In recent decades post-structuralist and deconstructionist thinkers have made a critical case against what they call ?binaries?, against thinking in terms of various dichotomies and opposing principles. And of course most ?New Agers? seem to prefer a thoroughly ?non-dualistic? philosophy of being. For both of these groups the whole concept of opposing principles of any kind, of ?binaries?, is anathema. Discerning the dyadic relationships in reality has definitely fallen out of vogue.
But not so fast, there?s another metaphysical viewpoint that still makes room for ?binaries?, yet doesn?t at all hearken back to simpleminded black and white thinking. I mean the more God?s-eye view that reality is a creatively interdependent gestalt, a gestalt whose creative interdependence includes the complementary relationship and interplay of opposites, the yin-yanging of different manifestations of creative reality. That is, according to this view reality is relational, and sometime this shapes up to mean antithetical principles relating in an oppositional manner. It can even mean black playing off against white, good against evil, truth against falsity, and all of the seemingly clich? and crude ?binaries? that modern philosophers proudly look down on. No, ?binaries? need not be understood as absolutes, but they can be appreciated for the essential part they play in the relational modus operandi of existence.
This is all to say that the conflict and counterpointing of contrary values, energies, and actualities is not ruled out by the holism and harmony of the universe; rather, it?s one of the ways that everything integrates into the grand integrity of Creation. It?s one of the fundamental ways in which the unitive creative process of reality expresses and immortalizes itself. ?Mutual origination?, as the Buddhists call it, and growth takes place in part through conflict!
Well, without some conflict to spice it up the synergy of existence could become somewhat stagnant. The ole space-time continuum is ever expanding with divine artistic production, with goodness and glory precisely because heterogeneous, not just homogenous impulses factor into its metamorphosing mix. We need to remember that just as manmade art comes out of struggle, so too does the artistry and exquisiteness of the earth we reside on and the heavens above ? and there?s no struggle without contending and antithetical dynamics. Cosmic beauty, we find, requires a certain amount of dualistic dynamism.
And the world is manifestly a work of beauty, always in progress ? the constant elegant combining and recombining of its elements, its forces and particles, its intentions, ?information?, and ingredients into the purposeful yet freestyle aesthetic self-expression of Transcendence. And thanks to this perpetual creative diversification/reunification of reality, which of course is the primordial and ultimate ?binary?, opposites really do arise and come into play; and do attract, as the saying goes.
And thanks to the inherent creative spontaneity of reality?s kaleidoscopic algorithm of change, a certain degree of what modern science calls ?chaos? is introduced into what might otherwise be the monotonous equation of eternity. Thus and thus, it?s in the chaos that yin and yang can and do come crashing into each other ? a dialectical dynamic that produces transformation, and eventually a new synthesis from every yin-yang interaction. The conflict of opposites, it turns out, is just another ironic way that everything forms into the inexorable unity of reality.
Chaos, conflict, and cacophony, then, are actually an aspect of the cosmic big picture?s greater harmony and evolution. The postmodern intellectuals who assert that we human beings think in terms of clashing opposites merely because we have a simpleminded tendency to reduce everything to black & white categories are quite mistaken, there?s more to it than that. Within the oneness of life and existence there really is darkness and light, good and evil, feminine and masculine, joy and pain, and so on. No, these contrasting qualities are not total figments of our dull-wittedly dualistic minds, they crucially help prevent the undividedness of nature from becoming sterile uniformity. Battling and blending binaries help keep the solidarity of being creatively kinetic. There?s really no such thing as ?being?, after all; there?s only the ever changing materialization of becoming, which takes place through the conjunction, and sometimes the hostile conjunction, so to speak, of reality?s intrinsic potentialities.
How then has it come to pass that seeing life from a ?binary? perspective is in disrepute? Well, like most things, binary thinking has its hazards. It can lead people into the error of simplistic ideas and ideologies; it can lead people into the ego-boosting temptation to see themselves as being 100% on the ?good? side of the good vs. evil dichotomy, resulting in spiritually ugly attitudes of self-righteousness, infallibility, judgmentalism, intolerance, and absolutism; and it can erase the gray buffer areas in people?s worldview to the extreme extent that they can too easily lurch from extreme to extreme, becoming hardliners and fanatics. History teaches that people indeed succumb to these moral hazards all too easily and all too often, with cruel and deadly effects. This has come to dawn on many folks over the course of the last century and has disgraced the very notion of duality.
Of course many mystically-inclined individuals likewise reject the idea of duality, not only for the above reasons, but because they have the metaphysical misconception that duality is incompatible with the transcendental insight that reality is one. The organic unity of the universe, however, is an e pluribus unum proposition, from the many comes to light one ? the infinite diversity of reality?s creative potential is ceaselessly orchestrating itself into a splendorous symphony, reflecting the ultimate singularity of mystery that grounds the outwardly pluralistic material world. In other words, oneness and manyness, unity and duality are not at all mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite is the case!
The challenge is to remain mindful of the way differences and dualities witness to and advance the underlying affinities, bonds, and integralities that come up from and return into existence?s unio mystica. The paradox of how variety and duality stem from and in turn affirm the non-separateness of everything is the ultimate Zen koan, as it were. Contemplating this cosmological conundrum with diligence is a spiritual discipline in and of itself. Of course, as is the case with reaching the resolution of any koan, one does so not by intellectually hammering out a logical, scientific answer to the problem, but rather by coming to peace with it; coming to the realization that resistance to its paradoxicality is futile; by letting go of the obsession with making a square rationalistic peg fit into a round spiritual hole.
Unfortunately though, not everyone can see their way clear to making their discursive mind reign in its obsessive-compulsive efforts to run roughshod over our human intuition, and so many of us never come to that mentally peaceful place where we?re able to fully avail ourselves of the inner depth perception that would allow us to see straight through logical puzzlements such as that of duality & unity being merely different sides of the same coin. We remain caught up in perplexity, and eventually let our minds wander back to more mundane and monetary interests. All we get out of our philosophical musings on the universe?s ?binaries? is a headache, when they could very well be the entr?e to a higher plane of understanding.
But we shouldn?t despair, the seeming polarization of reality into irreconcilable ambiguities and fundamental antinomies , into binaries and dualities galore, needn?t stump our capacity for enlightenment, we need only grasp the true nature of our philosophic dilemma and take the noetic leap from prosaic common sense and literalistic logic into the numinous center of awareness and truth we all have within.
But not so fast, there?s another metaphysical viewpoint that still makes room for ?binaries?, yet doesn?t at all hearken back to simpleminded black and white thinking. I mean the more God?s-eye view that reality is a creatively interdependent gestalt, a gestalt whose creative interdependence includes the complementary relationship and interplay of opposites, the yin-yanging of different manifestations of creative reality. That is, according to this view reality is relational, and sometime this shapes up to mean antithetical principles relating in an oppositional manner. It can even mean black playing off against white, good against evil, truth against falsity, and all of the seemingly clich? and crude ?binaries? that modern philosophers proudly look down on. No, ?binaries? need not be understood as absolutes, but they can be appreciated for the essential part they play in the relational modus operandi of existence.
This is all to say that the conflict and counterpointing of contrary values, energies, and actualities is not ruled out by the holism and harmony of the universe; rather, it?s one of the ways that everything integrates into the grand integrity of Creation. It?s one of the fundamental ways in which the unitive creative process of reality expresses and immortalizes itself. ?Mutual origination?, as the Buddhists call it, and growth takes place in part through conflict!
Well, without some conflict to spice it up the synergy of existence could become somewhat stagnant. The ole space-time continuum is ever expanding with divine artistic production, with goodness and glory precisely because heterogeneous, not just homogenous impulses factor into its metamorphosing mix. We need to remember that just as manmade art comes out of struggle, so too does the artistry and exquisiteness of the earth we reside on and the heavens above ? and there?s no struggle without contending and antithetical dynamics. Cosmic beauty, we find, requires a certain amount of dualistic dynamism.
And the world is manifestly a work of beauty, always in progress ? the constant elegant combining and recombining of its elements, its forces and particles, its intentions, ?information?, and ingredients into the purposeful yet freestyle aesthetic self-expression of Transcendence. And thanks to this perpetual creative diversification/reunification of reality, which of course is the primordial and ultimate ?binary?, opposites really do arise and come into play; and do attract, as the saying goes.
And thanks to the inherent creative spontaneity of reality?s kaleidoscopic algorithm of change, a certain degree of what modern science calls ?chaos? is introduced into what might otherwise be the monotonous equation of eternity. Thus and thus, it?s in the chaos that yin and yang can and do come crashing into each other ? a dialectical dynamic that produces transformation, and eventually a new synthesis from every yin-yang interaction. The conflict of opposites, it turns out, is just another ironic way that everything forms into the inexorable unity of reality.
Chaos, conflict, and cacophony, then, are actually an aspect of the cosmic big picture?s greater harmony and evolution. The postmodern intellectuals who assert that we human beings think in terms of clashing opposites merely because we have a simpleminded tendency to reduce everything to black & white categories are quite mistaken, there?s more to it than that. Within the oneness of life and existence there really is darkness and light, good and evil, feminine and masculine, joy and pain, and so on. No, these contrasting qualities are not total figments of our dull-wittedly dualistic minds, they crucially help prevent the undividedness of nature from becoming sterile uniformity. Battling and blending binaries help keep the solidarity of being creatively kinetic. There?s really no such thing as ?being?, after all; there?s only the ever changing materialization of becoming, which takes place through the conjunction, and sometimes the hostile conjunction, so to speak, of reality?s intrinsic potentialities.
How then has it come to pass that seeing life from a ?binary? perspective is in disrepute? Well, like most things, binary thinking has its hazards. It can lead people into the error of simplistic ideas and ideologies; it can lead people into the ego-boosting temptation to see themselves as being 100% on the ?good? side of the good vs. evil dichotomy, resulting in spiritually ugly attitudes of self-righteousness, infallibility, judgmentalism, intolerance, and absolutism; and it can erase the gray buffer areas in people?s worldview to the extreme extent that they can too easily lurch from extreme to extreme, becoming hardliners and fanatics. History teaches that people indeed succumb to these moral hazards all too easily and all too often, with cruel and deadly effects. This has come to dawn on many folks over the course of the last century and has disgraced the very notion of duality.
Of course many mystically-inclined individuals likewise reject the idea of duality, not only for the above reasons, but because they have the metaphysical misconception that duality is incompatible with the transcendental insight that reality is one. The organic unity of the universe, however, is an e pluribus unum proposition, from the many comes to light one ? the infinite diversity of reality?s creative potential is ceaselessly orchestrating itself into a splendorous symphony, reflecting the ultimate singularity of mystery that grounds the outwardly pluralistic material world. In other words, oneness and manyness, unity and duality are not at all mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite is the case!
The challenge is to remain mindful of the way differences and dualities witness to and advance the underlying affinities, bonds, and integralities that come up from and return into existence?s unio mystica. The paradox of how variety and duality stem from and in turn affirm the non-separateness of everything is the ultimate Zen koan, as it were. Contemplating this cosmological conundrum with diligence is a spiritual discipline in and of itself. Of course, as is the case with reaching the resolution of any koan, one does so not by intellectually hammering out a logical, scientific answer to the problem, but rather by coming to peace with it; coming to the realization that resistance to its paradoxicality is futile; by letting go of the obsession with making a square rationalistic peg fit into a round spiritual hole.
Unfortunately though, not everyone can see their way clear to making their discursive mind reign in its obsessive-compulsive efforts to run roughshod over our human intuition, and so many of us never come to that mentally peaceful place where we?re able to fully avail ourselves of the inner depth perception that would allow us to see straight through logical puzzlements such as that of duality & unity being merely different sides of the same coin. We remain caught up in perplexity, and eventually let our minds wander back to more mundane and monetary interests. All we get out of our philosophical musings on the universe?s ?binaries? is a headache, when they could very well be the entr?e to a higher plane of understanding.
But we shouldn?t despair, the seeming polarization of reality into irreconcilable ambiguities and fundamental antinomies , into binaries and dualities galore, needn?t stump our capacity for enlightenment, we need only grasp the true nature of our philosophic dilemma and take the noetic leap from prosaic common sense and literalistic logic into the numinous center of awareness and truth we all have within.
