DISCOURSES Volume II - Avatar Meher Baba Trust

64 DISCOURSESchoice fully effective and operative. At times there is a danger of adecision being subverted through the intensification of thosecompeting psychic forces. To avoid defeat the mind must sticktenaciously to the right value which it has seen. Thus the solutionof mental conflict requires not only perception of right values butalso an unswerving fidelity to them.The intelligent and firm choice, however, has to berepeatedly exercised in all matters—small or great—for theordinary "worries" of life are not in any way less important thanTrue valuation mustgovern all mattersthe serious "problems" with which the mindis confronted in times of crisis. The rootsof mental conflict cannot completelydisappear as long as there is only intermittent exercise ofintelligent and firm choice. The life of true values can bespontaneous only when the mind has developed the unbroken habitof choosing the right value. Three-quarters of our life is made upof ordinary things, and though conflict concerning ordinary thingsmay not cause mental agony, it still leaves in the mind a sense ofuneasiness that something is wrong. The conflicts which turn uponordinary things are rarely even brought to the surface ofconsciousness. Instead they cast a shadow on one's general feelingabout life as if from behind a screen. Such conflicts have to bebrought to the surface of consciousness and frankly faced beforethey can be adequately solved.The process of bringing conflict to the surface ofconsciousness should not degenerate however into a process ofimagining conflict where there is none. The sure sign of a realHidden conflictshidden conflict is the sense that the whole ofone's heart is not in the thought or action whichhappens to be dominant at the moment. There is a vague feeling ofa narrowing down or a radical restriction of life. On such