The Origins of Duality
Life is filled with duality. It doesn’t just lie at the foundations of human life, it is built into nature as
well. Every living organism is both predator and victim. At the same time, living organisms feed
themselves on their environment and they become food for that environment. In nature we don’t
see any conflict in that in as much that all living organisms ‘know’ this and do their best to survive
within the environment just as it is. They are not troubled by it. To humans this natural duality, which
affects every individual life, has caused much pain and distress. The difference between humans and
animals lies in the fact that humans are concerned about each individual life in a sense that they
haven’t accepted the duality of living and dying as an integral part of life itself. They fail to embrace
that duality and only consider living as a ‘good’ option, which turns dying into the enemy that needs
to be defeated. This has become an obsession in human life, which puts an incredible strain on us
being here and engages us in a war we can’t win.
As we can observe this duality in all aspects of life we cannot hide from it and we cannot ignore it.
We don’t think it is fair, and if it is unfair then we feel compelled to do something about it. But in
order to take effective measures it would be good to know where this duality originates from and
how it penetrates our lives. It is only by removing the cause that we can take actions that will ensure
a permanent solution to what we perceive to be a big problem in life. Duality is causing conflicts,
ranging from arguments and discussions to full blown wars, whereby each side firmly believes that
they are right. How can one side of the argument be so dumb as not to see the sense in the other
side’s reasoning?
What does it mean when we say that something is far away or nearby? Far away from what? In the
universe it doesn’t mean anything unless you actually provide a reference point. Something is far
removed from something else. Distance only means something in relation to, at least, two points in
space. And it is no different in time. Something takes a long or a short time only means something in
relation to something else. On its own, time cannot be long or short. On its own, time has no
meaning. On its own, time doesn’t exist. Two minutes can be a long time and a year can be a short
time, all depending on what you are waiting for. In other words, the circumstances in which you
experience this time lapse determines your interpretation of long or short. Two centimetres can be a
long distance, a large gap, while two hundred kilometres can be a short distance. Hence, the use of
the words to describe the time lapse or the distance gap is determined by another factor. There is a
second point required from which the evaluation will be made, which then will define the situation
one way or the other. It can no longer be both, which means that there is a split, a duality. Having a
reference point divides space in left and right, front and back, above and below. A point of reference
in time divides time in past and future. The reference will then include very specific characteristics on
which the ultimate ‘evaluation’ will be based, such as expectation, emotions (fear, anxiety,
impatience), and the experience of what is normal.
Human daily life is filled with such evaluations. We call things easy or difficult, good or evil, central or
extreme, left or right, nice or cruel. None of these descriptions, evaluations, mean anything without a
reference point. Two groups of people may hold completely opposite view points as to what is
important in their lives and yet, when we climb over the fence that separates them and we listen to
the other side, we find that the opposing view point is just as valuable, even though it is completely
different. One side may consider the same distance far away while the other thinks it is closeby. One
side may consider certain life styles good while others judge them to be evil. How can this chasm be
overcome? How can these different visions be brought together?
To begin to answer that question we may want to take a closer look at how it occurred in the first
place. One can only describe a situation, a point in space, a section of time, in terms of a point of
reference. In other words, ‘from where I am standing I would say it is …’. So it is an opinion that
relates to the view point of an individual, of a group, of an entity. Why?
In an energetic field it is impossible to locate any specific frequency. There is no locality within an
energetic field. There is free movement, if you like, in space as well as in time. At any given time any
specific frequency, any specific feature of energies within the field, can be present at any given point
within that field. In quantum physics this is expressed by the idea that an electron may be on Jupiter
one moment and the next that ‘same’ electron may be part of an atom in a cell of your skin. It is the
same frequency popping in and out of existence all over the place within the energy field. As a result
of local increased pressure and falling temperatures part of this energy field may become ‘fixed’
within the manifestation of matter. Matter freezes a certain combination of a small part of the
energy field into a fixed form and a fixed place, which can only manifest within very specific and
narrow energetic limits. Matter is a manifestation of a very small portion of the full energetic
spectrum of that field. This process places the matter in a specific place in space, in time and in a
specific environment. All of creation, including nature, is such a manifestation. Within nature, human
beings are a specific fixed bit of the human energy field, which is only a small part of the universal
energy field. This places every individual in a specific place, at a specific time and in a specific
environment. The manifestation of matter holds two parts in place. One is the physical manifestation
which gives that matter its form and allows it to function within those limits. The other is the part of
the energy field that is held by certain frequencies – the unique manifestation of form and function –
all the way into the ‘frozen’ bits, the physical manifestation. In human terms this relates to on the
one hand the physical body and on the other the mental part of that individual. Both are now ‘fixed’
in time, place and mental capacity, call it ‘the vision of life’. Hence, an individual is a manifestation of
a small part of the human energy field, which contains all possible combinations of human
expressions. This ‘fixes’ the individual in a small part of the entire human spectrum and limits his
space, his time and his mental reach. In other words, each individual sits comfortably within his
environment, is a product of his environment at a particular place and a particular time in evolution.
This will fix the limitations of his physical and mental being.
Now we have a fixed point within the human energy field in the form of an individual manifestation.
From this fixed point the environment around that point, both in the physical and mental sense,
becomes divided in relation to that fixed point, to that individual. So the individual is now in a
position to declare that, to him, a certain distance is a long way or a certain time period is short. In
physical terms, whatever is far removed from where he is, at any given time in the physical and/or
mental part of his functionality, he determines to be a long distance. There now exists a ‘near’ and a
‘far’.
This is easy to see in the physicality of our existence. But as everything is created in a similar fashion
the same structure can be noticed in the mental field of the individual. He has been created from a
very small section of the entire human spectrum. Only a very specific set of energy combination has
resulted in the physical manifestation of the individual, which in turn fixes that same set in the
energy field that immediately surrounds him, the non-material part of him, and this is an indivisible
part of him. This means that energy frequencies, or combinations of energies, that are fairly similar
to his own he will experience as being closeby and those that are very different as far away.
Whatever he now encounters in his life that is very near to the balance of his own being he will
evaluate as ‘good’, as comfortable. Whatever is further removed from his own balance is named to
be ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. The latter forms a threat to the balance in his life and it will therefore be something
he will be afraid of. He will feel an urge to fight it off. He will try to either physically keep it far away
from his life or even destroy it all together, or he will try to scare it away by making a lot of noise.
Evil only exists in relation to a reference point. Comparing something with an agreed standard allows
humans to evaluate how great the potential danger to that reference point is, how far away or
closeby the balance of the outside energy field is in relation to that of the individual. We use words
and concepts in order to convince ourselves that our evaluation has value. We feel much better
about ourselves if can wage a ‘holy’ war or fight for peace, if we can justify our behaviour, in the first
place to ourselves. We do not want to be confronted with the fact that our opponents feel the same
way about being involved in their just war. One has to be right, which inevitably makes the other one
‘the wrong one’. If we manage to convince ourselves that we are right in our thinking and in our
actions then we feel strengthened in the belief that we are on the right path. The other must then be
wrong. And we all do it, in arguments between individuals, between nations, between ethnic groups,
between religious groups, and so on.
And all this stems from the fact that we are afraid of something that is far away from us, from our
lives. We are scared shitless of things we don’t understand, of things we can’t relate to. We feel
threatened by anything that is remotely different to our own balance, our own comfort. And we
respond by pushing the unknown far away rather than by opening ourselves to the possibility of
learning different aspects, different experiences, of human life. This fear is anchored in the fact that
we fail to recognise that what we can observe of life, of nature, of creation, is extremely limited by
the short-sightedness of our senses, including our intuition, and by the fact that we cannot remove
ourselves from that fixed point at which we entered this physical manifestation. In other words, we
cannot place ourselves in someone else’s shoes, let alone someone whose background and
experiences in life are totally different from our own. And at the same time we cannot reach that far
into our surroundings that we can observe and understand all of life. What we cannot accommodate
within the limited part of the energetic spectrum that has been fixed within us as individuals, we are
afraid of. We are afraid it may upset our personal balance, or the balance of the group. That is why it
feels a threat to our lives. That is why we feel ‘obliged’ to fight it, to resist it.
And here lies the solution. All duality originates from the moment we fix a point in life from which we
are going to evaluate everything else in life. From that moment on, everything becomes either
acceptable or unacceptable in life. From that fixation onwards, everything becomes either far away
or closeby. The duality is lifted from the moment we abandon the fixed position. It is as simple as
that. From the moment we no longer insist on only looking at life from our own point of view, from
the moment we embrace other points of view as equally valid, we lose the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ in life.
From the moment we no longer feel threatened by something that is not our own, we free ourselves
from fear. Freeing oneself from being fearful for the unknown doesn’t remove the dangers from life.
It simply removes the imagined dangers. Not everything that is unknown to us is an immediate
threat to our life. This shows us the duality within the concept of danger. There is real, immediate,
danger that I am facing right now, right here, and there is the perceived danger of something that
might be around the corner.
As human beings we have been told by other human beings not to wait until we are faced with real
danger. We have been told it is clever to anticipate potential danger and respond to that perception
of danger, rather than living the reality of life. We have been told that we are safer when we
anticipate. Of course, this involves evaluating our environment in terms of ‘potential’ threats all the
time. This evaluation can only be done from our own reference point. The more narrow your point of
reference becomes the more dangers will be perceived. The fact that we are choosing a life of
anticipation means that we cannot, at no point in our lives, move away from our point of reference.
Because if we do, we have no way of knowing anything anymore, we are letting go of our known
reality, and life becomes a web of threatening situations left, right and centre. If we don’t allow other
than our own experiences to be part of who we are, we can never feel comfortable with anything
else but our ‘fixed’ world. The stability of life is guaranteed by having a non-movable reference point,
a point we know well, from which we observe our surroundings. That way we can easily evaluate any
changes within that environment and therefore easily identify any potential dangers. A potential
danger is anything that smells different, looks different, feels different, compared to what we are
used to. Hence, putting it in more general terms it reads: learning something truly new can
potentially destroy my life.
So it’s not a good idea, and it won’t make us feel safer in life to abandon the point at which we are
fixed into this life. So the duality of life will always remain in our perception. So, although we have
identified the origin of this duality, we are unable to remove it. So we better continue fighting our
holy wars and quibbling over who is right and who is wrong, over who is good and who is evil.
Or we can become conscious of the fact that the way we see life, as individuals and as a group, is
determined by our point of view, and that others may have an equally valid but completely different
or even opposite point of view. If we are conscious of the fact that this is a direct result of the
structure of life itself and that nobody is right and nobody is wrong, then we may conclude that there
is no further need to be afraid or to fight for supremacy. We may conclude that the really important
thing in life, and the most rewarding thing, is to learn something new, to expand our horizon. We
may conclude that allowing others to remain fixed in their position as we are fixed ourselves in our
position is a secure way to lasting peace. We may conclude that we don’t all need the same kind of
life, the same structure of life, the same basic rules in life, but that we all need to be left to feel
comfortable within our own structure.
We may decide to leave others in peace, so they can live life the way they prefer it.
We may decide that equality only counts in a very small area surrounding every fixed point.
We may decide that there can never be a sustainable equality spread over a wider area of different
kind of lives, of different fixed points, and that the only real equality that exists is that every life has
an equal right to be lived the way that life requires to be lived.
We may decide that other human beings also prefer a quiet life, also prefer to be left in peace to get
on with the simple necessities of life, whatever they may be and no matter how different they may
be from what we know.
We may decide that we are all human beings, but that we are all different and that we all need
different things at different times in life.
We may decide that human beings that are different from ourselves are no threat to us.
We may decide to deal with real dangers in life, rather than burden ourselves with imaginary ones.
We may decide that the real danger of getting killed, of having our lives ripped apart, is taking part in
a war, whether the war is defined as a holy one or not.