You hear a lot of talk about duality, and how bad it is, in the deeper levels of spirituality teachings. What is all this duality stuff about and why does it matter? What does duality mean?
In these blog posts I’ve been sharing the books I’m reading. Most recently I’ve been working through the Life and Teaching of the Masters of the Far East (affiliate link) books by Baird T. Spalding. There are 6 books in the set and I’m currently reading the 5th book.
This post is inspired by something I read in the 4th book, specifically the 3rd chapter – Dual Mind. The question is “what does duality mean” and this book offers the best description of duality, and the errors of duality, I have ever read.
What Does Duality Mean?
Duality means opposition or contrast.
The easy way to get an idea of what duality means is to look at opposites
- hot and cold
- up and down
- light and dark
Duality usually implies some level of conflict too.
From a spirituality perspective, duality is the idea of a “me” and an “everything else.”
To get the idea of the conflict, think of a duel. I picture the Three Musketeers. d’Artagnan arrives in Paris and almost immediately has three duels (with an ‘e’ instead of an ‘a’) lined up with the three musketeers – Athos, Porthos and Aramis. It’s him against the entire world, including the very thing he’s looking for.
Duality Doesn’t Really Exist
Duality is a concept that only exists in our minds. They are only relative differences, and sometimes rather weak differences.
Hot and Cold
Consider this. There isn’t really a “hot” or a “cold.” There is only temperature.
You can prove it for yourself. Stick your hand in a bucket of ice water for a few minutes. When you can’t stand it any longer, put your hand under the faucet and turn on the cold water. It feels hot. DO NOT use warm water. You may burn yourself.
From a physics standpoint there is only energy. The more energy there is, the more heat you perceive. The cold water feels cold on a hot day because there is relatively less energy. The same cold water feels hot when your hand has been in ice water because there is relatively more energy.
Up and Down
The same goes for up and down. The ceiling is up relative to the floor, but down relative to the bird flying over the house. What’s real is direction relative to where you are. The whole concept of up and down gets screwy when out in space where there is less gravity.
Light and Dark
There is no such thing as dark. It is just the absence of light. You want proof for this too? Go in your bedroom, turn on the light and close your closet door. It’s dark in your closet, right? Give it a few minutes so that the darkness has time to build up.
Now open your closet door. Did the darkness flow out of your closet into your bedroom? No? Does the light from your bedroom now light up your closet, at least a little bit? Of course. Silly example but it does prove the point.
What Does Duality Mean in Spirituality?
As I already said, the duality that spirituality is concerned with is the whole idea of a “me” separate from everything else.
The system that we live in is heavily invested in this duality. As long as you feel separate from everything else, you can be kept in fear and more easily controlled.
That’s why you very rarely see anything positive reported on the evening news or on the news websites.
Money isn’t the root of all evil, duality is.
You Aren’t Separate From Anything
The truth is that you aren’t separate from anything else. If you were it would be possible to limit the effects from everything else on you, but it isn’t. Try to live without food, water and light. You are completely dependent on your environment, and it is dependent on you.
You are no more separate from your environment and everyone else than your heart or lungs are separate from you.
From a quantum physics / energy healing perspective, you are constantly giving off and receiving energy from your environment. You cannot determine a point at which your energy stops and another person’s energy starts.
The atoms in your body constantly interact and exchange electrons with the “external” atoms that surround you body and flow through your body.
The Problem With Duality
In addition to what does duality mean, we need to look at the problems that come with duality thinking.
Aside from the fact that duality doesn’t really exist, you aren’t really separate from anything, there are a lot of problems with duality thinking.
I already mentioned how duality thinking allows others to keep you in fear and thereby control you. That’s how religion, government, and marketing works.
“You are somehow less than everyone else and alone, and we can help you.” That’s the message they all give you. They just use different words.
Law of Attraction
Most people who take up the law of attraction come from a place of lack. That’s a duality mindset. When you drop duality, you realize that you really don’t lack anything.
Consider this. Have you ever lacked air to breathe? How about sunlight? Most of us also have plenty of water to drink too.
When you realize that you don’t lack for any of those things then you begin to see that you don’t really lack for anything else either.
Moving Forward
I know that some of this is hard to wrap your head around. It’s hard to realize your abundance when you’re looking at an empty checking account and a stack of bills.
I completely understand. I’m still working on this too. I’m not sitting on a pile of gold coins yet and I still want to improve my diet, but I can tell you that I do feel the energy starting to shift as I read these books, especially book 4 and 5 so far.
I will give you updates and I continue to read.
If you are interested in this kind of thing, then I highly recommend that you read these books, especially books 1, 4 and 5. I talk about books 1 and 2 here. I’ll let you know later about book 6 when I get to it.
Your Turn – What Does Duality Mean to You?
This is an important topic for me, one that I’m very passionate about, so I really hope you found value in this post. Please share your thoughts in a comment below and share this post with your social media followers.
