Conflict

Mother of all conflicts is internal conflicts between our well though-out principles residing in our mind vs our emotions and feelings arising out of our heart. Principles are set of instructions such as user manual for our day to day operations whereas emotions and feelings are situational and directly comes from our instant & intuitive feeling of favorable or unfavorable situation or circumstances. These emotions and feeling are perfectly capable of having a profound impact in our mind conflicting with our set of instructions. In the field of psychology, internal conflicts are often referred to as “cognitive dissonance” which is a term that refers to holding conflicting and inconsistent thoughts, beliefs and attitudes.

We are raised in a society that is dominated by the minds and hence we get really confused and disconcerted when our hearts get involved in everyday matters. The life is easier to blindly follow our mind, obey what others teach us and logically plan our lives. However, our hearts carry their own special kind of intelligence that is nonlinear, subtle, intuitive and often very abstract. There is no formula or set of rules that are attached to the heart’s intelligence. It is always up to us to listen to that feeble voice of the heart and when heard by us becomes stronger and stronger creating indelible impression in our thoughts.

Our intelligence helps us give our lives structure, direction, and practical application whereas our heart is what breathes life and truth into the framework of our life journeys. Without listening to our hearts, we live soulless, unfulfilling, and inauthentic lives. But without listening to our heads, we live in absolute chaos. Apparently, equanimity is needed to reconcile the differences between the sound bites of heart vs head. For example, if one sees a person who is terribly hurt in an accident on the road, our head will evaluate the reasons why we should rush the hurt person to the hospital before it is too late and simultaneously review it in a self-preservation mode about the legal consequences that one might have to encounter and decide in favor of walking away whereas the heart might insist that one should help this hurt person as quickly as possible irrespective of the consequences one might encounter in future. In this scenario, the head thinks like a third party whereas the heart thinks as though one is in that situation.

In general, conflicts arise when a) the beliefs and rules we have inherited from our parents/guardian, b) religious beliefs, dogmas or creeds we were indoctrinated to believe and c) the societies values and we adopted growing up. These deeply embedded beliefs may conflict with rational thinking mind that had recognized changes in the world and adapt to those needs quickly as opposed to deep routed belief system. Gunas described in the scriptures have prominent role to play in these internal conflicts as well. The one who has a dominant Satwic qualities may have a significant rational thinking habit but would like to apply the heart in a compassionate fashion to validate before executing his/her thoughts into action. The one who has a dominant Rajasic qualities might have a heart to accept occasional imperfections whereas the mind might aim for perfection, directly evaluate thoughts with significant discrimination and decide to execute without any emotional influence. The one with Tamasic qualities might have a strong heart not to bother anyone for them to survive but their stronger mind might make them become a taker from the society.

How many people we see who believe in women’s right but not happy about abortion and how many are compassionate to fellow human beings but hates LGBTQ communities? Take me as an example in social beliefs. I believe in small government, privatization with limited regulations by the government, properly regulated immigration, limiting the welfare to only those in need, object people who abuse short-term and long-term disability payments, wrongfully obtained handicapped parking when those spots are premium for those who really are in dire need, etc. whereas strongly against oppression of people based on color, creed, race, ethnic background and LGBTQ communities, support the women’s right to determine what they do with their bodies, support rich people paying higher taxes, support economic growth driven by purchasing power, support universal healthcare at a reasonable price point, etc. You can call me right or left or right center or center left, these are my beliefs. Some might be coming from my head while others might be coming from my heart.

 

Dear Hari Sir,

You are right about the human being having all three Gunas and move among them from one to another. However, they eventually have a dominant Guna. Take for example Ravana, his Satwic quality was dominant until he got a boon that no one could defeat him. After that he controlled Navagrahas, five elements, and challenged all other kingdoms. This Rajasic quality only made him arrogantly capture mother Sita without understanding the consequences as he believed that no one can defeat him. He had enormous faith in his ability to defeat anyone but didn't realize God will come in human form and defeat him.

That is why habits play a prominent role in determining the dominant Guna. If we keep the company of good people, be righteous in all our endeavors, particular about not hurting anyone, we can remain in Satwic Guna most of the time.

Viswa

 

Dear Smt. Jayasala:

Thank you for your kind response. I get really excited always to see your response to my snippets as you add much more value than the original post. Your MIL is a role model and what a compassionate person she must be to balance between her traditional beliefs and listening to her daughter-in-law.

Your words there is no manual makes me laugh, as my wife had told my son over 100 times in his entire life, "you have not come with a manual for us to understand your thoughts".

It is always a struggle between head and heart. Sometimes, parents communicate with their children what their head tells them as righteous and other times, they get overwhelmed with their attachment to their children and decide to tolerate a little bit of drift in their children's character. Every situation is different and unfortunately the heart reacts based on the current situation and circumstances while the head applies its past experience to determine the right action even if it didn't experience a similar circumstances. The bottom line is one can't live only with the head or heart and there has to be equanimity between the two.

I only remember Rajni's famous dialogue, "Nan edha kettu vela seyardhillai, edha kettu velai cheyyaren" meaning "I don't listen to this but I only listen to this" showing his heart and head respectively.

Viswa

 

Dear Smt. Srinivasan:

Absolutely. Dominant Guna will be transparent and visible when someone acts in a particular way all the time. Genes, upbringing and also the situation definitely play a major role in our actions. Deep rooted beliefs have effects in our subconscious mind. Many times, we tell ourselves, if my father was there or if my mother was there, he or she would have told me to do this.

Viswa

 

My Dearest Vani,

I felt very humbled to know that this snippet connected well with your contemplation for the past two days. Mind is very detail oriented and thorough in its directions if we really discriminate the right from wrong but it is limited by our past experiences whereas the heart has no such set of procedural thinking but has intuitive hindsight filled with love. Sometimes, it might land us in trouble but would always be righteous.

That is why I had mentioned people with predominant Satwic quality always take decision using their mind using their discrimination but always apply the intuitive thinking of the heart to approve such a decision.

Viswa