Remove Opposites!
Good and bad. Right and wrong. Love and hate. Success and failure. Nirvana and samsara. We tend to think that one is right and one is wrong. That one is better than the other and we struggle between opposites our entire lives, not ever realizing that neither is the right choice!
I remember many times when discussing this point with various students, a comment inevitably arises that the idea of letting go of opposites is “BORING” and who would want to live a life without them?
I think that is a valid question and the answer is simply that you're not ready to do so yet, so don’t. It may still be a time of contemplation and observation, to look at what dualities actually do to us, and how they make us suffer. Watch as a day of happiness can quickly turn into a state of sadness when that object of happiness is removed, which is the nature of both. They both exist because of each other.
The question is “what lies between them?”
We experience the world through the lens of duality. The mind divides everything it perceives into good and bad, like and dislike—generating attachments to what we like and aversion towards what we dislike. These attachments and aversions become the source of our suffering.
The Buddhist and Hindu teachings remind us that opposites can’t exist without each other. Rather than being diametric polarities, they exist on a spectrum. One only has meaning in the context of the other. There are no exceptions.
In Buddhism and Hinduism, they practice cultivating a non-dual awareness that sees beyond apparent opposites to the essential unity that lies beneath.
Imagine existing beyond the confines of the thinking mind, dualities collapse into a state of oneness—the true nature of ourselves and all of life, or as it is said in Hinduism, “All is One”.
When you become one with Krisna, Buddha, or Christ, when you become God-realized you become one with everything that exists. You find the true meaning of being. “When you forget all your dualistic ideas, everything becomes your teacher, and everything can be the object of worship.”
Hari Om Tat Sat
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