Modern constitutional provisions on the separation of church and state make it difficult for Western justice bodies to utilize religion or spirituality in dispute resolution. Traditional Indian justice depends upon it. There is insufficient space here to detail the importance of Indian spirituality in traditional dispute resolution, but belief systems which integrate spiritual beings into everyday life can address conflict using them. W estern law does not attempt to reach into the mind or deal with psychological injuries. Traditional Indian law does, and that is why it heals.
Most disputes are the product of bad attitudes, feelings, or thinking.
When there is an injury which creates a dispute, there is anger and hurt. Often, there is cognitive dissonance, which is the mind creating excuses and justifications to avoid shame. 9 M ost traditional Indian justice methods address cognitive dissonance and shame. They involve relatives. They use ceremony and prayer to bond people to the process and to involve the Spirits in both the path to a solution and a binding decision.