It doesn’t matter how, or where, this dark cycle of conflict got started. It is not important any longer. Why? Because once we understand that to try to hurt someone — even just to want to — is to hurt ourselves, it makes no difference who did what to whom, or for whatever reasons. Once we come aware to the fact that when we hate, we feel this hatred first in ourselves, our relationship with this darkness is done. The whole issue becomes as simple as this: Hatred hurts us, not the person we blame for it. To hold a wish to punish someone begins with the unconscious embrace of the very pain we wish to inflict.

Our discoveries about conflict with each other all tell one story: Nothing grows on a battlefield except for the number of cries. Nothing can develop in us as long as the truth about our condition remains buried beneath so much misunderstanding. The point is that the pain we pass onto one another must stop somewhere or this cycle of conflict will never cease. And it must, or else the vital energies we need to grow beyond ourselves will simply be poured back into the earth for purposes unknown to us, even as we are compelled to serve conflict’s dark plan through our unconscious suffering.

So, what is the alternative? … [to be continued]