The Paradox of Duality

Every experience arise in duality – in the form of opposite and contrast. To the uninitiated, each experience seems to stand out alone by itself, but in reality the opposite also arise simultaneously together with the experience at the same time. In fact they are not separable except by definition.

Take for instance, liking. When I like quietness, I am already defining myself that I don’t like noise. I can’t help liking something without disliking another thing at the same time. Like and dislike arises simultaneously. Only thing is that one is obvious and the other seemingly hidden in the background of the mind. When I love companionship, I am avoiding loneliness. When I prefer aloneness, I dislike companionship at that point of time. I may have preferences of liking companionship at some time and aloneness at another time – that is pretty normal as my mood changes all the time, but what I am not aware is that at each moment of like or dislike, the opposite too is occurring at the same time.

When I don’t like you, I am expressing the opposite of whom you should be – I like you to be that and not this. Whenever I give a meaning to the world, nature will return me with another meaning to balance itself. Nature is in constant check and balance. When I think you are controlling me, I am in fact trying to control you not to control me. When I think you are betraying me, I am betraying myself. When I lied to you, I am lying to myself. That’s the irony of duality, of life.

Why do opposites arise in unison? That is nature’s way of balancing itself. Like and dislike is not our true nature and for that it needs to be nullified through an equation. Whenever I give a meaning to an experience, that meaning will have its own opposite to nullified itself. But when I don’t see this truth, I would have identified with the focal experience, hence my suffering. Seeing the arising of both is the path of wisdom – seeing both develops detachment.

True nature is when I come to see things as they truly are without identifying with it. This is what I mentioned in the previous blog Genuine & Imitation Stuff in the Mind. Every act of doing is a deception I did for myself. Every act of meaning, of judgment is an act of self-betrayal, of delusional fabrication.

Nature corrects itself. When we create one extreme the other extreme arise automatically. To realize these extremes is where wisdom is. My peace is to see the interplay of these two, without identifying with them. That is the Middle Path. Thus if I have a meaning of selflessness, I also have selfishness in it and vice versa. If I truly see the interconnectedness of these duality, I would not judge them as good or bad but simply arising of meanings.

Both meanings are meaningless by nature except my meaning over it. It is this continuous meaning I give to the world that makes my life real. I can’t stop the meanings from arising except to see it as it is.

When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so the male will not be male and the female will not be female… then you will enter the Kingdom.
– Yeshua