Duality/ Polarity

“Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its
pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are
identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet;
all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be
reconciled“ The Kybalion.

I guess I'd view poles as the outer limits of a relationship in its most simple subdivision. That statement though seems to be talking about non-dualism perhaps? In Tibetan Buddhism they work with these concepts a fair bit;

"... views the world as consisting of contrasting antithetical relationships:

Nirvana and Sangsara
nuomenon and phenomenon
potentiality and maanifestation
illumination and non-discriminating perception
emptiness and vitality
consciousness and prana

Moreever Tantricism from the standpoint of ultimate reality declares that each of these dualities, although apparently antithetical, is inseperably a unity."

Tao Te Ching 2 :

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

This is the birth of duality. One cannot have beautiful/ugly, good/bad, is/isn't, difficult/easy, long/short, high/low, before/after one without the other. They are correlations that depend one upon the other. In respecting this simple law, the Master, one who follows in the Way of Tao, can accomplish what one must without unnecessary effort. One allows the Force (of the Universe) to act instead of trying to 'force' things to happen. One may teach without using 'excess' words, for the more words one employs, the more the 'notions' accumulate to clutter what is being taught. One who follows the Way of Tao does not cling to things ; things happen and one accepts, applying the 'next right natural' thing to the present circumstances. Things that have beginnings have endings, so one accepts this as well. When the task at hand is accomplished, one does not cling to it, but moves on, thus forgetting. This does not mean that one forgets about having done something, but instead focuses one's attention on the present. The fact of letting go of an accomplishment means that the effects of having done something to not fade away.

So if that's true, then it's only half-true?

I like to imagine polar opposites in a curved space like on the surface of the earth... so that if you go East far enough, you wind op right back where you started, coming from the west. So for example black and white... if you paint everything black, black loses it's significance and you start to see the whiteness, so you paint a darker black, but that only makes it worse.

Alexandre, I am going with a different verse...

And why I say not everything has an opposite...

It does, when it becomes 'the two', but, this is only an idea, as we are all still only the 'one', made of the 'Tao'...

42

The Tao gives birth to One.
One gives birth to Two.
Two gives birth to Three.
Three gives birth to all things.

All things have their backs to the female
and stand facing the male.
When male and female combine,
all things achieve harmony.

Ordinary men hate solitude.
But the Master makes use of it,
embracing his aloneness, realizing
he is one with the whole universe.

both of you, im going with an even differenter one, from the tao te ching, first book of jedi edition:

Chapter 5
The Force doesn`t take sides;
it gives birth to both good and evil.
The Jedi don't take sides;
they welcome both saints and sinners.
The Force is like a bellows:
it is empty and yet infinitely capable.
The more you use it, the more it produces;
the more you talk of it, the less you understand.
Hold on to the center.

i'd also like to add that much like the bible, one can take the tao to mean pretty much anything, which in my mind means it means mostly nothing. i know, i know, thats the point right?

Nephilim wrote: “Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its
pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are
identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet;
all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be
reconciled“ The Kybalion.

Ying Yang baby! It's all Ying Yang.

The important thing to remember about duality, IMHO, is that the two are just parts of the one. Everything stems from that most primordial singularity. Call it Khaos, call it Tao, the Force, what have youp (there was a time I called it Eru and anyone that picks up on that reference has my undying respect) it's all the First that duality and all others come from. That verse from Tao teh Ching that Jestor posted has always baffled me, why couldn't he leave it at "the one creates all things" instead of going to three? Obviously its implied, but still, K.I.S.S.

[quote="Lykeios" post=118610Eru and anyone that picks up on that reference has my undying respect[/quote]

Tolkien been around for a very long time.

"We love to have things in polar opposition, don't we? Black, white; good, evil; male, female. And reason, myth. And somewhere there has to be a way of bringing them together again. And [the solution] is probably if you accept both as genuine ways at arriving at truth but you don't privilege one above the other." - Jeanette Winterson

As Campbell says we all must play the game of black and white. It is important to recognize that they are simultaneously different and the same. Instead of trying to trick yourself into thinking that neither really exists, instead you must realize that both exist as a result of each other and lead to the same truth. Everything has something in common with everything else in the universe.

May the Force be with you,
Rai