Everything that exists in time and
space has properties and attributes that have 2.3 THE DUALITY IN NATURE
or
THE NATURE OF DUALITY :
" Nothing can exist without its opposite ; the two were one in the
begining and will be one in the end." .....C. G. Jung
Since most of the aspects of Personal Validity are constructed in this work in terms
of paired concepts namely Personal Validity & General Validity , Physical & Non
Physical, Sensory & Nonsensory perception , Heart & Mind , Known & Unknown,
etc , it also then becomes important that an explanation be provided for this
pairing of concepts. But this pairing of concepts is far more fundamental than
is commonly understood, because it has become fashionable to attack duality
of any kind. This attack has gained momentum with most religions becoming
monotheistic. Even this has not stopped them from being contemptuous of
each other, since they have all set up shop and businesses that have the
same market : converts for popularity and clients for funds. ( Strange are they
who in the same breath claim unity of all reality ( in God or whatever word they
worship) and yet denounce and condemn another who is saying the same thing,
but is of a different society or culture, using a different symbolism ). Their useless
and unproductive bickerings never seem to cease, it only changes forms.
Competition for converts is still fierce, and instead of going directly to war, the
fight is by proxy. A lot of customers have been lost to the common perceived
enemy of all religions : science.
Science and Technology is a most formidable enemy that has taken over all
vital institutions : schools of education and learning. But what the hell, man
can't do without faith, and so the merchants of faith are smug : sooner or later
the scientists will run out of steam, and the faith business will boom again.
Meanwhile, science and its foundations in analytic reason is easily attacked
because it is dualistic : it has to be, for in any analytic process a whole is split
firstly and most conveniently into two parts. But the quicksand in which
science is mired in, is the ridiculous attempt to find a "whole" by breaking all
matter into a single reduceable equation that can describe all of reality, as
ridiculous an attempt as that of a mystic who makes sweeping statements
about reality, while at the same time insisting that no one can make
sweeping statements about reality.
One such statement that is made with total assurance by mystics is :
there is no duality in reality, or that duality is an illusion.
Without realising that the very conception of "real"also implies something
"non-real" or "fake" or "illusory", and thus giving rise to a duality.
"Any attempt to divide the world into portions, of which one is more
"real " than the other, is doomed to failure".....Bertrand Russel
2.3.1 UNITY AND DUALITY
" The Paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life, and just as only great
souls are exposed to passions, it is only the great thinker who is exposed
to what I call paradoxes.........grandiose thoughts in embryo."
.............Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
In this work it is readily accepted that ultimate reality is one in its nature, that its source,
sustenance and termination can be conceived as a singular unitary entity that is absolute
and independent of the space-time axis, also conceptualized in various ways by different
cultures / religions.
But in the process of life and death, creation and destruction, in the existence of beings
in time and space, this unity is split-manifest as a multitude of a duality of opposites or
counterparts, the beings themselves are the myriad manifestations, sub-entities, of
this whole. The whole can also be conceived as an entity that is the sum of all sub
entities of its creation, with the understanding that the whole is more than
just the sum of its parts.
( The concept of supreme being or God or conceptualised/symbolised as Dao, Soul etc )
In this work, the Self, though no doubt a part of the whole is considered as the central
focal aspect of existence, as an entity that has the unlimited capacity for experiencing,
but limited capacity for understanding and conceptualising, whose purpose is also
to be self-sought and self-defined.
It is however emphasised in this work that the overall purpose of a distinct entity
( or so presumed), the Self, has the general goal of first discovering, knowing and
seeing into one's own unique nature and capabilities, and then of creativity of
expression and communication. This aspect of creative expression is very easily
overlooked by the protagonists and propagators of monoisms.
"To confront a person
with his shadow is to show him his own light.
Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly
between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self.
Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees
himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle"...Jung
It is worthwhile to point out here that any creativity takes place as the resultant of
a tension or conflict of opposing elements of a pair of counterparts that terminates
in something creative ( or destructive in case the opposing elements fail to resolve
and compliment each other ) This is the fundamental process underlying in all
cycles of creation and dissolution or destruction.
"There is no
consciousness without discrimination of opposites. This is the
paternal principle, the Logos, which eternally struggles to extricate itself
from the primal warmth and primal darkness of the maternal womb ; in a
word, from unconsciousness. Divine curiosity yearns to be born, and does
not shrink from conflict, suffering or sin. Unconsciousness is the primal
sin, evil itself for the Logos." ......C. G. Jung
This fundamental truth applies to everything in the existential domain of the
time-space axis and particularly so within one's own self whereby every conflict,
irritant or tension of opposing elements within oneself is indicative of a impending
breakthrough or breakdown.
"Every creative person
is a duality or synthesis of contradictory aptitudes.
On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other
side he is an impersonal, creative process - even inhuman, for as an artist
he is his work and not a human being.".........C G Jung
It is the fear of breakdown that makes most people run for cover or to escape the
situation by suppressing the conflict by physiological means, i.e., drugs, or by other
means like meditation or philosophy or psychotherapy. Most people fail to realise
that not to take a conflict head on is to squander an opportunity that nature is
offering for a creative break through in which one can gain an invaluable control
over one's sub-conscious.
Most people only prefer a comatose state of happiness and so - called experienced
unity of self with the One.
"A successful work of
art is not one which resolves contradictions in a
spurious harmony, but one which expresses the
idea of harmony
negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised,
in its innermost structure.....Theodor W. Adorno
2.3.2 THE EXPERIENCE of UNITY
While it is true that in the realm of experience, the experience of this inherent ultimate
unity is undoubtedly one of the highest quality of experiences, it is also an undeniable
truth that that life does not dwell in experience alone, and to try to do so may be a
form of escapism from the difficult challenges of life, and definitely so in case one tries
to induce others to follow suit. One of the serious pitfalls of certain intense experiences
is that the subject or person having the experience has a strong tendency to jump to
hard and fast conclusions about reality as a result of the interpretation of the intense
experience. These conclusions become hard and fast beliefs that are then never even
questioned for their applicability or usefulness in an ever changing world.
"I believe that drugs
are basically of more use to the audience than to the artist.
I think that the illusion of oneness with the universe, and
absorption with the
significance of every object in your environment, and
the pervasive aura of
peace and contentment is not the ideal state for an artist. It
tranquilizes the
creative personality, which thrives on conflict and on the clash and ferment of
ideas. The artist's transcendence must be within his own work; he should not
impose any artificial barriers between
himself and the mainspring of his
subconscious. One of the things that's turned me
against LSD is that all the
people I know who use it have a peculiar inability to distinguish between
things that are really interesting and
stimulating and things that
appear to be so in the state of universal bliss that the drug
induces
on a "good" trip. They seem to completely lose their critical
faculties
and disengage themselves from some of the most stimulating areas
of life. Perhaps when everything is beautiful, nothing is beautiful."
........Stanley Kubrik
2.3.3 DUALITY and PARADOX
To accept a responsibility towards one's society and environment is so easily overlooked
by people who espouse and tout a particular experience as the ultimate goal of all of
life, oblivious to the invariably degenerating conditions around them. They invariably
deny a very fundamental truth of all existence :
Everything that exists in time and
space has properties and attributes that have
counter parts. In perception, every conception has also a counter-concept that
validates it. For the half truth of every belief there is also a counter-belief that
validates the other half truth. But this does not imply that the two half truths
by themselves costitute the whole truth. The "truth" is a condition of a being
in a given situation and time : a reflection of the accuracy of belief, whereas
goodness ( virtue ) is the aesthetic appeal of that belief in action or
expession in relation to
other beings. A belief, in itself, is nothing.
"Two half truths do
not make a truth, and two half cultures do not make
a culture"......Arthur Koestler
"I believe that truth
has only one face: that of a violent contradiction."
.......Georges Bataille
"Contradictions
if well understood and managed can spark off the
fires of invention. Orthodoxy, whether of the right or of the left is
the graveyard of creativity."...... Chinua Achebe
It should be clear to anyone of some intelligence that a singular
unitary undifferentiated
entity cannot exist in time and space without reference to anything else. So for there to be
existence of anything at all in time and space, it has to be in contrast to something else.
2.3.4 MULTIPLICITY OF DUALITIES
Meaning, that in the realm of existence, a singular unitary entity ceases to exist in a
unitary state and thus splits itself in a space time axis initially into two and then
from those two into further and further elements. This does not mean that it does
not retain its unitary nature. It only means that in time and space its existence is
manifest in a differentiated form of an existential and process multiplicity of
dualities.
2.3.5 THE CONVERGENCE OF DUALITIES
The multiplicity of dualities however myriad and seemingly infinite they may be,
converge to bring into existence an individual consciousness - a living being.
And so also gives rise to the individual being in time-space existence
or the Self. This concept of a limited autonomous being is not only vital for
this work of Personal Validity, it is a concept that is central to any life and
existence, because it is from the concept of an autonomous individual
that we can further conceive of Will, morals (choice of Right and Wrong),
responsibility, meaning, purpose, goals and potential.
To deny this central concept of the individual in the existential domain
is the trap that most monotheistic religions or monistic philosophies
fall into, and induce others to do so by proclaiming that experience of
unity with "ultimate reality" is the only purpose of existence, rest all is
an illusory duality.
"The pseudo-innocent
denies his or her own power, identifies self-interest
with the design of Providence, and pretends that this is the best of all
possible worlds. Such a pose serves to deny feelings of hopelessness,
makes the pain of disappointment more bearable, and brings a false sense
of order to a chaotic life situation. (But ) The cost is high and unforeseen.
These same defenses impoverish the possibilities for personal and spiritual
growth that unfettered imagination and later life experiences might provide.
Pseudo-innocence requires wearing the blinders of denial. By making
powerlessness into a seeming virtue, such a person acts as thouigh
God watches over the weak and the naive"......Sheldon Kopp
They shut themselves out not only from nature and one's own nature but
also the social reality and its
responsibilities.
" An
explorer operating at these depths
cannot afford such childish
baggage. These are disguises of and evasions of the ultimate dissolution of
self ;
the maintenance of pleasure and of life are insisting on denial of death. If one stops
at these beliefs, no progress in further
analysis can be made. These beliefs are
analysis dissolvers. One might call these lazy assumptions which prevent one from
pushing deeper into self and avoid expending any
great effort in this deeper
direction. One of these very powerful evasions is an
hedonistic acceptance of
things as they are with conversion of most of them to a pleasant glow.
Another
similar evasion is deferring discussion of such
basic issues until one's life
after death. ".......John C Lilly
This work thus assumes that a
duality is inherent in nature, not only in
our thought, and in our perception, but also it is manifest in all of
existential reality, even though there is no
duality in ultimate reality.
But life does not exist
in ultimate reality.
2.3.6 DUALITY IN CONCEPTUALISATION
AND PERCEPTION
"That man is a
creature who needs order yet yearns for change is the
creative contradiction at the heart of the laws which structure his
conformity and define his deviancy.".....Freda Adler
The individual's consciousness upon birth again takes a divergence in the very
process of life, and in acquiring and learning concepts, in being made to believe
about things and entities. In the very process of life our perception makes
differentiations and classifications in order to function ( for example, at the
most elementary level, between pain and pleasure ).
Why do we perceive only some aspects of anything that thus have counter
aspects that we tend to ignore ? What stops us from perception in its totality ?
The general answer to these questions is : the process of life and living has
the inbuilt function of survival that generates the working rules that filter
the perception of a living being, and thus gives rise to a differentiation .
"Whatever an
individual's conscious attitudes, the exact opposites exist in
his or her unconscious. The more extreme and seemingly pure the conscious
pose, the more energy it will take to contain its exactly equivalent counterpart
and the greater danger that sometime unexpectedly the denied impulse may
break loose in full savagery. Being on our own, each of us must take the
personal responsibility of coming to know the wolf within or we risk
becoming the lamb that ( leads ) slaughters the rest of the flock".
.....Sheldon Kopp.
The particular answer for an individual being lies on the path of a personal
journey of self exploration with the twin aspects of self analysis and self
synthesis that this work tries to support .
All phenomena, objects and beings exhibit characteristics or properties that
manifest themselves in pairs which are opposites or contrary or reflections
of each other in the eyes or the perception of the observer .
These twin properties or manifestations of an object, being or phenomena are
analogous to the Chinese twin concepts of Yin and Yang .
Unless the observer's perception is observing the totality of the observed
phenomena , he / she will at a certain time only be perceiving only one of the
two twins, although at another time and circumstance , the other twin may be
perceived and the first one disappears or is not perceived .
The same or similar phenomena , observed in a different context or from a different
point of view will generate another twin different from the earlier twins, lets say
a Yin2 and Yang2.
There may thus be an infinite number of ways in which an observer perceives
something , but each way will divulge a twin : a Yin of that way and the Yang
of that way .
Although all Yin's and their corresponding Yang's are by nature twins and therefore
should be of equal stature in the eyes of the beholder , this is usually not so and one
of the two invariably dominates to the extent that the beholder may not be even
aware of the other.
This happens so because the twins have at least one property that manifests in opposite
form from one to the other . Lets say that if one of the two is white , the other must be
black , however if both are of the same color then one is ugly and the other attractive,
and again if both look the same , one is docile and the other aggressive .. and so on...
For almost surely the Father ( the beholder of the perception ) of the twins will not
treat them equally if he has a preference for a feature dominant in one of the two.
The feature that is preferred becomes the sought after and its opposite is avoided
in a behavior pattern that increasingly becomes reinforced and automatic to the
extent that it even becomes part of the sub-conscious operation.
The preferred becomes more and more reinforced in its value and frequency of
operation, and its opposite becomes of lesser and lesser value,
even negative value ( avoidance reaction).
Thus the filters in the eyes of the beholder will automatically accept or reject the
Yin's or Yang's , and thus perception is mostly a function of the existing filters
or preferences that the beholder has learned or acquired rather than primarily
being the function of the concurrent phenomena.
Thus choices
and behavior patterns of a person who does not consciously and
continuously examine them critically, eventually become fixed and automotive
patterns of behavior that operate unchanged throughout the lifetime of the person,
unless a crisis
provokes a critical condition that forces a revaluation.
" The unexamined life
is not worth living"......Socrates
2.3.7 UNITY OF ONESELF
It must be pointed out here that most people prefer a stable, even if fixed system of
thinking and living, since to continuously examine, experiment and re-evaluate one's
operating preferences and beliefs is very arduous, risky as well as physiologically
detrimental activity.
But to a person with an inherent compulsion to do so, has also its benefits in terms
of comprehension and control to the point where the complete potential of one's
existence is realised, and one gets to the totality or unity of oneself.
In the totality or unity of perception , not only the duality of perception diminishes,
but more importantly, the validity of each perceptual mode is realised and becomes
available to the command of one's Will. What this generally means is that the Will
of the being is able to have much greater command and control over the
processes, faculties and resources of the being.
( WARNING : But not in an absolute sense. )
The mode that is generally most useful is the one in which the perceiver or the
observer and the perceived or the observed seemingly merge and become one.
That is, the sharp distinctions between observer and observed, subject and
object, tend to dissolve and whereby the object/s tend to become subject to
the perception of the observer, rather than the other way round .
"You've got a song
you're singing from your gut, you want that audience
to feel it in their gut. And you've got to make them think that you're one
of them sitting out there with them too. They've got to be able to relate
to what you're doing".....Johnny Cash
( WARNING : Again, it does not mean the complete and total merger of a
being's perception with all observable objects in the field of perception,
but only in a selective sense.)
To arrive at the unity of oneself also does not mean dissolution of the self,
( although an " experience " of the dissolution of self may result, an actual
dissolution of the self takes place only on death. )
THE CONCLUSION :
The unity of oneself is a condition of having attained a degree of
control over one's faculties as well as a certain realisation of one's
own nature and its direction ( Will ). It does not imply a complete
merger of inherent dualities or ideas like "subject" and "object".
The only thing that any living being is a "subject" of is Nature, and
all "objects" are nothing else but elements of the perception of a
living being that act upon or affect the perception or are acted
upon by other elements of perception.
for more on the "subject" & "object" confusions
go to this
"object" : sobject.htm ( Supplimentary Article)
Even in the unity and totality
of perception does not mean that an element
of reality will be uniformly perceived by every being although the essence of
certain aspects can be agreed upon, depending upon the exigencies and
purpose of the agreement.
What this implies is that even in the
totality of perception there
is the uniqueness of experience that is unique and different for unique and
distinct beings. This uniqueness of experience and its expressions, especially
in artistic form is the hallmark of a true individual. It is this individuality
and the uniqueness of experience and its expressions that this work
promotes.
While the experience of the dissolution of the self of a being is an important one
and also useful for the purpose of gaining insight into the nature of reality, once
again a warning is in order here and that is : In an ecosystem of diverse and
unique beings, for everyone to exist in a state of unified consciousness is as
good as there being no existence at all. ( Such a condition itself implies the
dissolution of the world in which the beings exist. )
Ultimately if the full potential of being human is achieved by the collective
human race, such a total unification of all beings can become a possibility
and consequently the dissolution of the world takes place,
rather than destruction.
"The last sound on the
worthless earth will be two human beings trying to launch a
homemade spaceship and already quarrelling about where they are going next."
........ William Faulkner
In the realm of life, like it
or not, as diverse beings, we are pitted against
each other to conflict as well as cooperate, and the test of our existence
is how we manage both, so the only choice we have is either of creative
conflict-cooperation or a destructive conflict- cooperation.
( the destructive one of course takes place in ignorance and denial or
the deception of taking
it as inevitable.)
" For self-realization, a rebel demands a strong authority, a worthy opponent,
( like ) God to his
Lucifer".........Mary McCarthy
This article on unity and duality was an anchor on which the further articles
are based. The reader having a strong aversion to duality of any kind is
most likely going to find the next one even more difficult to digest. But in
this work, the following articles are prerequisites to the main section.