Opposites

To understand Love, we must understand the opposites.

Love is often an opposite of either fear, hatred and evil. But Love has no opposite. Fear is the opposite of courage, hatred is the opposite of forgiveness, and evil is often the opposite of good. Courage and forgiveness are both transcendent quality of Love, where they represent Love as a direct experience. Good and Evil are, on the other hand, not really opposites at all. This problem can be understood through the two kinds of opposites. In the truth of Love, we will see that there is a thin line that separates the the nature of opposites: either opposites are complementing or opposing.

Complementing opposites are basically natural: light and dark, hot and cold, high and low, hard and soft. They are all part and whole of this reality. Nothing separates them except in our minds. The experience of complementing opposite is what most spiritual teachings call Oneness.

Oneness is the ultimate sense of unity. It is deep beneath the physical reality we see. It is the essence of connectedness, no matter how different people, things and events may be. In Oneness, opposites do not oppose; rather, they are always one and the same. They are in the same spectrum. Darkness is simply absence of Light, and Coldness is simply absence of Heat. In absence, we define presence and vice versa. At first this would be mind-boggling, but we will further understand this when we understand the next kind of opposite.

Opposing opposites are distorted view of the opposite, an experience we often call Separation.The ultimate separation ingrained in our beliefs is the opposition of good and evil. From here, all natural opposites seem to be always at war with each other: Black versus white, superior versus inferior, strong versus weak, rich versus poor, man versus woman. We have always believed this illusion that it has perpetuated a culture of survival of the fittest. We destroy each other because we both believe the other is an enemy rather than a friend, or we see ourselves more righteous than others. We have become self-centered creatures that our only survival is our concern. This primal instinct has wiped the dinosaur species millions of years ago.

Seeing beyond the opposites leads us to an awakened soul. We would not see that the mind and body are separate, more so of seeing God and humanity. There is no more rift between two opposites, only understanding them as two expressions of the same essence. Deepak Chopra, the poet-prophet of mind/body medicine, says that "good is the union of all opposites; evil does not exist." As we operate on this consciousness, we would never identify evil as the great opponent of good. Good is the all-encompassing circle that includes all opposites that naturally mirror each other. No more enemies. No more evil.

But why do we still think in opposites. One reason: because the nature of Love is completely whole that it cannot be experienced without a conscious mind that can experience it.

Think of a flower. A flower is perfect in itself. It behaves on its own reality without the need of other flowers' appreciation. But a flower is not conscious of its own existence. We, human beings who are conscious of our own, cannot escape the reality of being conscious of others' existence, be it a fellow human, living beings such as plants, animals, and inanimate things such as nature, heavenly bodies. With this consciousness, we see the flower, appreciate and give name to it. This is the experience of seeing the flower, as if the flower experiences itself through us.


Because of this consciousness, we sense our reality as if separate from us, an illusion most thinkers call duality. I am here, you are there. Kahlil Gibran, the poet-mystic author of The Prophet once said: "Is not the mountain far more awe-inspiring and more clearly visible to one passing through the valley than to those who inhabit the mountain?" By being down here, we can see the mountain up there. If we are up in the mountain, we cannot see the mountain at all.

This is why opposites exists, not to separate us from everything that exists, but to be conscious of all of them. Love is infinite in many ways, expresses in different forms, and how Love does it is a mystery to all of us. And these seemingly separate expressions of Love, be it in words, deeds, objects, persons, creatures, arts, etc., are all but same manifestation of this Oneness.

This is why opposites exist not to separate us from everything that exists, but to be conscious of all of them.

A man is naturally a man, and his experience is different from that of a woman. They are different forms of the same species: homo sapiens aka human beings. Can we really say that their nature is opposing? How can another human being be born without a man-woman sexual union? It is because of their difference--opposite--that they can complement each other, and their unity bears another creation, or material unfolding of Love that remains intangible and invisible.

It is in this sense of Separation that we can appreciate this sense of Oneness. And the irony is that It is because of this Separation that our consciousness seem to contradict itself. This is known to many as paradox. Christ himself has taught paradoxical teachings, of which loving your enemies is the most well-known. In the realm of separation, truth will naturally contradict in the form of paradox because each opposite can embody the truth of another. Paradoxes are so universal and natural that it traverses all systems of thought. Our notion of opposing opposites tells us to take sides, yet the realization of complementing opposites tells us that we cannot--choosing one means choosing the other. As one meditation teacher puts it, you cannot choose the right wing of a bird more important than the left one. Both of them are important.

Now, we can refresh our ways of seeing opposites. In a paradoxical manner, I am you, and you are me. We both have this same human experience and both of us seek to embody what Love is. So long as we seek for Oneness, through intentions of cooperation, collaboration and participation, rather than competition, domination and manipulation, we are materializing the possibility of Love to exist in our lives, not just a concept, but a true and tangible existence.