May 22nd, 2008 by SeanPartitioning Reality
Being human, we like to divide reality into different sections.
There is day time, and night time. There is the weekday, and the weekend. There are people with lighter skin, and darker skin. This mentality of cutting reality in half has a name - it’s called: duality.
Dualistic thoughts can be very useful. After all, if I want to drive from Maryland to Georgia, it’s good to know whether I’m on the correct road, or incorrect road. However, a lot of times we use dualistic thinking incorrectly, or trust in it too much.
The problem is this: There is one, and only one, reality. Thinking dualistically is in direct contradiction to that ultimate truth. Is it ever really a weekend? No. It’s just the continuous stream of time. If you go to mars, are there weekends there? No. Therefore, a “weekend” is not something that is a part of reality. It’s just a human thing we do - we divide reality arbitrarily, and label the divisions.
How does this affect us? Well, there’s a popular thought that is dualistic in nature, that I talk a lot about: “If you want to become good at psychic abilities, you must practice.”
Hiding behind this thought is a partitioned reality. Now, that doesn’t mean the thought is useless. Clearly there is some truth in there, because people who practice psychic abilities do become more proficient. But ultimately - the thought has some inherent falsehoods because it’s reliant on cutting reality in half.
There are a lot of cuts the thought makes, but the one I want to discuss is that it divides experiences into either natural or supernatural. Encoded inside of “practice psychic abilities to get better” is the thought that your current experiences are mostly “natural”, and if you want more “supernatural” ones, you need to practice.
This is the falsehood inside the thought. An experience is neither natural or supernatural. An experience is just an experience! Reality doesn’t go around, observing events, judging whether something was bizarre or not - humans do! Reality doesn’t give two shits, and just does what it does. This division between everyday life, and some awesome and profound paranormal experience, only exists in our mind.
Usually dualism isn’t too bad. In some cases it can be very dangerous, like racism, religion, or selfishness. Dualism serves the purpose of helping us understand things in human terms. But it’s vitally important to remember that when we are thinking dualistically, it’s only out of the necessity to break things down to our level, and NEVER a reflection of how reality actually functions. Reality isn’t dualistic. Reality is one.
Only use dualistic thinking in order to serve yourself. Never enforce your arbitrary divisions on reality itself. Reality doesn’t care about whether YOU think an experience is natural or supernatural. So get over it, and start seeing the beautiful in the ugly, the love in the fear, and the supernatural in the natural.