Understanding War & Conflict - Part 1

Understanding War & Conflict - Part 1: This section discusses the existential root of war and conflict. It approaches the topic from a meta perspective to help comprehend all wars and conflicts rather than just the current ones. It highlights that war and conflict should not be simply seen as good vs evil but as an opportunity to wonder about why reality is structured in this way. Drawing from spiritual understandings, it poses the question of why an all-powerful, loving God would allow the existence of war.
Broadening the Idea of War to Include All Conflict: This exploration expands the concept of war to include all forms of conflict, encompassing everything from physical abuse to sports competitions to legal disputes. It notes conflict's presence at all levels of existence, from the animal kingdom to human societies to internal mental struggles. Conflict, according to this perspective, is present in all spheres of life, making it an existential and universal phenomenon.
Conflict in the Business Domain and in Relationships: The transcript discusses conflict within business scenarios such as patent disputes among corporations and in relationships like family disputes, divorces and fights among children. It also references ideological, religious and cultural battles, border disputes, and the increasingly pervasive online debates.
Disputes and Conflicts in Media, Resources, Legal Issues, and the Digital World: Here, focus is given to geo-political facts over resources, legal disputes, religious conflicts, culture wars, ideological battles, conflicts in academia, military campaigns, enslavement, exploitation, creditor-debtor disputes, and cyber warfare including hacking and theft. The aim is to demonstrate how deeply ingrained and pervasive conflict is within the fabric of human civilization.
Internal Conflict: At a deeply personal level, inner conflicts are addressed. These are struggles within oneself, in mind or in body, further underlining the ubiquitous nature of conflict in life. The discussion in this section demonstrates conflict in various forms, opening the door to a broader and more intrinsic understanding of the nature of war and conflict.
Conflict within our own selves: We often experience internal struggles, such as between the desire to eat something indulgent and the wish to maintain a healthy weight. These conflicting desires can lead to stress and discomfort.
Conflict in abnormal psychology: In cases of certain neurological conditions or mental disorders, physical conflicts can occur. For instance, one hemisphere of the brain may direct the body to make a decision, while another hemisphere resists, leading to physical conflict or disagreement.
Disagreements and discord in society: Conflict is prevalent at all societal levels, from disagreements amongst friends or families about trivial matters, to widespread political disarray and international tension. These disagreements emanate from different perspectives and desires, which cause conflict.
Existential reason for conflict: Conflict arises from the finiteness of life. As finite beings, there are certain conflicts we must navigate in order to sustain our existence. The world's finiteness is what facilitates conflict, as finite forms seek to preserve their existence by defending themselves and their boundaries.
Division within oneness: While existence is holistic in nature, it also contains divisions or parts. These divisions or finite forms come into contact with each other, leading to conflict due to their disparate natures. For instance, the differences between a cat and dogeach being a distinct finite formoften result in conflict.
Conflict due to finitude: In order for something to exist as a distinct form, something else mustn't exist. For example, for a person to exist as an individual, they can't simultaneously be a kangaroo or their neighbor. This exclusivity contributes to conflict, as forms can't coexist as one, leading to struggle, disagreement, or discord.
Infinite versus finite forms: Infinite consciousness or spirituality is contrasted with the finite world we live in. All objects, living or non-living, degrade over time, leading to conflict as they fight for survival and preservation of their finite forms.
Conflict as incompatibility: Conflict arises when there is a lack of harmony or coherence with different parts of reality. This typically happens when one part of reality extracts energy from another part, often seen in nature and survival tactics. For instance, a river shapes the earth as it flows, while the earth's terrain influences the river's path, indicating a profound conflict even within inanimate entities.
Existence of Conflict in Nature: In his video, Leo Gura explores the presence of conflict in nature, highlighting that nature is not as peaceful as it is often portrayed. Survival requirements for different organisms can lead to conflict, illustrated through examples such as trees competing for sunlight in a forest. He further explains that all forms exist as trade-offs with other forms; for instance, if one organism needs 'x' factor to survive, another might need the opposite, resulting in conflict.
Understanding of God and Conflict: Leo Gura discusses the concept of God in relation to conflict. He asserts that God, being the embodiment of oneness and infinite love, cannot choose sides or show bias towards any part over another in its creations. Contrary to human perspectives, which are driven by biases and attachments, God indulges in a state of neutrality and indifference, thus resulting in an absence of peace.
Conflict from the Perspective of Finite Existence: Leo elaborates on the nature of conflict from the standpoint of finite existence and survival. He mentions that most beings, including humans, have a list of things needed for survival. The problem is these needs often compete with the survival needs of other creatures, leading to inevitable conflict. He believes that conflict is a result of finite existence where survival needs often bring organisms into conflict with each other.
Conflict and Power Dynamics: In this part of the video, Leo Gura discusses the power dynamics related to conflict. He notes that the different forms or organisms within reality are not all the same and have different strengths and weaknesses. This lack of uniformity leads to power struggles or "tug-of-war," preventing monopoly over resources. However, because God, or the totality of reality, is the highest power, no part can overpower all others, leading to inevitable conflict.
Implications of Bias on Conflict: According to Leo Gura, biases and personal preferences augment conflict. He explains that human beings, due to their inherent selfishness, desire more power for themselves and their survival, ignoring the needs and survival of others. This desire for monopolization and domination is in stark contrast to the oneness and neutrality of God, augmenting conflict rather than peace.
Unattainable Peace: Leo further suggests that absolute peace can only be attained through complete unity and indifference, which means not caring about which forms survive. This concept is unattainable for humans due to their attachment to their specific form and desire for domination and monopolization. Thus, human selfishness and biases prevent true peace and induce perpetual conflict.
Existential Nature of Resources: If you had a billion dollars to donate to a charitable cause, your personal biases and preferences would inform your decision. Resources are limited, and you can't help everyone, but how you allocate those resources will be informed by what you consider most important.
Conservation of Energy Principle: This principle isn't just about physical properties or how animals siphon energy from other species. It points out the fundamental nature of all finite things: when you divide something, you create two interdependent parts simultaneously, which is also an example of duality.
Understanding Peace and Survival: Absolute peace can only be achieved through forming less name a state of utter indifference or complete lack of bias. Another way of describing this state is love, which is different from the human emotional love and refers to a metaphysical or platonic love. Survival inherently involves struggle, which is antithetical to peace.
Reality and Monopolization: Every part of reality attempts to monopolize all other parts, but this can't be completely obtained. Even what appears to be a perfect manifestation of monopolization, a black hole, cannot monopolize the entire universe due to various reasons, including the existence of multiple black holes and Hawking radiation.
Black Holes and Corporations Parallelism: Just as a black hole cannot monopolize the universe, a corporation, country or empire can't monopolize everything else either. As corporations or empires get bigger, they become unwieldy, inflexible and lack the agility necessary to innovate, often leading to their demise. There are inherent limitations to finite power and dominance.
Unifying the Whole Reality: The only entity capable of real, sustainable unification is an infinite entity known as God or consciousness. Dystopian world views about total domination by a single corporation, country, or individual are unfeasible due to the natural trade-offs that arise from growth and size. Nonetheless, practical regulations like antitrust laws are still essential.
Empires and Power Monopolization: The lecture mentions large empires as examples such as the American, British, Roman and Mongol, showing they had significant spans of control but all eventually collapsed. This supports the argument that no single entity can have enough power to control everything indefinitely due to the finite nature of all forms. It stresses that division and unity are differentiating and reunifying processes that occur throughout existence.
Division vs Unity and their Interconnectedness: Unity and division are interconnected processes, as unity fosters division, and vice versa. This cycle repeats to an infinite degree, shaping the course of nature, society and culture. Humans are inherently divided and often fear absolute unity, perceiving it as synonymous with death. This makes humanity's perception of unity complicated, as it can be viewed as both an objective and as a threat.
The Process of Unity and Division in Life and Existence: The lecture mentions how everything, from the universe to human societies, systems, and even individuals, undergoes a cycle of division and reunification. An example given is the evolution of life, from quarks to molecules then to proteins, cells, organisms, races, cultures, and languages. The lecturer discusses the ongoing process of interbreeding among races, fusion of cultures, and unification of languages. However, he also mentions that unification is not always a peaceful process, and can indeed lead to conflicts and struggle.
Understanding Conflict from Perspective Bias: Conflict is viewed from the perception of good and evil dichotomy. Taking the specific example of Russian and Ukrainian conflict, the lecturer suggests that both sides consider themselves right due to their personal biases, and the same can be said about the observers, who take sides according to their own perspectives. This feeds back into the concept of division versus unity, where the acknowledgment and understanding of different perspectives can lead to greater unity.
The Conflict of Race, Culture, and Language Unification: While the mixing and fusion of races, cultures, and languages is an example of the trend towards unity, it is met with resistance and opposition. This process is not always seen as positive, and challenges like racism or opposition to interracial marriages and language extinction emerge. This indicates that unity is not always easily achieved and is often met with resistance due to biases and preferences.
The Trade-off of Peace and Conflict in Reality: Peace in its ultimate state is depicted as a frozen, static state where motion stops (referred to as the "heat death of the universe"). This would represent absolute unity or consciousness in its undifferentiated state. However, such a state is feared because it suggests the eradication of all divisions, which many perceive as death. Therefore, peace itself creates an impulse towards motion (division), and division ultimately seeks peace (unity), portraying the paradoxical nature of unity and division, and hence, peace and conflict.
Nature of Reality and God's Design: The inherent nature of finite things to be ever flowing prevents reality from settling into a static state, and no single entity can monopolize everything in reality. The lecture presents this as the design of "God" or reality to ensure maximum diversification and infinite love, which includes all infinite diversity. This design is seen as crucial in maintaining the constant flow and transformation of reality.
Unification and Division: The video illustrates the complex dynamics of unification and division using various examples, such as the unification attempts by China with Hong Kong and Taiwan, the struggles within the EU, and the division between political parties in the USA. The unification process, while strengthening the collective, can be very messy and lead to conflict and violence due to differences in cultures, languages, and survival agendas. Leo stresses the difficulties of unification and the inherent struggles that can arise between those seeking autonomy and those seeking communion.
Autonomy and Communion: The concept of the struggle between autonomy and communion is introduced, explaining people's inherent desire for both independence and connection. Using personal relationships as an example, Leo illustrates how the pursuit of total independence can lead to loneliness, inadvertently driving individuals towards communion. However, the continued cycle of these polar desires often results in conflict.
Inherent Conflict in Diverse Agendas: Leo highlights the inevitable conflicts that occur when diverse parts of a system or society seek both autonomy and communion. This inherent conflict arises from every part's desire to be the master with its own agenda, creating a tug-of-war between autonomy and communion.
Examples of Unification Attempts: To clarify the inherent conflict within unification attempts, examples are presented such as the unification of upper and lower Egypt, division within political parties, and the secessionist movements within the U.S. It is emphasized that unification often happens through force and conflict, which contradicts the desire for peaceful unity.
Conflict arising from Attempts at Autonomy and Communion: Leo underlines the persistent cycle of individuals seeking autonomy, then desiring communion when loneliness ensues, leading to the continuous formation and dissolution of relationships. The pursuit of autonomy creates contradictory agendas, ultimately leading to conflict when individuals or groups cross paths.
Selfishness and Selflessness: The speech concludes with a contemplation on selfishness and selflessness, noting that the more power, wealth, or love individuals accumulate, the stronger their desire to share it becomes. However, Leo remarks that in the state of being fully realized as God, with infinite power and consciousness, there would be no one else to share with. This leaves individuals in a paradox of sharing in a finite, selfish way due to the illusion of separation.
Existential Predicament of Human Life: The existential predicament of human life is the desire for both autonomy and communion, which are at odds with each other. Every being believes its agenda is the most important, leading to a clash of agendas that results in conflict.
Division Equals Conflict: Metaphysically, all forms of division equate to conflict. So, peace is equivalent to absolute selflessness or formlessness.
Autonomy vs Communion in the Human Body: The human body serves as an excellent example of how division and unity can harmonize. Despite the millions and billions of cells in your body requiring nutrients, there is a greater level of selflessness within the organs that allows them to surrender their autonomy for the sake of the larger organism.
Conflict Arising from Unmet Needs: If your survival is at risk or your needs go unmet, conflict arises. The more essential something is for your survival, the more intense the conflict surrounding it will be.
Difficulty Understanding War & Conflict: It's challenging to truly comprehend war and conflict if you aren't directly impacted by it, but it's just as hard to understand when you're in the middle of the conflict, as survival instincts override the ability to attain a broader understanding.
Conflict in Everyday Life: Conflict is omnipresent in our lives, from relationships, work dynamics, societal structures, to geopolitical issues. A better understanding of conflict contributes to the development of peace.
Practical Action Steps for Understanding Conflict: To begin understanding conflict, individuals need to observe their personal conflicts and the larger conflicts in society, exploring their causes and impacts. People must also work towards alleviating biases, developing neutrality, and improving introspection skills. Peace is predicated upon a holistic understanding of the foundations of conflict.
Conflict Observation: Leo Gura emphasizes the importance of observing, labeling, and understanding conflict in its various forms. He encourages viewers to view individual conflicts as microcosms of larger conflicts in society, such as wars or political battles. These conflicts can be both individual (e.g., a disagreement between family members) and collective (e.g., war between nations).
Bias in Conflict: He notes the human tendency to get sucked into conflicts and pick sides, going as far as saying that people often get so engrossed in the conflict that they fail to go 'meta' to understand what is actually happening. He prompts viewers to actively notice when they are being drawn into conflict and try to remain neutral.
Lessening the Influence of Conflict: Gura recommends practicing introspection to better understand one's own reactions to conflict. He points out that the more conscious an individual is, the less likely they are to get sucked into conflicts. He encourages viewers to identify patterns and commonalities in conflicts and disrupt this pattern by refusing to take sides.
Principles for Reducing Conflict: Gura proposes several principles for reducing conflict: creating harmony and coherence, understanding the existential origins of conflict, raising individual consciousness, studying selfishness and survival instincts, understanding others' survival agendas, and adopting multiple perspectives.
Reducing Conflict Through Multi-perspectivalism: One of the ways to reduce conflict is through embracing multiple perspectives or multi-perspectivalism. He explains that understanding your survival agenda and that of others can greatly help in reducing conflict. For example, understanding the survival agendas of different nations in a geopolitical conflict.
Understanding Survival Agendas: Such agendas may differ even within a single entity; for example, the survival agenda of a nation's leader may not be identical to the survival agenda of the nation as a whole. The ability to separate these and understand their unique objectives is crucial to reducing conflict.
Active Observation and Contemplation Over Time: Gura highlights the importance of practicing these principles over time. He emphasises active observation, contemplation, and personal introspection as key to gaining a deeper understanding of conflict. Just listening to the information without active implementation will not lead to significant learning or transformation.
Understanding Relativity for Conflict Reduction: In addition, understanding the principles of relativity is critical to visualizing multiple perspectives and successfully reducing conflict. He urges his viewers to delve more into his teachings about relativity and apply those to their understanding of conflicts around them.
Reducing Conflict and Neediness through Abundance: Leo Gura emphasizes the role of abundance in reducing conflict and neediness. He explains that when resources are abundant, there is less need for conflict. Meeting survival needs, such as food, water, and shelter, also reduces the possibility of conflict.
Understanding as a Tool to Reduce Conflict: Understanding and empathizing with the other side can greatly reduce conflicts. Lack of understanding often leads to misunderstandings, which can incite conflict. Gura urges people to transcend their suffering and focus on understanding the roots of conflict.
Transcending Survival and Materialism to Reduce Conflict: Reducing conflict also involves transcending survival and materialism, and connecting with the spirit or the essence of being. Conflict is often a result of selfishness and survival instincts, so moving beyond these can significantly decrease conflict.
Expanding Sense of Identity and Selflessness as Conflict reducers: Expanding one's sense of identity and practicing selflessness are significant for conflict reduction. As we expand our identity, we become more selfless and more inclined to avoid conflict.
Effect of Shadow Work, Holism, and Conscious Communication in Reducing Conflict: Other ways to mitigate conflict include shadow work (integration of the unconscious aspects of the personality), holistic thinking, and conscious communication.
Transcending Dualistic Morality: Dualistic morality promotes a judgmental mindset that can lead to conflict. Letting go of such morality and avoiding placing blame can help to reduce conflicts.
Role of Goodness Perception, Forgiveness, Empathy, and Open-Mindedness in Conflict Reduction: Seeing the goodness in others, practicing forgiveness, empathy, and maintaining an open-minded stance also contribute to conflict reduction.
Importance of Admitting Wrongdoing and Avoiding Ideology: The willingness to admit wrongdoing and avoiding a strict ideological viewpoint can diminish conflict.
Role of Education, Commitment to Truth and Integrity: Improving our education system, and the commitment to truth and integrity are other ways to minimize conflict. Falsehood and lack of integrity can fuel conflict.
Reducing Conflict Through Hard Work and Nixing Shortcuts: Conflict can arise from people's unwillingness to put effort and desire for shortcuts. Hence, developing a work ethic and willingness to work hard can decrease conflict levels.
Dilemma of hard work vs. leeching off others: Excessive conflict often arises from people refusing to do the hard work themselves, choosing instead to reap the benefits of others' efforts. This could apply to societal or business contexts, or historical tribal scenarios where one tribe could become wealthy by either building infrastructure and trade systems over years, or by invading and taking over a neighboring tribe.
Negative emotion and conflict: Leo argues that significant conflict emanates from uncontrolled negative emotions such as anger, fear, jealousy, and hatred. Cultivating mindfulness over these emotions could, therefore, significantly reduce conflict.
Maintaining control vs. letting go: A substantial amount of conflict arises from attempting to control and manipulate situations excessively. By letting go of this need to control and manipulate, individuals can lead less conflicting, more organic lives.
Role of respect in reducing conflict: A respectful attitude towards others, irrespective of their nationality, religion, or business affiliation, is a prerequisite for any authentic conflict de-escalation or the establishment of peace. Disrespectful attitudes and arrogance often generate conflict.
Concern for fairness, equality, and reduction of suffering: A genuine effort to address systemic inequalities, ensure fair and equal resource distribution, and reduce suffering can lead to a diminished degree of conflict in society. This approach requires a holistic concern, considering the world as a whole rather than focusing exclusively on one's own country.
Holistic Unification vs. domineering unification: Leo highlights the importance of a specific type of unification in reducing conflict. This unification process should respect the autonomy of sub-groups and not be oppressive. For unification to be sustainable and peaceful, there needs to be a balance in the flow of orders coming from the top down and the needs arising from the grassroots. Leo criticizes recent political examples where unification has been forced upon sub-groups, leading to them losing their autonomy.
Deep Suffering and love: Deep personal experiences of love and suffering can lead individuals to become more empathetic and caring towards others. These experiences can act as profound motivators to reduce conflict. However, these transformative impacts only work when the experiences are approached consciously.
Meditating on conflict and suffering: Intentionally reflecting on personal experiences of conflict and suffering can help reduce overall conflict. Unconscious suffering, like seeking explosive revenge for a wrong committed against oneself, only leads to more conflict. However, suffering mindfully within a spiritual context helps put conflict in perspective and can decrease it.
Love and suffering as teachers: The two deepest teachers in life are suffering and love. When suffered and loved deeply and consciously, they can reduce conflict. Unconscious suffering and love will potentially lead to further conflict.
Challenges of implementing conflict reduction actions: While a variety of actions, from understanding different perspectives to creating abundance, can reduce conflict, these actions can be difficult to implement. Even perfect execution of these actions won't completely rid one's life of conflict, especially as most people won't adopt such actions due to their challenging nature.
Acceptance for the nature of conflict: In order to reduce conflict, one needs to stop hating conflict since that perspective paradoxically generates more conflict. Instead, conflict should be accepted as a part of the self and existence. However, this acceptance shouldn't be a license for selfish behaviors leading to unnecessary conflict.
Diet as an example of unavoidable conflict: One situation where conflict is unavoidable comes from the need to eat. Killing, whether it's plants or animals, is necessary for survival. Yet, choices within that unavoidable conflict, like choosing a vegan diet instead of eating meat, can reduce a portion of that conflict.
Points about Spiral Dynamics Stage Green: This socio-psychological level tends to have a naive outlook about conflict, valuing peace at all costs and viewing war as evil. It also tends to overlook the brutalities of life and carries an idealistic vision of peace. These perspectives can hinder real conflict resolution as they often lack grounded realism.
Practical exercise for reducing conflict: On a practical level, Leo Gura advises viewers to pay close attention to conflict in their own lives and attempt to reduce those conflicts, which will also help to create principles for reducing global conflicts. By addressing personal conflicts consciously, one can help reduce larger conflicts, and teach others to do the same.
Understanding war and conflict is crucial: Without proper understanding of conflict, one can inadvertently contribute to more conflict. Only by understanding the nature of conflict can one work towards genuine peace.
Awaiting part two of the video series: In the subsequent part of the video series, the discussion will continue, focusing on arms races, social evolution, Game A versus Game B dynamics, and other topics.
Day and Night Coexist: The paradox of conflict is that despite seeming opposites, they do coexist within the larger unity of reality. No matter how conflicting things appear, they are unified by a higher order. Understanding this helps to accept conflict instead of fruitlessly fighting it.