In considering a road from conflict to right relationships, we need to ask ourselves if we want right relationships in the first place. For one thing, right relationships do mean that one’s privileges will be reduced and that a self-centred egoïstic attitude will have to be left behind. They also require that one gradually lets go of the idea of profit. So we should ask again: do we want to go down that road? Considering the alternative and taking common sense into account, it seems fairly evident, but taking a clear stance on the topic is paramount.
The spiritual teachings of the Ageless Wisdom suggest that the choice has already been made for us; we live and move and have our being in the body of a Deity from Whom the law of compassion – expressed as right relationships, loving understanding or actively demonstrated love – derives, as an integral part of Their nature[1]. Nevertheless, pondering on this topic from the point of view of desire is relevant because our emotions play a large role in our emergence out of conflict and into harmony.
In the context of the evolving consciousness that we are as individuals, groups or as the larger group-comprising-subgroups that we call humanity, we need to recognize that we do not always put right relations before our own self-interest – we know that from the experience of our own lives. In today’s world ethics are challenged, if not blatantly mocked, and as a civilisation we may shamelessly orient our compass around tangible objectives rather than more subjective, eternal ones. Our civilisation is quite materialistic, the world thoughtform is quite materialistic, our values, it too often seems, are indexed on the stock market. Our civilisation is the result of the evolving human state of consciousness and grows out of its survival instinct, its appetites, its ambitions. We ask who in their right mind would sacrifice for the good of the whole? Who will put Spirit first? Can that much even be asked of the churches? In this climate, what should be expected of individuals, people of power, or nations? We have never removed greed and separativeness from the roots of our relationship to life, so how are we expected to find our way out of conflict?
Yet, as Alice Bailey convincingly expresses, the energies of soul life progressively condition all our interactions upon the physical plane. It should thus be understandable that even people of pure motive and intention, and of high principle, can be impelled into antagonistic activities[2].
Reflecting on these views, conflict comes to be seen as a necessary consequence of evolution. A consequence of the broadening of consciousness according to the following pattern: expansion, contact, conflict, friction and mediation, bringing about harmony through conflict, in an expanded state of consciousness. This view depicts the human family flourishing as one. This is the big picture. A picture too easily forgotten when we allow ouselves to be mesmerized by conflict, and when we let our identity become crystallised on the gains we seek to levy or the losses we seek to avoid.
Therefore, while conflict is an undeniable fact of life and unfolds before our very eyes on planes of varied subtlety, we need to train ourselves to lift our gaze above and beyond, into the world of meaning. There, with the right orientation and correct information, we can let meaning cloth itself into a wisely inspired understanding for the conflicts we experience. We can try to perceive the inner unity of all things and its workings in diversity. This process will orientate and inspire the sentiency of the little lives we ourselves are composed of. In other words, it will inform and direct the processes of our collective imagination to let us see and feel and touch the promise of right relations.
Likewise, it will help us to precipitate the idea of right relations into a lovable ideal, and seek to transmute the qualities in ourselves that are inimical to the process of harmonization through conflict by imagining how their beneficent expression would feel and how they might be expressed in our relationships.
This is a practical endeavour, and it is our responsibility. Although global conflict may arise from the greed and power of a few and from their leadership over numerous people, real power lies in the hands of the masses that have educated themselves. It is mind tainted by desires that rules the world and it is right desire and right perspective that will lead us from darkness to light, out of the present-day glamour into the light of Reality.
We are arguing that we don’t really have a choice in walking the road to right relations, but we can definitely slow the process and suffer thereby, or pace our progress rightly. It is up to us. This is our free will, our goodwill. Finally, as right relations rely on transmuting the consciousness of the individual self into the consciousness of the soul or the Ego, we understand how the idea of right relations goes hand in hand with the idea of group consciousness. Yes, our progress involves relinquishing our individual treasure troves and some loss of identity, but it bears the promise of the eternal prosperity of shared wealth in its many forms, consciousness being foremost. Is this not desirable enough?
Ultimately, we are encouraged to fan the fires of our hearts and to transmute love, from personal love, to love of mate and of family, to love of one’s entire environment, and through patriotism to love of the entire humanity. Thus does the transmutation of our astral life lead through conflict, to an extended consciousness[3]. §
1. Adapted from Alice Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy 288
2. Alice Bailey, Esoteric Psychology II 86
3. Alice Bailey, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire 954
