“as natural as the sun and the moon, day and night, summer and winter”
Wisdom is knowing I am nothing,
Love is knowing I am everything,
and between the two my life moves.
Nisargadatta
In this book, and others in The Simple Reality Project, we use pairs of opposites because they are instructive in pointing to the differences between P-A and P-B. Examples of our “related pairs” are True Self and false self; Absolute and relative; Response and reaction; Feeling and emotion; and many more.
Thomas Moore wrote in Dark Night of the Soul (2004) that “the polarities themselves cannot be removed [in P-B], but one could say, the whole universe becomes somewhat more benevolent. It’s no longer so threatening. The world is no longer perceived as hostile.”[i]
On the other hand, in today’s world, “persuasive studies show that if you take people who are deeply into their political identities and make them watch, listen to and read those who have opposite views, it causes them to dig even more deeply into their core identities, not alter them or soften their views of the enemy. And the impact of all this is greater on those who pay the most attention to issues and politics than it is on the more disengaged!”[ii]
We offer profound Truths in these essays, and upon calm and open-hearted consideration you might choose to accept a worldview of Oneness (P-A). But for most of us, fear chills our sense of adventure. It leaves us standing on the shore waving at the more adventuresome (more conscious!) sailors on ships disappearing toward the horizon with sails billowing.
Insight # 10 comes to us from Thomas Moore (b. 1940), an American psychotherapist, who writes and lectures in the fields of archetypes, psychology, mythology and imagination.
“Every human life [in P-B] is made up of the light and the dark, the happy and the sad, the vital and the deadening. Are you going to hide out in self-delusion and distracting entertainments? Are you going to become cynical and depressed? Or are you going to open your heart to a mystery [in P-A] that is as natural as the sun and the moon, day and night, summer and winter?”[iii]
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Additional Reading:
- Pairs of Opposites, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
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[i] Moore, Thomas. Dark Night of the Soul. New York: Gotham, 2004, p. xiv.
[ii] Ornstein, Norman J. “Continental Divide.” The New York Times Book Review. February 9, 2020, p. 14.
[iii] Ibid.
