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Inner conflict

A satsang discourse on resolving inner conflict to achieve world peace.

"Conflict is not in the world; conflict is within you. That conflict is in me, and only I can solve it."

"Therefore, world peace and inner conflict: to solve the inner conflict is the way to world peace."

The speaker guides the audience through self-inquiry, identifying the ego, pride, and attachments as the roots of personal conflict. Using parables, poetry, and analysis of desire, karma, and destiny, he argues that surrender and meditation are the means to inner peace, which must precede universal harmony.

Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Weekend seminar

In this last year and a half, during my satsaṅg lectures, I have continually posed questions. Now, you must analyze yourself through meditation. Examine what conflict lies within you, and know that you can solve it—very easily, you can solve it. But the problem is that you are not able to give up. You are bound: emotionally bound, culturally bound, bound by nationality, bound by religion, bound by family ties. Or your ego, your pride, does not want to let you surrender. This means the conflict is not in the world; conflict is within you. That conflict is in me, and only I can solve it. No one else can. For that, we must learn to surrender: to give up the pride, give up the ego, give up those qualities which make you feel very big while in your eyes everyone else is small. That is a sin. Oh man, at the very least, you should not make a difference between human and human. This kind of conflict can only be solved through prayers, through meditation, through inner dialogue. Have a dialogue within thyself. Therefore, now you should not only ponder what it means to be human, but you should think: "I am a human. I cannot do this [which causes conflict]. I possess all human qualities. I will establish peace, clarity, harmony, and oneness within myself, and that will reflect outside." Otherwise, the greedy person who thinks only for oneself will never be successful in life. It is like a person who cannot speak but is eating ice cream. He cannot say how nice it is, but inside he is closed off and very happy. Yet that ice cream may not be healthy for him. Similarly, we do something and think others do not know. But you know what you did, what you are doing, and what the result will be. So it is not that someone else made a mistake or was shouting. No. Conflict begins in us. As the verse says: "Bura jo dekhan ko chala, bura ne mila koi, jab dil khoja apna, mud se bura na koi." I went out into the world to search for the bad one, to look for someone who was bad, but I did not find anyone who was bad. When I searched my inner self, I found I was the bad one. This is the meditation called self-inquiry. Self-inquiry, meditation, is meant to solve the inner conflict and, thereby, the world's conflicts. Therefore, be ready. Be ready to accept critique and negativity. Yes, everybody will say, "Oh, beautiful! Oh, how nice! Oh, you are successful! Oh, you are the winner! Oh, you are the good champion! Oh, you are good in this school!" This only feeds our ego. Our ego gains more and more kilos, like a potato with good water and good fertilizer under the ground. So we become full of ego, full of selfishness, and full of that attachment which we cannot give up. That which you think is good and you enjoy costs you your blood. A hungry dog finds a dry bone and begins to bite through it. It is a very hard, dry bone, but through this biting, the dog's gums begin to bleed. The dog is sucking its own blood, but it thinks the bone is tasty. It does not know the blood is from its own gums. Similarly, that attachment which you think is you and which you like—that is the bone you are holding in your mouth. Therefore, it is said: "Hat chod mana chal sanga mere, to ātmā jñāna vatāvatī." Thus, Gurudev said, "Give up your fixed ideas and come with me; I will give you Ātmā Jñāna (Self-Knowledge)." We cannot have Ātmā Jñāna while we possess the qualities we have now. For that, we have to be born again and again. You know, to come from the astral world into this physical world is not in your hands. The decision lies in your destiny. The driving force is your destiny, and destiny is the result of your karma. Karma is the result of your desires. Desires are not only for food and sex, but many desires: to have nice black hair, to go to the hairdresser every week to make it nice—black or blonde. But you know, after one week, the truth, the reality comes out. No, Śānti, a beautiful reality comes out; yet again we try to put color on it. How long will you do this? This is a desire. So desire means not only eating or sex; these are the last of the last aspects of nature. But unnatural desires, like the desire for money, are different. Money did not create Śiva. Śiva didn't have a money printing press. We created money to control human emotion. It is a very clever, nicely thought-out way to move humans to be creative. Therefore, money is just a piece of paper, but it is managed in such a way that you cannot get more no matter how hard you try. You will get only a little bit. Why? To make humans more active. But on the other hand, that money creates conflict within us. It is a factor of that conflict. We have gone too far. We cannot control it. Similarly, desire is the cause of karma—or you could say, ambition is the cause of karma. And the cause of destiny is karma. Now, the cause of this kind of life is our destiny. Again we come to the root: it is not in your hands. After death, when you go somewhere, I do not know where you will go. You cannot give me your address or telephone number. I will give you my email, but you cannot say, "I would like to be born again in beautiful Moravia." You cannot say, "I would like to be born somewhere in Moravia where honey and milk flow." Now petrol and gas flow there. And then you have to come into a mother's body; it is not so pleasant. It is not so beautiful: nine months in a grab-wash. Nine months in the mother's body—for other creatures, it is a different duration. Now it depends on that, with Hatha. That creator—if He will give us healthy eyes or not, if He will give us a healthy nose or not, good ears, a good face, beauty, five fingers. Perhaps Prakṛti, Mother Nature, will give only till here, the head. Then you will always have to put it in your pocket to hide. Then you understand and thank Mother Nature, who in nine months gave you such a beautiful body. Everything is there: perfect canalization, ventilation, heating, central heating, also air conditioning, beautiful electric wires inside. No engineer in this world, till today, can make such a beautiful body in nine months and put a soul inside. Then we can only thank God that we will have a happy, comfortable, and good birth. Birth is also not easy, neither for you nor for the mother. Thanks to God that it is like this. Yes, mother and father can give you only birth, but not destiny. And therefore it is said: "Vidhātā, terī kalām kyō nahī̃ rukī? O Vidhātā, O my destiny, when you wrote my destiny, oh writer of the destiny, why didn't your pen stop?" Through which situations do you have to go, my dear, to be happy? To be happy—how many times are you disappointed? How many times is your wife angry with you, or how many times has your man been drunk and angry? Many, many families are unhappy because of alcohol. Children are growing up in fear; parents are fighting because of alcohol. This situation you had, my dear, is all very, very difficult. What a life! Humans create such conflict. Humans are perfect beings, meant to live on this planet like a divine self, like God Himself, just to distribute love and light. You are an incarnation of love. You are not an incarnation of holding guns and shooting people. You are not born to make beautiful guns and weapons to kill creatures and humans. We have gone too far. Therefore, world peace and inner conflict: to solve the inner conflict is the way to world peace. And therefore, meditation. Ask not "Who am I?" but "How am I?" What is in me? How many times, to protect my feelings, do I lie? And you know, when you ask a person a question and the person is lying, you can see it directly in their eyeballs. Psychologically, the eyeballs are not steady; they go either like this or like that, or the head moves, so you can understand from the answer whether it is the truth or a lie. That's it. Therefore, these conflicts were always there. The great sages also went through many conflicts and difficulties, so they tried very hard to find the right words. All that the ṛṣis gave us—the words—they are without title, unchangeable. Peace. You don't want to add any title for peace. Just peace. Love. Does love have a title? "Friend Love" or "Back Love"? "Dr. Love"? A professor's goal is so love. Happiness. They put such words like beautiful, precious stones—jewels, sparkling, shiny: love, happiness, contentment, freedom. All are, by birth, the rights of all creatures, not only humans. Meditation is the way to that part. Recording location: Czech Republic, Strilky, Weekend seminar

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt, what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

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