Living in Opposites
Someone brought me this little book, The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran. I found something in it that I thought, maybe, we could talk about today:
“Then a woman said, ‘Speak to us of joy and sorrow.‘
And he answered: ‘Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the self same well from which your laughter arises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart, and you will find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater than sorrow,’ and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater.’ But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balance. When the treasure keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.”
I like this particular phrase: “Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balance.” The way that the poet speaks of sorrow and joy, it is more like happiness and unhappiness, as two opposing things. But joy, as essence of well being, can be there whether there is happiness or unhappiness. But using the poet’s words, joy and sorrow, we are in opposites. In fact, if we live in this duality of opposites, if one comes up for you, as this author says, the other is asleep. But when you are not in opposites, when you are in silence, you are neutral; therefore you are quiet, you are tranquil, you are balanced.
Given the fact that we live mostly in duality, we are either in sorrow or joy, just as Gibran says. At least that is the way we experience ourselves. That is how we function. However, there is a possibility of being in that tranquil space of balance. That space of balance occurs when we are aware that we think and function in opposites, but realize that the totality of existence has no opposites. When we are aware of this, we are balanced. Then it doesn’t matter whether we are sorrowful or joyful. Do you understand? When you are in balance it doesn’t matter; one and the other are the same.
Therefore, in your deepest sorrow, you are aware of joy (using the author’s words)...and in your most elated moment, you are aware of sorrow. For being totality means being aware of everything, not preferring one to the other, but caring equally. Sorrow and joy (if we use these terms) are perhaps in the scheme of things, in totality, a kind of illusion—something that we have learned to prefer, or dislike.
Some people are not aware, perhaps, that they prefer sorrow, that they prefer sadness. They say, “No, I don’t want to be sad, I don’t want to be depressed,” even though they are depressed. As a matter of fact, they insist that they don’t want to be depressed. But if joy is available to them, there must be a preference for sorrow, or depression, or sadness. Something prefers it!
The problem is that we don’t think totality. So people say, “It is just a part of me, but not me”. We think dividedly. The nature of thought is divisive. We are not judging this as good, bad, or indifferent; we are just saying that we function that way.
We talk about transcendence; it has been talked about for many hundreds of years — transcending duality, transcending the opposites — but people continue being happy, or unhappy. I don’t care how much transcendence we talk about, people are still depressed, unhappy—or they are elated—and so we continue to function in opposites.
I do not know exactly what Kahlil Gibran had in mind — whether he was talking about emotions, or actually a different dimension of consciousness. Emotions are a certain dimension of consciousness, and they go up and down, and they are in opposites. That’s the prevalent consciousness of humanity, and the prevalent consciousness of humanity is definitely in opposites and duality. The way the Gibran speaks, which is similar to a Zen or Buddhist philosophy, sorrow and joy are not opposites. The Taoists also look at it that way; Lao-Tzu certainly talked that way. Sorrow is not without joy, and joy is not without sorrow.
But do we understand, deeply, what that means...? Do we experience, deeply, the truth of that? Or do we, in our daily living, just feel very down, or very up? Or, a little bit down, or a little bit up...? Or do we experience a sense of well being, where up and down just happen, simply happen, while remaining balanced, as a general way of being?
I daresay, that sense of well being, which we call joy — not this kind of joy (Ms. Dantes makes a forced smile) but the true joy — is a different dimension of consciousness than the consciousness of emotions, which are experienced in opposite extremes. We call a transcendent kind of dimension of consciousness a consciousness beyond emotions.
So to be beyond the opposites, one must be totally aware of the opposites as division, and experience ourselves as being divided. Most of the time we want to experience ourselves as being in unity, and this person (pointing to herself) is saying: experience division. For it is in this experience of division that the unity exists — just like sorrow and joy — there is no separation. But we are so certain in our brains, and through our conditioning, that we are divided, that we have to look at the reality of our division in order to experience the unity that we are. It is to see the falseness of the “false”, and the illusion of our “division”. You can’t see the illusion until you experience the truth of how real that is to us.
And if you are in division, and you see that division, then you begin to experience the totality. Nobody can teach you to do that! I don’t care what kinds of techniques you have, a technique is not going to do it! You may choose a technique; you may have a technique that you prefer, and utilize that technique, that’s all right. But don’t let somebody tell you that their technique is better than yours. You follow your wisdom and use your technique, knowing that it isn’t the technique, but just a way of managing and de-conditioning yourself — provided that you don’t condition yourself over again with a new way. Techniques are useful, but they are not it. Your wisdom is it; not some other person’s wisdom, but your own.