It was a bright, sunny day in the
hills, with clear skies, and the
children were bustling around trying
their hand at bouldering. This is an
activity which involves scaling a smooth,
inclined face of rock with bare hands
and nothing else. Some children discovered,
sometimes to their own surprise,
that they possessed the natural lightfootedness
of a mountain goat and
quickly bounded up the rock with a
wide smile on their faces. Others figured
out after a few failed attempts that all
they needed was a ‘fast start’, so they
allowed the teacher on hand to give
them a push up and scrambled up the
remainder of the rock by themselves.
My attention centred on one boy
whose repeated attempts at climbing up
the boulder were met with disappointment.
This was a child who prided
himself on his intellectual breadth of
knowledge, his agile and sharp mind,
and his determination and drive to do
well in everything he chose to do. He
refused any kind of assistance from the teacher and insisted on trying again and
again, refusing to take even a short
break. He would clench his jaws, have a
steely look in his eyes and seek a toehold
as he started going up the rock.
Midway through, he would struggle to
balance himself on the sheer surface,
claw desperately at it looking for a hold,
even as he would begin to slide back
down with a look of frustration and
puzzlement. Here he was, clearly trying
his best, throwing all his energies, both
mental and physical into the exercise,
willing to persevere and yet, success
seemed elusive. He wrung his hands,
shrugged his shoulders and shook his
head in dismay, displeased with himself
and the situation he was in.
After what seemed to be an appropriate
amount of time trying, and when
his energies finally started flagging, we
sent him on his way to the next activity,
rappelling. After an hour or two, it was
the boy’s turn to rappel down an almost
20-metre vertical rock face wearing
a safety harness. He took on the task bravely and in less than a minute he
planted his feet firmly on the ground.
Even as his feet touched the ground,
almost reflexively and certainly in an
unplanned manner, the boy let out a
loud cry. A sound which was equal parts
joy, celebration, and relief. The act
brought out good-natured laughter
both in the boy himself and the other
children watching from the sidelines.
I let the episode pass, even as I tried
to process my own thoughts and
reactions to what I had witnessed. I had
understood ‘conflict’ until then as a
primarily extrinsic phenomenon—a
tense state of affairs between two or more
physical entities. Something which
could be resolved through reasoning,
negotiation and essential fairness. Yes,
no doubt, I had also been in situations
where I had experienced a conflict of the
‘mind’, caught between two or more
courses of action and unable to choose
satisfactorily among them. But what
I had seen that day had allowed me a
glimpse into a more deep-seated and
seemingly incomprehensible kind of
conflict, a conflict between one’s selfimage
and oneself. A conflict which all
of us have experienced in our lives, yet perhaps, not recognized or realized.
Here was a child who had an extremely
positive self-image—of being an achiever,
a person who believed that honest effort
and persistence, both physical and
intellectual, always leads to a desired
goal. A child who had perhaps defined
himself all along by the result of his
effort. That day he was clearly frustrated
that he was not able to ‘meet’ that selfimage
in spite of his best efforts. When,
through the rappelling exercise, the boy
finally met with success, the celebratory
cry was perhaps an involuntary expression
of relief and comfort that his self-image
had been reinstated.
All of us tend to grapple with this
self-image we have of ourselves, our
roles and how well we play them in our
lives. The ‘caring parent’, the ‘promising
employee’, the ‘effective teacher’, the
‘dependable friend’ and so on. And when
we perceive a conflict between what is and what we want to be, what are our
actions, our struggles and what impact
do these have on our thinking and on
our lives?
I came away from that school trip,
seeing Krishamurti’s statement, “All
conflict is internal”, in a new light.