What is duality? First of all, duality a cultural concept. It has been invented by humans, probably men, and has its roots in religion (good – bad, heaven – hell, female – male, and so forth).
This concept binds our thinking to a mental war, because it is mainly a concept of opposites. Opposite means there is a specific line, wall, frontier that separates the two “opponents”. There we are. Opponents (in our culture) implies also that one is trying to dominate the other. That one might be superior and consequently the other has to be inferior. And when we follow the duality focused pathway of thinking we find often one of the “opponents” being “superior” to the other. Heaven – hell, male – female, rich – poor, empoyed – unemployed, christian – islam. If a moslem were following this pathway it might be just the other way around. Now Islam might be “superior”. Next, it depends on the situation: hot is nice and normal in summer, cold is not. But then, what means hot? Hot in a Swedish summer is different from hot in a Tunesian summer. Dark in the city of New York is different from dark without a light in a cave deep in the earth where you cannot see your hand in front of your eyes.
A good person? Depends on the moral of the time and the perspective! Imagine the year 1492 in the Americas. For the arriving “white, christian conquerors (men)” those peaceful peoples were savages not even persons. But if forced to make a decision they would not have described the Native people as “good persons”. And never would have they ascribed themselves as “bad persons” although they and the following generations killed approximately 40 million people.
So we have to be very careful with duality and applying this concept to our thinking.
We can see that duality which is charactized by opposition, contradiction, dominance, depends often on a certain perspective – and is often used as a tool of moral manipulation or control.
When we apply it to the reality of Life and Earth we might realize that it is not helpful in understanding Life and Creation or connecting with these. Take the example of hot and cold. It is actually simplifying a diverse reality, depending on where, when, who, how? If you had grown up in Siberia hot means something very different from living in the Sahara.
More important is that classifying our perceptions into “two opposite conditions” deletes somehow all the many variations that can be found between those two determined places. All becomes static, “simple”, and appears to be understood. Watch the trap!
Neither Mother Life nor Creation works with or is characterized by duality.
Take the colors black and white. Do only these two exist – or is there a immensely wide range inbetween – when we walk from the deepest imaginable black towards white? Aren´t there many, many nuances? Not talking about what is black? Or white – that isn´t a color at all? Or is it?
Same with good and bad. Is there only the really, completely good and the clearly bad – or are there many different ways – and perspectives?
We often use the arsenal of duality or move in these pathways of thinking and forget that when we look closer, deeper those exact positions of one duality are not so clear at all.
We say: well, there are good persons and bad persons (as if that would explain anything!) – but when we really think about it, what does it mean to be a good person? Don´t we include some and exclude others – from being what? Being a person? A human even? Like the good christians who killed millions of native peoples – “because only a dead Indian is a good Indian” – the words of the man who invented the system of concentration camps in the USA – called boarding schools. Good and bad carry al of blood. Everywhere in the world.
Wake up! It is a great and necessary adventure to observe and understand one´s “own” thinking – do you own your thinking?
So what do we see in the reality of Life and Earth? Polarity!
Mother Earth creates all and everthing in a magnificient range of diversity in a Great Dance of Polar Pairs – because diversity garanties survival and polarity allows Balance.
There is not only on kind of moss – there are hundreds.
Billions of people on Earth – not one the same as one other.
Polarity implies – balance, connection, a mutual dependence.
There are many possipilities how this polarity is designed: Imagine a simple seesaw—a wooden plank resting on a stone with its center point. You can place weights very close to the center, or at the outer end of the plank—or anywhere in between. As long as both weights are the same distance from the center (the same measure), the plank will be horizontal. Balanced.
Duality speaks only about two points, ideas, things, and so on fixed on the ground of one perspective. End of story.
Polarity speaks about Life. Nature. Science. Connection, Synergy, Diversity. And always about Balance – or imbalance. Imbalance often means challenge, sometimes even death. One could even say duality is a concept of partnership. One needs the other to have the balance.
Same with female and male – they are equal but different. The being different is needed.
We can look inside ourselves: We humans are dancing with our own polarities – of Mind and emotions, Body and Energy/Presence.. We have to balance the one with the other. Always.
Look at Earth: Too much water? Not good. Too much dryness? Also not good. Too much heat, sunshine? No sunshine..?
The right amount of Water, Sun, and so on – that ensure Life and Survival. The correct Measure, Balance (of the partners in polarity) is it what ensures Life and Creation. There is not only Yes and No, there is a maybe and there is most important a HOW?
Now, dear friend – do you want play a bit, maybe to re-evaluate your concepts, just to see what happens? What happens when you look for polarity and drop the tame and limiting duality?
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