du-al-i-ty (noun) 1. something consisting of two parts - a situation or nature that has two states or parts that are complementary or opposed to each other.
Have you ever heard the phrase, "Angel on one shoulders and the devil on the other?" I have been sitting with this concept for many reasons lately. One reason is because of different situations, which have come up in my own life, and the other reason is because of many clients and students who have honestly shared their own dualities of their lives. What I have come to realize is that we all have duality's we carry within us. The good and the bad, the peaceful and the angry, the happy and the sad, the in control and out of control, the aware and the unaware, the light and the dark, the confident and the unconfident, the rich mentality and the poor mentality, the balanced and the unbalanced, the mature and the immature, the openness and the closed off, the brave and the scared, the passive and the aggressive, the stable and the unstable, the creative and the uncreative, the believer and the non-believer, the deserving and the undeserving. This list could never stop and I am sure you could create a new list for yourself.
A client came in recently to do a session with me. I asked her what she would like to work on today. She replied with, "I am not where I am suppose to be in my life, sometimes I feel enlightened and sometimes I feel like a total F@*#ing mess", I should be further along in my process of enlightenment than I am. Some days I feel like I am really on my path of self awareness, moving forward in a positive direction and then all the sudden I find myself off path and going in a whole other different directions - it is like I am on a positive path and then before I know it I am on a negative path and I am sick and tried of the roller coaster! When is this going to stop so I can always be in a state of awareness and high enlightenment?"
I have to be honest and tell you I started laughing out loud - clarifying to the client I am not laughing at you but with you. I asked the client if she believes we ever reach total awareness and enlightenment in our lives? She replied with, "We'll, Yes of course we do, isn't that what we are all striving to do"? Is it, I replied?
As Ram Dass describes in his book, "Still Here" - he talks about the Ego versus the Soul. He says the soul needs the egos lessons to learn and reach Heaven or enter into union with the Divine - a union of far more spacious context. How I interpret this is simply if we do not know what dark is we will never understand light, if we do not know what hot is we will never understand cold, if we do not know what fear is we will never understand peace. Or, how do we describe cobalt blue if we have never seen it? It is not actually blue or purple but a mixture of both- sort of…it is just cobalt and until you see it you really can't describe it.
If our soul needs the lessons of the ego, which I see as the duality of everyone’s personalities then why do we continue to always try to remove, destroy and eliminate this part of us which can be our greatest teacher within us? Isn't the key in this to embrace the duality's within us… see them - expose them - understand them and then manage them as great wise teacher who come to us to teach us our greatness lesson of life? I do not believe we ever become fully enlighten beings as long as we are living this human experience. This is what life is about - learning and realizing we are still here because we have lessons to learn and to teach others. "I believe we teach what we need to learn the most" and when we are done learning the lesson of duality and ego we will be transported to another level of existence.
Any thoughts?
In Divine Timing -
Richard Seaman
Have you ever heard the phrase, "Angel on one shoulders and the devil on the other?" I have been sitting with this concept for many reasons lately. One reason is because of different situations, which have come up in my own life, and the other reason is because of many clients and students who have honestly shared their own dualities of their lives. What I have come to realize is that we all have duality's we carry within us. The good and the bad, the peaceful and the angry, the happy and the sad, the in control and out of control, the aware and the unaware, the light and the dark, the confident and the unconfident, the rich mentality and the poor mentality, the balanced and the unbalanced, the mature and the immature, the openness and the closed off, the brave and the scared, the passive and the aggressive, the stable and the unstable, the creative and the uncreative, the believer and the non-believer, the deserving and the undeserving. This list could never stop and I am sure you could create a new list for yourself.
A client came in recently to do a session with me. I asked her what she would like to work on today. She replied with, "I am not where I am suppose to be in my life, sometimes I feel enlightened and sometimes I feel like a total F@*#ing mess", I should be further along in my process of enlightenment than I am. Some days I feel like I am really on my path of self awareness, moving forward in a positive direction and then all the sudden I find myself off path and going in a whole other different directions - it is like I am on a positive path and then before I know it I am on a negative path and I am sick and tried of the roller coaster! When is this going to stop so I can always be in a state of awareness and high enlightenment?"
I have to be honest and tell you I started laughing out loud - clarifying to the client I am not laughing at you but with you. I asked the client if she believes we ever reach total awareness and enlightenment in our lives? She replied with, "We'll, Yes of course we do, isn't that what we are all striving to do"? Is it, I replied?
As Ram Dass describes in his book, "Still Here" - he talks about the Ego versus the Soul. He says the soul needs the egos lessons to learn and reach Heaven or enter into union with the Divine - a union of far more spacious context. How I interpret this is simply if we do not know what dark is we will never understand light, if we do not know what hot is we will never understand cold, if we do not know what fear is we will never understand peace. Or, how do we describe cobalt blue if we have never seen it? It is not actually blue or purple but a mixture of both- sort of…it is just cobalt and until you see it you really can't describe it.
If our soul needs the lessons of the ego, which I see as the duality of everyone’s personalities then why do we continue to always try to remove, destroy and eliminate this part of us which can be our greatest teacher within us? Isn't the key in this to embrace the duality's within us… see them - expose them - understand them and then manage them as great wise teacher who come to us to teach us our greatness lesson of life? I do not believe we ever become fully enlighten beings as long as we are living this human experience. This is what life is about - learning and realizing we are still here because we have lessons to learn and to teach others. "I believe we teach what we need to learn the most" and when we are done learning the lesson of duality and ego we will be transported to another level of existence.
Any thoughts?
In Divine Timing -
Richard Seaman
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