2. Contradiction (in one’s activity, thought and being)

According to Krishnamurti, conflict arises when there is contradiction in one’s activity, thought and being, both outwardly and inwardly. The adjustment, suppression, contradictory desires, demands, opinions and urges creates conflict within an individual.

He remarks,

‘What is conflict? Opposing desires, opposing demands, opposing opinions: I think this, and you think that; my prejudice against your prejudice; my tradition, against your tradition; my meditation against yours; my guru is better than your guru; deeper still, my selfishness against your selfishness.’^[1]

Thus, there is contradictory process going on, which is the dualistic attitude towards life. That is, contradiction means duality where one thing is opposed to the other. Krishnamurti holds that one creates disorder in his/her life by trying to become the opposite. The mind posits an opposite and it tries to become that.

But Krishnamurti says,

‘Where there is the opposite there must be division and therefore there must be conflict.’^[2]

Conflict exists not only because of contradictory desire, but all the educational system and the psychological pressures of society brings about division between what is and what should be, that is between the factual and the ideal. Any effort to be free of it involves another conflict, because if one resists conflict or the entire pattern that are involved in conflict, that very resistance is another contradiction and therefore a conflict.

To further clarify Krishnamurti gives an examples and says,

‘I realize I am in conflict. I am violent, and all the saints and all the books have said I must not be. So, there are two contradictory things in me, violence and also that I must be non-violent. That is a contradiction, either self-imposed or imposed upon me by others. In that self-contradiction there is conflict. Now, if I resist, whether in order to understand or in order to avoid conflict, I am still in conflict. The very resistance creates conflict.’^[3]

Similarly, one sees a bright, clever and intelligent person and compared to oneself, and shows one’s dullness. If one does not compare, then everything stops there and the originality starts–I am what I am. But if one is comparing all the time with certain bright, intelligent, nice looking and capable person, one is in perpetual conflict. So, conflict exists when one denies the fact of ‘what is.’ One is ‘something’ but is trying to become ‘something else’ and is again in conflict. Krishnamurti said that it is pointless to try to become the opposite because the opposite that one is trying to become is in fact the product of one’s own mind, and as such is not different but is what one is. The opposite is put together by the person’s mind itself, which is not that. So, the opposite is not something really different from what one really is. In simple words, human being, instead of realizing the fact that one is violent, and rather than moving away from that fact, pretend not to be violent and thus conflict begins.

So, every form of resistance and avoidance of conflict only increases it and conflict implies confusion and brutality. The mind has to be aware of conflict without persistence or avoidance. In that very action a discipline is born this is not based on any formula or pattern. A man who has a method to achieve certain extraordinary state is merely caught in a pattern which does not lead to reality. One is told how to be free from conflict and accordingly pursue that pattern in order to be free from it and therefore still be in it. So, when one is in search of a pattern to be free from conflict one is falling back into the old pattern which indicates that one is still in conflict.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2011). ‘On Conflict.’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p. 129.

[2]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2008). ‘Mind without Measures.’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p. 139

[3]:

Krishnamurti, J. (2011). ‘On Conflict.’ Chennai: Krishnamurti Foundation India, p. 44