evil or right and wrong no longer exist, though relative resonance and dissonance can be appreciated. There is simply awareness of relevance in the moment. Everything is seen as a blessing. The One is recognized in All, and the All recognized in the One.
What more can be said?
Opening to Further Possibilities
There is no formula offered here for what can be practiced or taken advantage of to pursue this path further. You have direct, open communication with your intuition and Infinite Intelligence. You have congruence with your Higher Self.
This is, of course, by no means an endpoint. One can continue to learn and explore. There will always be opportunities for this.
Some possible avenues for exploration are:
- Seek communion with nature and its inhabitants. Much can be learned in this way. With enhanced perception and ability to connect, you can take time to get to know the plants, animals, and minerals of the natural world more and what they have to teach. You can also contact the elemental beings and nature spirits.
- Send energy where you feel it can be most helpful. You can offer loving energy to groups of people, and even political or corporate leaders. Offering such energy may contribute to inspiring shifts for the benefit of the collective.
- Support seekers and those in need. You can provide direct support to those who are learning to navigate their own awareness and who may need guidance.
Beauty in Life’s Labyrinth
Jenny couldn’t feel freer! She stretched out her arms in the living, vibrant rainforest, feeling its energy speak to her. All the trees were whispering, those elders of the Earth, imbibing her with ancient wisdom. The ground hummed. The birds, in their decorous plumage, pierced the air with tickling vibrations.
She had come to some incredible realizations in this beautiful Peruvian landscape. Jenny felt totally reborn after such a long time of feeling isolated and depressed. Where there was despair, there was now a heart that was so open, it felt the strummings of Life…
After some loving goodbyes with her newly made friends at the retreat, Jenny returned to the US, where she lived with her one roommate, Sierra. She also returned to her job as a journalist. She had been on FMLA for two months, so it was surreal to come back. Everyone noticed a difference in her. She kept getting compliments about how radiant she looked or how joyful or how youthful.
Her creative flow was phenomenal. Her writing came so easily, and even her hobby as a dancer took on new life and vigor. It was as if each time her fingers touched the keyboard, or her feet touched the dance floor, she became a channel for the Universe.
These thoughts percolated her mind, and she wondered what it meant. How did she feel so tapped into the Universe, and what was the Universe? Was it her Higher Self, God, Kundalini, or something else entirely that she was experiencing?
Jenny devoured literature on the subject, and any sacred text she could get her hands on. She wanted to really understand what this was all about. She listened to gurus on YouTube and read all kinds of spiritual blogs. She went to the meditation center near her home, to see if there was anything she could learn from the teachers and students there. She got many answers, and filled in her spiritual map, but something felt missing.
Jenny was loving life more than she had ever loved it before, yet she felt she absolutely had to figure this thing out called reality. She had glimpses and visions of the Big Picture. She had intuitions and epiphanies. And they were epic! But she knew that there was still…more. And somehow she felt like she couldn’t let that go.
The more she meditated and focused on her spiritual practices, the more she felt transcendent. Her seeming awakening in Peru had made all this much easier, she thought. She felt more and more distant from the ‘ordinary’ concerns of daily living, and felt she could relate less and less to other people. It became challenging for her to remain long in a place that felt ‘low-vibe,’ though she was getting better at calling in the Light to purify herself and areas around her.
One day, several months into her post-awakening journey, Jenny received a call from her mom. Her father had died of a heart attack. She paused, noticing the immediate sorrow rising up in her. Memories flashed through her mind of her father taking her on hikes as a child, of going boating together, of him holding her on his lap as they watched cheesy movies.
After the call, she cried, allowing herself to feel everything, going deeply into it and letting it move and shift on its own. A joy welled in her heart as she thought more about her dad, and she knew that there was something positive coming from this experience.
Most of her family members were at the funeral – her mother, two brothers, younger sister, nephews, nieces, cousins, and an uncle. Her dad was so loving that this was a very solemn affair, and the pain of the loss everyone felt was palpable. It was a bit too much for Jenny to be there, and she didn’t feel the need to be gloomy, but would have rather celebrated her father’s life.
She noticed some irritation as her attempt to draw in the Light and change the atmosphere failed. When one of her brothers came up to ask her how she was handling this, she couldn’t help but tell him her feeling that this would be a good experience. She mused that maybe their father was already preparing for his next lifetime, or in a realm far better than this one. Her brother flared at this and questioned if she was mentally ill.
This made her uncomfortable and she had to get out. Excusing herself, she left the funeral site and found a path leading to a labyrinth by an old church. Her thoughts were racing, and pain, anger, guilt, and sorrow all at once. She tried to be with each emotion, diving into it, but they were all so intertwined it felt impossible. She took some deep breaths and attempted to clear her mind, but it was like pushing away water, only to have more rush in.
With a sigh, Jenny simply walked the large labyrinth, letting it take her where it would. She stared at the worn-out stones laid out on the path, and the dirt, grime, and moss between them. She noticed a couple slugs along the way, sliding their gooey trail across the stones. She saw how the sunlight reflected off the fresh slug slime, giving it a luminous, rainbow sheen. And she realized how beautiful it was. Gorgeous, even. As her eyes glanced across the slime back to the slugs, she recognized their beauty, as well – their smooth, elongated bodies, their glistening skin, their delicate tentacle-antennae with beady eyes.
She stood still as she looked even more closely at the intricate patterns on their skin, the almost feathered texture that might have been missed with its gloss. And the weaves of dark and light colors rippling along each slug’s back. She marveled at how they moved, how miraculous it was that countless muscles along their singular feet worked in tandem to inch the slugs along a slide secreted moment-by-moment. How in the hell did this creation come to be?!
She kept walking, and soon enough came across a burnt out cigarette butt lying on the ground. Jenny stopped again, a flash of fury dashing through her as she thought about how inconsiderate some people are. She reached for the cigarette to pick it up till she could find a place to toss it, then hesitated. She wondered, as she had found beauty in the slugs, if there was beauty even in this dejected cigarette.
It was folded slightly, almost an elbow shape like a macaroni. Tiny creases lined its fold, and miniscule streaks of dirt framed the creases. Tobacco granules peaked gently out of their open tunnel, a few grains having already spilled out like an infant avalanche, their black and red hue reminding her of cooling lava on the Hawaiian islands. Indeed, if she looked closely, even this cigarette was beautiful.
Dazed and forgetting to pick it up, Jenny continued on through the labyrinth, winding around and around until finally, she came to the center. And there, in that center, was a fountain – a broken, defeated fountain, no longer gushing water. If it gushed anything, it was dust. She walked up to it, seeing that small chunks of its limestone body were missing, faded out into time. A lion stood proudly next to its copper spout, one paw resting on the greenish, oxidized metal. Little cherubs danced around the edge. One had a missing wing. Another was without a nose. There were perhaps seven of them lining the bowl of the fountain.
A stone bench greeted, and she sat on it as she continued to examine the fountain. The oxidized copper blended well with the dark moss that grew in patches across the fountain’s surface. Winged insects with shiny scales lazily hovered around it, some lounging on the soft moss. The gaps in the rock had their own stories to tell, patterns left by their fallen pieces, lines and peaks and troughs and shadows that created landscapes. The whole fountain, in fact, was full of colors and shades and textures, more intricate and detailed in its retirement.
Jenny reflected on how all things change, how there is always death and dying and aging and destruction, and yet…beauty is always available, waiting to be seen. In anything. In any creature. In any person.
Suddenly, Jenny felt the full realization of her awakening, the glimpse of her Big Picture expanding infinitely until she laughed and knew it was never anywhere, because it was everywhere. There was nothing out of reach. There was nothing separate. She laughed the loudest she had ever laughed, blissful tears streaming down her face.
When she returned to the funeral, everyone was talking, but she felt they were anxious to leave. Her mother saw her and came up and gave her a big hug. She must have seen her flushed face and red eyes from the laughing and tears. Jenny hugged her tightly and felt more love than she ever knew she could.
Then she saw her brother, who gave her a sideways glance, his jaw tense. She went up to him and told him that she had felt a deep sorrow when she found out their dad had died, and remembered all the precious times they had together. She’d felt the loss of knowing she would never have those times with him again. She understood her brother’s pain. She felt it even as she spoke, and she hugged her brother and held him, holding not just him in her arms, but also the pain and the hurt. And she felt her love expand more and more (how it could expand any further, she didn’t know, but she relished its endlessness). As her love expanded, she felt her brother loosen, and he wrapped his arms around her completely. She felt his pain ease and ease, as his own love grew and grew.
Reflective Quote
“The universe is not outside of you. Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.” — Rumi
by user_dd | Jun 26, 2020 | Alchemy, Community Conversations
Crucible of Union
Everything in manifestation is polar. Hot and cold, wet and dry, expansive and contractive. Yin and Yang. Active and passive. The idea that poles are separate is illusory. In alchemy, every pole contains its opposite. And the opposite pole can be accessed through the right approach.
In the Conjunction phase, one learns to negotiate the opposites in their own personality, find equilibrium, and move towards a nondual state of awareness in which conditions fall away and pure consciousness is more readily experienced.
Conjunction is connected with the heart chakra, or green ray, ruled by unconditional love and acceptance. This is the vessel for change, the crucible in which deep transformation can unfold. It is also a critical stage in spiritual development, being a transition to a whole new dimension of experience in which the transpersonal – outside the ego – becomes familiar.
One of the simplest ways to experience the Conjunction process is by contemplating opposites and holding space for them to coexist within your heart and mind. You practice this as you encounter people, even things, in your everyday world. As you observe them, notice their qualities and consider the opposite qualities. Then imagine both existing simultaneously, while you continue observing. This invites nondual awareness to emerge.
Practical Transmutation
The practice of experiencing opposites is highly useful when applied to thoughts and emotions. You can capitalize on it and tweak it to navigate life situations. For example, let’s take a stressful thought, such as worrying over paying your bills. Its opposite, peace of mind, is present – it just takes a little creativity and openness to recognize this. With each step of this transmutation process, notice the thought, and feel for the emotion behind it. Go deeper and deeper with each layer…
- Realize that the thought of worry arises due to concern for yourself.
- Notice this concern arises due to desire for self-preservation.
- Notice this desire enables you to be resourceful and get your needs met, bringing peace of mind.
- Imagine that peace, and simply focus on it, letting the rest of the story fall away.
It is possible to transmute this even more directly. Let’s take the emotion of anxiety.
Notice that it has an energy and presence. For a moment, feel the sensation without ascribing any meaning to it – simply observe it. Then, with your intention and will, imagine the strength of this energy shifting into relaxation. Imagine yourself being relaxed, and the energy behind anxiety fueling this new state.
To make it easier, you may even imagine anxiety as a color and a shape in your body, and relaxation as a color and shape. Then allow the anxiety to change its appearance in your mind until it looks like relaxation (perhaps fiery red gradually turning into a cool blue). Tap into the energy behind the experience and redirect it.
Sacred Marriage
The ultimate conjunction is the union of the active and passive principles, yin and yang. I sometimes refer to them as Will and Grace. Will is focused intention. It stimulates, brings momentum, changes, shapes, directs. When you move your hand, you are using your will. When you set a goal and work towards its realization, you are implementing your will. Likewise when you concentrate on an image in your mind.
Grace, on the other hand, is surrender, openness, acceptance, fluidity, equanimity. Grace goes with the flow. It has no agenda – it simply embraces what is. It is unconditional. If you’ve ever sat with someone who looked at you and accepted you perfectly as you were, without judgment, then you had a sense of what grace is. If you’ve humorously said to yourself “fuck it,” and decided to let the dice fall where they may, you had a glimpse of grace. If you’ve ever deeply felt you could rely on events being in “God’s hands” or that the “Universe will take care of you,” you know what grace can be like.
Conjunction deepens when Will and Grace are unified within the self. This occurs when you’ve both clarified your sense of purpose, and entered into a state of gratitude and openness.
Your ideal or purpose has been clarified through the alchemical process, so far. Your will lets you empower it and to focus your actions in service of it. Grace comes in when you have let go of expectations – all expectations – in particular, those associated with your actions. It is when you’ve learned to simply act, and to allow what comes. It DOES NOT mean you allow things to distract you from your ideal and drain your energy.
There are a few ways to step into Grace:
- Gratitude List – Cliche, but effective. Write at least 3 things each morning and 3 things each night that you are grateful for. As you write them down, ACTUALLY feel the gratitude. Relive or imagine it in your mind.
- Stop Complaining – This is a mental and verbal detox. It requires practice and perseverance. Learn to let go of negative talk towards self and others and circumstances. You can, of course, be compassionate. But you don’t have to add to negativity.
- Appreciate Synchronicities – You may want to even record these in a journal or your phone. When you notice synchronicities, take a moment to soak them in and remember.
- Remember Presence – Let your thoughts go for a moment and focus on your beingness, existence, the sense of I AM. You can do this briefly, several times throughout the day.
Ways you can explore your Will are:
- Clarification – Ask yourself what is your highest desire, and notice the first images, thoughts, or sensations that emerge.
- Alignment – Check in with yourself throughout the day to ask why you are doing (or not doing) a task or activity and what you feel it brings you. Notice if you are energized or drained, excited or bored.
- One-pointed Concentration – Imagine your highest desire being fulfilled. Experience it vividly, engage as many senses as you can, and feel the emotions around it. Keep your attention in a focused state, and if you get distracted, simply redirect your mind back.
- Aliveness – Notice the energy within you, animating you. Feel yourself as part of Life, noticing that it moves through you. Affirm to yourself that the same energy animating you is that which animates everything.
Meld your sense of Grace with your Will. This is actually true devotion on a deeper level. In devotion to a higher power or ideal, you listen for guidance, act on inspiration, and trust in the process. There is no fixation on an outcome or result. All of that is let go, replaced with a love for that higher power or ideal. That love is connection and openness and faith.
In truth, Will and Grace are seen to be poles of One thing. When this is realized, and deeply felt, Conjunction has started to set in. Along with this realization comes the blurring of lines between free will and determinism, noticing that they are not separate. For All is an expression of One, and your True Will is God’s Will.
Letting Go into the New
Marcus felt frustrated that life wasn’t turning out the way it should have for him. As a salesperson for a leading tech company, he thought he would have been on a fast track to success, except for the fact that he wasn’t meeting quota and didn’t seem to be so great at sales.
But he really tried. He learned everything he could, reading books and listening to sales podcasts. He talked with the highest earners to get tips. He even went out of his way to meditate every day, visualize his success in his mind, and repeat affirmations to himself. He was doing so much; why wasn’t any of it working?
As he pushed on and on, his frustration turned to dejection. He was humiliated after having puffed himself up so much as a fast learner in his interview, and he knew that if things didn’t change soon, he was at risk of losing his job. But it was getting to the point where he just didn’t care anymore.
One day, after being teased by a coworker for a particularly lousy call, Marcus decided he’d take a walk through the park nearby his work. As he mulled over his continual defeats, his sadness deepened. After a few laps around the park, he was tired physically and emotionally, and he slumped onto a bench. He thought to himself, “What’s the point of even fighting this sadness?” And so he sat with it. He didn’t do anything with it. He just watched it, watched himself, watched the moment, at a loss for anything else he could possibly do.
After sinking into the sadness, and the bench, Marcus suddenly felt something shift inside him. He let go of his judgment of himself and the situation. He thought, “If I lose my job, fine. If I keep it, fine.” He decided he was just going to do what made sense to him and forget the rest. As he got up, he felt freer and more present. He wasn’t distracted anymore with what could or should be.
The next day, Marcus came into the office acting on his instincts. He naturally tuned out the conversations that felt irrelevant to him, and spoke easily and impromptu. He ignored the scripts he was taught and didn’t even bother pitching to people that felt like a dead end. Sometimes, he would just talk with people about anything of interest that came up, forgetting that he was supposed to “sell.” And that was okay. But people responded well to that, anyways, and he got unexpected sales.
It kept like this for a week, and by the end of it, Marcus was genuinely shocked by how many sales he had made. His coworkers and supervisor were equally shocked, though they had noticed he’d been different all around.
While Marcus enjoyed this surprise, he also realized that he didn’t give a rat’s ass about the tech world, and cared much more about education. Renewing his sense of purpose, Marcus looked for jobs at educational companies. He was mainly curious to see what sort of positions were out there and what that world was like. One thing led to another, and he eventually realized he wanted to create his own education business to fill a market need he kept seeing in his research.
He followed his feeling of what his vision of success felt like, without concern for how the specifics would manifest. What started for him as a sort of liberating impartiality evolved into a trust that things would work out the way they were supposed to, and all he’d need to do is follow his instinct and curiosity. Marcus found a deeper sense of purpose, coupled with an openness to Life. And he realized you couldn’t have one without the other.
Reflective Quote
“It’s better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way.” – Alan Watts
by user_dd | Feb 5, 2020 | Transitory Thoughts
“The core of what I believe is that what we cannot see is more powerful than what we can see. That’s just a core belief of mine. In addition to that, we all have access to more than we know and sometimes the knowing is what gets in the way of what we have access to.” ~Sage Crump
From the beginning of our study in metaphysics, and particularly Hermetics, we are confronted with the sobering truth that of all the resources we have at our disposal to answer one of life’s most profound questions, “Who am I?” is greatly limited by what we perceive.
What we perceive constrains us. It’s in our ignorance of what we DON’T know where we remain trapped in an almost certain future to be played out according to the logical probabilities of our circumstances. However, like a computer program, when given new programming, an entirely new set of potentialities can catapult us into an entirely new potential future.
For example, contrary to observable phenomena, we are going to Hawai’i much earlier than when we get on the airplane to fly there. We are going to Hawai’i as soon as we purchase our tickets. We might announce to the world (i.e. post on Facebook) that we will soon replace the gray in our weather and mood with those desirable, sun-filled beaches in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We haven’t left yet, but in our mind, we’re already on our way.
The act of purchasing the tickets means something and ‘meaning’ in and of itself not observable. It has a greater impact than the 4 elements on your state of mind. The tickets just look like pieces of paper, but the value they have to the individual whose name is lucky enough to be on them is immeasurable.
It’s not a big logical leap, my friends, to the realization that we are limited NOT by the physical laws and apparent boundaries of our 3-D universe, but in fact by those of our mind.
The Universe is MIND
How we interpret, measure, and discern our reality says more about us than about the outside world we seek to explain. We may think that we are conquering nature with our formidable intellect only to be sideswiped by an unknown variable that changes everything.
What’s possible in life is a function of your capacity to dream big dreams. You are not limited. Your consciousness limits you. Bring more tools, energies, ideas into your consciousness AND the power/will/energy to use them, then watch what happens to your life. Program your consciousness with the food you eat, the art you consume, the people you surround yourself with. In the traditional mystery schools, we use Life Activations to accelerate your opening up progress.
This is why Newton, Copernicus, and Einstein caused waves in the field of physics and continue to inspire new generations of outside the box thinkers. It’s imagination that led them to fields of discovery previously unknown. It’s in our way of thinking, our mind, that the bounds of our universe are created.
It’s time to MIND UP
“If the universe is about realizing its own mental potential in some way, if it’s going to end up in effect, a mental as well as a physical phenomena—that completely changes the character of things.”
Mastering your reality, achieving the life of your dreams, creating results that defy the logic of your present circumstances all require an expansion of what’s currently possible not in your physical reality, but in your mind. It’s time to MIND UP and receive the universal potentialities which are constantly flowing towards you, to be made aware through tools like those given in traditional metaphysics, and more specifically in the lineage of King Salomon, to capture and work with that energy for the betterment of yourself and those around you.
by user_dd | Sep 5, 2019 | Community Conversations
In the above video, Graham Hancock reads the prophecy to Asclepius straight out of the Hermetic tradition, originally attributed to Thoth/Hermes Trismegistus (hence ‘Hermetic’). The Hermetic Texts, in which Thoth’s prophecy comes down to us, draw on ancient Egyptian wisdom traditions more than 4,500 years old. I encourage you to watch the video and hear the prophecy as Mr. Hancock reads it, as it is powerful to hear the world it describes.
In short, the prophecy sounds like it’s describing our current, lived experience. Hence its relevance to our time, and surely why Mr. Hancock decided to publish this video with his collaborators at this time. It’s time to wake up people! I applaud him and his crew for that message.
Yes, but…
After reading the prophecy, Graham Hancock conveys an idea from an Amazonian curandero that we need to restore our connection with Spirit in order to move forward and, presumably, heal this world. He suggests this is the fundamental task we now all face, but then goes on to prescribe that we all make small changes in the areas of our lives over which we do have control in order to effect a worldwide shift in consciousness.
However, he’s making the same mistake many people make when asking for what’s needed to help the situation. He’s not taking the advice from the people he asked. In this case, our elders and their wisdom teachings. Indeed, he suggests a next step that is completely different than the advice given by this teacher.
And I don’t blame him, most people don’t know how to restore their link with Spirit. We think shifting our consciousness means making different choices when there’s actually an underlying energetic mechanism at play. If it were just about making different choices, then maybe the indigenous healers would have been life coaches instead of energetic healers.
There’s nothing that shows us changing our habits and making different decisions will restore our connection with Spirit. It’s hard enough to shift behavior and adopt new habits, let alone shift our consciousness towards spiritual life. I would know, I’ve coached thousands of people for the last decade and have settled on the fact that making different decisions is not an effective behavior change methodology. By the way, psychological science believes your behaviors are pretty much fixed as well.
How to shift your consciousness
If we want to shift our behavior, we have to shift our consciousness first. In fact, the world’s mystery traditions all advise that we focus on shifting our consciousness (way of being) FIRST in order to update our thoughts (thinking) which in turn affect our behaviors (actions/decisions). Their methodology? A whole lot of ritual and prayer…to connect with Great Spirit. That’s what this curandero actually said to Graham. The elder didn’t say, go change your habits and behaviors. He said restore your link with Spirit. He’s advising we take on a spiritual practice.
I believe we can all agree that by shifting our consciousness to the frequency of Love (see HeartMath institute), the actions which you’ll be choosing will bring us towards Unity and oneness with the planet and correct all the malignant systems and situations we find ourselves in today. That’s what a practice with devotion to objects like Great Spirit will do. Some wisdom traditions say devotion to anything will build this muscle. Choose something, be devoted enough to it, and you’ll create big change in the world. Come to find out, the object of your devotion makes a huge difference as to whether the results you produce are good or evil. But that’s another blog post…
So the fundamental task remains, namely to shift our consciousness, not our everyday behaviors which are contributing to our larger societal issues. That is, if you’re actually listening to your elders.
How you ask? Ask the world’s wisdom traditions. They will all eventually prescribe some energetic mechanism along the lines of the Life Activation or activating your DNA or activating your energy body or clearing out your aura. Further, these wisdom traditions have been facilitating these activations in their priesthoods for millennia. This is why lineage is so important.
More resources:
Learn more about Life Activation here: activate.spiritintransition.com
Find a Life Activation practitioner near you: https://www.modernmysteryschoolint.com/certified-professionals/ (Click on ‘Certified Professional Life Activation Practitioner’)
by user_dd | Aug 21, 2019 | Community Conversations
Conflict is a part of the human condition, and most of us spend our time trying to avoid it. I’m here to humbly offer an alternative: embrace the conflict.
Having just celebrated my second year of marriage, I’m certifiably past the honeymoon phase. So when I forget to take out the recycling or fold the clothes out of the dryer, I can’t just smile and get a pass for being cute. These days I have to work much harder to be lazy.
Of course, there are some things I can’t just talk my way out of in relationships, no matter how much sales training, NLP, and other tricks I have up my sleeve. So when I make a stupid comment like, ‘Your idea is terrible’ to my partner, I get to spend the rest of the evening backing away from the abyss I almost walked right into.
Whether my comment is true doesn’t matter, I still will not get to veg out in front of a movie for the evening if I can’t find some alignment with my partner.
Historic Explorations of Conflict
As early as a few hundred years before Christ, philosophers were working through similar dinnertime conversations to shirk their domestic duties and leave the household chores for another day. If you can prove to your partner that motion is indeed impossible, why should they expect you to get off the couch?
In Zeno’s famous paradoxes, he proves just that. Since there’s plenty of material written to explain what his paradoxes are, I’ll leave your discoveries to other articles on the subject.
I would rather use this space to highlight a few important points about this particular piece of history: 1) Zeno was the student of Parmenides, and 2) he developed his paradoxes to defend his teacher’s then unpopular monisitic view of the world (i.e. “how all reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, and necessary.” I have also quoted Parmenides poem ‘On Nature’ here).
As you may be able to tell from the above, Parmenides was a metaphysician exploring the mysteries of how the universe works. He has been called the father of metaphysics, and his connection to the great mystery schools is evidenced in the overlap of both the orientation of his theory and explanation of reality as we experience it (not to mention our written record of initiates).
Of course, we know the form and content of his arguments had existed long before his lifetime having been preserved by the secret mystery schools from time immemorial.
Conflict Means Someone Cares
The point in bringing this up is simply to say that conflict is germane to our existence. The disconnect between our perceived reality and that of ultimate reality has been documented for thousands of years by the world’s wisdom traditions. You’re not going to be successful in creating a world without conflict. It’s the nature of being human.
What you CAN DO is change your relationship to conflict. I like to view conflict as an effort towards understanding. After all, have you ever had a conflict with someone you don’t care about? The only reason conflict exists is that something important to you is at stake.
So take it as a compliment next time you find yourself arguing about household chores, political views, or whether Black Panther is a good movie. If this person is spending time arguing, they may actually care about you, your perspective, and the topic at hand. Otherwise, why would they waste their time trying to change your mind?
Conflict is a move toward Unity
Conflict is simply a step on the way to Unity. And last I checked, we need more UNITY. What we need LESS OF is apathy. So start showing that you care and argue away (respectfully). You might discover new insights into the nature of the universe, AND be able to finish the next episode of whatever your binge watching on Netflix. I’ll have to catch up later after doing some clean up with my partner.
