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Gustavo Monteiro: gustavo@pwol.ca

Notes on PL-143 – Unity and Duality

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There are two fundamental possibilities for human consciousness: the dualistic and the unified plane.

 

The majority of human beings live predominantly on the dualistic plane, where you perceive and experience everything in opposites: either/or; good or bad; right or wrong; life or death. The unified principle combines the opposites of dualism. By transcending dualism you will also transcend the pain it causes.

 

On the unified plane of consciousness there are no opposites. There is no good or bad, no right or wrong, no life or death in the sense that comprises the opposites in the plane of duality.

 

The good, the right, the life that exist on the unified plane of consciousness combine both dualistic poles, so no conflict exists.

 

We already have, in our real self, a unified state of mind, regardless of how unconscious and ignorant we may be of it. This real self embodies the unified principle. We all long for the freedom, blissfulness and mastery of life that the unified state of consciousness affords, even though we may not even be aware of its existence and how to attain it.

 

We tend to look for the freedom, blissfulness and mastery of life, which only the unified state of consciousness can provide, in the plane of duality. This leads us to strive to excel in one of the opposites (the one we see as “good”) while fighting against the other. Our longing cannot be fulfilled in this way. Such a fight makes transcendence impossible.

 

On the dualistic plane each issue ends with either life or death. In an argument, each part thinks to be right, while the other is wrong; and wants to prove that to the other. The more each part insists on this proof, the more friction exists.

 

You believe that by proving yourself right and the other wrong, the other will finally accept and love you again and all will be well. When you do not succeed, you misinterpret that and try harder, for you think you have not sufficiently proven that you are right and the other is wrong. The rift widens, your anxiety increases, and the more weapons you use to win the fight, the deeper your difficulties, until you actually damage yourself and the other.

 

You are then faced with the alternatives of having to give in, in order to appease your friend and avoid further damage to yourself, or to continue fighting. Admitting what you believe to be wrong means death, in a sense, in the deep psyche. Insisting on your total rightness will increase friction and separation, possibly leading to rejection, which again means death, loss, annihilation. Anyway you lose. You end up only with the bad.

Everything we learn from our education and environment is geared to dualistic standards, so we become totally attached and adapted to this state of consciousness. We fear and resist moving into a unified state as it appears that giving up the ego state of duality means annihilation of our individuality, which, of course, is utterly erroneous.

 

What is seen as opposites in the dualistic view are not really opposing each other. They actually complement one another, just like the concave complements the convex and doesn’t oppose it. You can’t have one without the other.

 

To realize unification within ourselves means to identify ourselves as much as possible with our real (higher) self. The real self contains all wisdom and truth in a so far-reaching way that no further conflict exists when this truth is allowed to take effect.

 

The truth that flows out of it equalizes the self with others. This is why the ego fears and resists this process of unification. But far from being the annihilation that the ego fears, that truth opens up the storehouse of vibrant life force and energy that we usually use to only a minor degree and which we misuse in directing our attention and hopes to the dualistic plane, with its tightly held opinions, false ideas, vanity, pride, self-will, and fear. When this live center activates us, we begin our limitless unfolding, a process whose accomplishments become possible precisely because the little ego no longer wants to misuse them in order to find life, as it did, on the dualistic plane.

 

We may start moving from the plane of duality to the unity plane by beginning to open our hearts and minds to the wide aspects of the issues we encounter, to the truth they hold. The simple act of wanting the truth requires several conditions, the most important being the willingness to relinquish what one holds on to, whether this be a belief, a fear, or a cherished way of being. By relinquish, it is meant questioning it and being willing to see that there is something else beyond this outlook.

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