Collapsing Duality
If you ever catch yourself wincing at a negative thought or emotion, you haven’t included it in your state of being. In other words, you have not collapsed the duality associated with it and it has not yet been integrated. To truly be free from that emotion and thought, it should not be something that actually scares you. This is also the mechanism by which samskaras within are thinned out. The heart needs to remain open even while this emotion is presenting itself, no matter how death-grippingly scary the thoughts associated with it are. This is easy to do for certain thoughts and feelings whereas for others, it may take quite a bit of work. The key determining factor behind this is the amount of duality that needs to be collapsed. This is a rather heavy term… might be worthwhile going deeper into what it actually means.
The entire physical world is composed of opposites – good/bad, positive/negative, happy/sad, and so on. This is what makes us crave certain experiences and wince away and be averse to some. The deeper “I” within us gets swished around by these waves of cravings and aversions if we are not aware of what is actually going on. The craving/aversion generates a certain potential energy in our awareness, which gives a charge to any experience that triggers it. When someone undergoes a spiritual awakening journey, this potential energy comes rising to the surface in many forms. Things that never seemed to be a big deal previously start to bother us in tremendous ways. In essence, the duality within starts to become apparent and seems to wreck with our emotional world. Initially, it is just the “negative” feelings such as anxiety, fear, depression, guilt that seem to cause an issue. But further along, we’re able to realize how excessive clinging to positive emotions that have a restless charge to them is simply calling forth its opposite as well.
The question that arises is why would anyone want to collapse this duality if it means that the positive emotions of life will be lost? The reason is that the truly beautiful expansive emotions that we want to feel are actually not part of this duality spectrum at all. It actually exists on a different dimension that can be accessed as we build a deeper connection with “I”. There are a lucky few for whom this realization is almost instantaneous and permanent. For many others, it is a rather slow process that requires discipline and practice since the results are often not experienced for a significant amount of time. It is my opinion that having a period of several years where things do not go your way is actually a deep blessing in disguise – since it has the potential to awaken you and peel away many of the stubborn layers. By not getting gratification from the outside world, one is forced to turn to the deeper “I” for any sense of stability through such a tough time. This is also presented in a classic quote by Rumi as shown below.
“If everything around you seems dark. Look again. You may be the light.”
