Understanding the Duality

@egarim, Duality and objectivity can lead to an understanding of Nihilism. Nihilism is a pretty freaky thing to encounter if you are not ready for it and I will advise you: Nihilism applies strictly to concepts and it is very important to remember that there is so much more to a human being, life and the universe than just concepts. Nihilism is only a step in the disolving of attachment, it can leave you free of the conditionings of experiences and observations.
At that point you can order reason according to what makes sense to you, not what life long impacts of education and culture have installed. As I said, there is a very important stage after Nihilism, it is not the be all and end all. Things such as constructive relationships and destructive forces, the Yin/Yang universe, things beyond concept, what has began, survived and prospered all before the first concept was concieved.
A human as a result of these factors and the duties, responsibilities and liabilities of being a constructive being that has resulted from constructive relationships. The tasks of protection and liberation of constructive relationships as well as the control and focus of destructive forces toward purpose, all with their logical benefit.
Seeing the dynamic power of concept, knowing its place in these tasks, and never submitting to it as your identity, it is your tool subject to you, never the other way around.
But all these are things are a ways off, most people never achieve these understanding, even if they persue them, so know your strengths and weakness.

I just posted this almost exact same reply in response to another topic on HighExistence…so forgive me if that breaks any etiquette here…but it seemed very pertinent to this thread and I’d like to share it:

The more I read about Einstein, the more I come to believe that he was a HEthen and chasing the philosophical concept of duality. I think his pursuit of quantum dynamics was a metaphysical pursuit and his medium for discussion and enlightenment was mathematics. There is an AMAZING transcript of a dialogue between Einstein and a Indian Philosopher named Rabindranath Tagore that just blew me away and I think is germane to your topic . I used to think Einstein was a mathematician with a whimsical look on life, but now I think he was at heart a philosopher on the quest of understanding duality with a natural ability for mathematics. Makes me rethink my world view. Lovely! Thanks for this discussion ;-)

Link to Einstein/Tagore transcript:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/04/27/when-einstein-met-tagore/

@arenotlost, Nothing wrong with directly quoting yourself from other posts, just as there is nothing wrong with making the same point over and over again, even if it is just re-phrased or in a different context. I do these things all the time. The thing is, each thread draws the attention of people primarily on name sake, I don’t know about others but I do not read every thread, every OP and responses. Even in threads I am interested in, I don’t always read every response. This is because I am not, and never have been, commited to anything that much in my life.

@egarim, I very much so enjoyed the post but I must say that we can achieve a sense of Truth outside of the duality. The very affirmation of a duality (of anything) means there has to be something that can observe the duality. While duality is a perspective, existence is the source of perspective. At least, in the sense that regardless of how you view the world, there has to be SOMETHING viewing the world. For something to participate in a dualistic nature, there has to be the third (and also objective) element of perspective which is existence itself. (How does this existence view the duality vs. that existence?) And as far as spiritual and physical things interacting, they have to if they are going to be apart of the same essence. Everything in the physical world is a reflection of the spiritual world. Whether this plant is alive in the 1600s or 2000s, the essence (dare I say, the hypothetical “soul”) of that plant has to exist prior to the plant coming into existence. If it’s essence, its very nature, didn’t exist, then we couldn’t have that type of plant at all. While we can think of a perfect image of man, there is no one physical instantiation of it. However, that doesn’t mean that all of man doesn’t participate in that image. There are things that Man deems worthy of exemplifying such as ethics, virtue, and love. These things are grounded in Absolute Truth and are good regardless of WHICH man participates in them. They 1) have to exist 2) have to make logical sense for man to participate in them and 3) have to be goods that perfect human existence to be truly deemed Good outside of their existential properties. If it exists, it is True and Beautiful and Good BY NATURE of existence. These are the 3 transcendental properties of real being. They apply to everything that has, does, or will exist. This applies fundamentally to the concept of God. When we talk about God, conceptually, we’re talking about the standard all-benevolent, knowing, and capable being that is the source of everything. God doesn’t participate in evil since He is all that is Good. He is all of existence. God participating in Evil would make him less than all benevolent which is contrary to the nature of God. A God that’s even a little evil is not worthy of truly being called God. When Man participates in evil, he performs actions less than what he is capable of. He uses goods for less than their intended and perfected nature. You can see this in fire. You can use fire to sanitize and cook your food, heat your homes, and forge your metals or you can use it to burn another person alive. You can’t perform evil on something evil. To use something in a selfish or evil way, it has to exist first. If we all think its ok to kill each other, then we wouldn’t consider murder as something evil. However, even if that’s the case, it still doesn’t take away that we have to exist to think or do those things and our very existence is in a small part the exact same Truth (which is also Beauty and Goodness) that God exemplifies in His nature. Taking the life of someone removes the potential for them to actualize their nature. You privatize the good of life when you kill someone. And the fact that we have an objective standard for Right and Wrong furthers this point. You couldn’t say that this or that is good or bad unless you have a standard by which you can judge it. And yes, I know that our standard of Good and Bad runs into gray areas, but that’s fine. That just means when you judge something, the sum won’t be 100% good or bad. It might be 55% good and 45% bad or any other ratio. We see this all the time in court cases where something bad like stealing is done for a good reason like hunger. But to even call something good or bad, there has to BE something making the judgement. We can all take the perspective of something that exists. That’s what it means to think objectively. To participate in thinking outside of particular views, biases, and perspectives. However, we all exist AS something, meaning we ALL have a general nature of our genus and a particular nature of species. I am a man but I am not a 75-year old man or a girl. No science could be done unless their is a standard by which you can judge the physical world around us. Its true that psychology is one branch of science and engineering is another, but to say they are 2 different things, there has to be an objective perspective to make the distinction. I think at this point I’m rambling and repeating but I hope I made my point. I’m not looking for a fight or troll or anything but I think its important to understand that we can participate in acquiring actual Absolute Truth since we are examples of it. Thanks again for an insightful post.

Everything is duality. The universe IS duality…. something else I’ve always known also.. Perception is reality.. And ALL realities exist. They only exist in the now. What I perceive to be real, is not what anyone else could perceive as real, does not mean for one second that it’s not real. You make your own reality..believe it.

@egarim, I love love love this stuff.. if I told you the entire story of my spiritual awakening you would either wouldn’t believe me.. or would know EXACTLY what I am talking about. It’s a very very very strange story and I thought I was literally crazy for like 3 days.. I thought I was the reincarnation of jesus christ.. until I meditated, read..and researched until my eyes were basically dead.. I have awakened to the ‘solar consciousness’… I thought for 2 weeks I was nuts.. that I knew things that just weren’t possible.. that there is an endless web of knowledge that you just have to tap into and can access.. And one day my friend who has his masters in quantum physics listened to me speak about my awakening, and he told me that I have to accept the fact that I am as enlightened as Buddha.. and you know what my response was? “I know”… lol arrogant I know.. but it’s the truth. He then told me I had to love myself as a god and accept EVERYTHING I’ve ever done and be alright with it.. and I said.. “I have”.. I don’t where to even take this gift to help people.. but I know that I have the direction now… I get to choose which path I want to take. Loving every single day of my life since this has happened.
“Beyond these things we will be wise to scrutinize our perceptions, thoughts, and words of choice in the coming weeks. Second looks will be helpful and mysterious “glitches” of all sorts and flavor will become common. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself asking, “did I really just see that?”, “did I really just say that?”, or “did I really just type that?” If you do then you will know that life on Earth is as it is in Heaven. ”

JJ

@egarim, Oh i read your post, but you, good sir, don’t seem to understand that this is something already gone over in history. As in, the people that came before us talked this subject over. And yes, we all DO have different perspectives but we all have to be on the same playing field to share in our different perspectives. As in, there has to be something (objective) that allows us to have and share different perspectives. If you actually read MY post, then you would see that we’re all looking for RIGHT (see what I did there?) answers. As in answers that are TRUE regardless of other perspectives. Your offering none of that or at least affirming that if it’s possible, we don’t have access to it.. I’m saying greater men have covered the issue already.

@egarim, The feeling is mutual and I agree that we should continue to question and revisit subjects like this but where I’m coming off as arrogant (and I know that isn’t your word but I’m just trying to put myself in the worst perspective to hopefully redeem myself. If not, whateves), I’m making the point that as a principle, if it has any merit, it applies universally and historically, this has been something that comes up and doesn’t quite capture everything. If my relative “truth” is my opinion, then it is my opinion that this is something that has been settled fundamentally in the past. If you don’t believe me, that’s fine but knowing that we don’t have to struggle with duality makes it a lot easier to continue living. And I must say that out of all the people that I’ve encountered on this site, you sir are the most enjoyable so if my backhanded posts mean nothing else, I at the very least enjoyed your electronic company.