And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts...
William Shakespeare
Might as well tag on to a classic when it fits with the theme. So with apologies to the Bard, I shall borrow his play title and Jaques's monologue to open this blog on duality. We have been exploring how we see the lemons in our lives, whether they are to be disparaged or turned into something useful, lemonade. It really comes down to what our perception is and the choices that we make.
In our ordinary plane of existence, duality reigns: good/bad; hero/enemy; happy/sad, right/wrong, etc. This is not to say that these labels are true - they vary from person to person, culture to culture - but this is just the way that we choose to organize our lives. This is the level of understanding with which we operate. It simplifies our lives to have these prejudged categories in which to insert things. We organize our world into the "I, me, my - 'the self'" of our lives and all the others that are not part of this "self." Between the two, a great gulf of separation exists, never to be reconciled. Our "I" on the one side and all the others on the other. The bad guys are out there and the "I" of goodness is right here, part of the "self." In both the two previous blogs, "The Opening" and "Heaven or Hell - the End or the Beginning," we dealt with this issue of duality. It is a biggie and really spins our whole comprehension of life. As long as we feel/think that we are separate from the whole of the cosmos, then we will never have peace and completion. There will always be that aching inside to find that which will complete us - status, the right mate, money, power, etc. The cruel joke is that we are already complete and whole because not only are we connected to the source of all life, but it is the very essence of who we are. It is our erroneous thinking/perception that creates the illusion that passes as ordinary life. To move into extraordinary, we have to break through that illusion and focus our attention on that which is true, that which emanates from within. To better understand how this works, let's explore how we set up the stage of life from which we act out our own story lines and spin our drama, hoping that someone will notice and give us an Academy Award for our uniqueness.
The plot begins with how we choose to understand and define reality. If we see everything as either/or, then we start the duality game. We are the recipients and not the actors; others have the power and we are just the pawns. We nurture our wounds and gain solace in knowing that we are the victims who have no responsibility for what happens to us. The best that we can do is to keep our heads down and hope for the best. This thinking really borders on superstition. If I carry a rabbit's foot in my pocket, wear a clove of garlic around my neck, then I will be safe from the vampires. If we are able to muster enough energy resources and shift our focus, and this is key, then slowly our vision clears from the blur of illusion and we begin to realize that we are far more powerful than we could ever imagine. As we look around our carefully laid out stage with all of the precisely placed props, we suddenly understand that we are the only actor on the stage and we have trained the spotlight on ourselves.
With this shift in focus comes the realization that we play all the roles, the good, the bad and the ugly. We are a one person production, pulling others in only when we need a supporting cast. Depending on how large a production we are staging at the moment will determine how many "others" we need to include. Sometimes, we collectively have a full scale extravaganza going and we need to have a cast of thousands such as when we wage world wars. On a personal level, there have been times in my life where I have had major productions going on several stages to quell the anxiety that I had kicked up. Much easier to project that angst on others than to take responsibility for it myself.
I have come to see the appearance of lemons as the heralds of yet another coming production. Depending upon how consciously I deal with the lemons determines the extent of the upcoming production. It has become apparent to me that regardless of how many other people I blame or draw into the production that I am the one playing all the roles, directing all the action to soothe whatever misperception I have entertained. This point has been driven home when I find myself in a life or death struggle with some mechanical device, full scale drama taking place, with nary another person around. Talk about nonsense.
So if all of this is true, how do we go about utilizing the lemons and moving beyond duality to the harmony that is the underlying principle of the universe? It really gets down to what we chose to see and on what "Cs" we choose to employ. Competition keeps the duality going by fueling our need to prove ourselves better than and the misperception that we are not one and the same. Cooperation, Collaboration, Connection, Compassion dissolve the illusion of duality by allowing us to exhale on having to defend ourselves from the "other." To come to the understanding that we are the ones creating our story lines from the thoughts and images that we choose to project from within and that the external is just a reflection of what we are creating is quite a freeing experience. It affords us the opportunity to extend compassion - the ability to suffer together - to another. Ultimately, the only true defense that any of us have is love - love and respect for ourselves and for each other. I know that is a totally irrational concept especially if you have not explored that idea with us in "The Opening," but it is the only reality that there is.
Our focus determines our destination - the true reality of harmony or the illusion of jousting with windmills, thinking they are dragons, like Don Quixote. In the end instead of taking the hero's journey towards the truth, we will have spent our time on a fool's errand. It is really our choice. Like Pacman and his goons, the lemons keep appearing alerting us to opportunities to move beyond duality. Because we are formidable spirits, we will struggle until exhaustion overtakes and breaks us. This is as it needs to be.
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.
That's how the light gets in.*
I don't know about you but I am weary of this struggle with myself. I am closing up my stage, turning off the spotlight, making my theater dark and I am planting a garden on that spot - a garden where life can be nurtured and watered with the "Cs" of cooperation, collaboration, connection, compassion. I am going to harvest harmony. It will be hard work to rid this space of all the noxious weeds that have been allowed to take root over the years but it will be soul satisfying, something that all of my theater productions over the years never were.
I think that I will hang one of those pretty ceramic garden signs at the entrance: "Peace to all who enter here."
*Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"
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