Duality

In primitive cultures there is no difference between angels and demons, gods and devils. The more a culture develops, the more dualistic it becomes: heaven and underworld, light and darkness, good and evil, insight and ignorance. In our everyday culture books and films are full of duality. Almost everything which contains at least some violence, has it: the classification into the good and the bad (besides: “l’enfer se sont les autres”). Real life is not in black and white and no one is that black or that white. You can incline towards white or black, but most of us are black AND white. But also this is a restricted self-image: we are full of colours! Three thousand years ago there was written in the Mahabharata: nothing on itself is absolutely good or bad, which is still a great truth.

Darkness belongs to light, there is no light without darkness. Then why that negative feeling about the cherishing dark? Do you think black-and-white? Do you have the urge to polarize too much? What do you regard as white and what as black within yourself? Are your white and black in inner balance? Or do you experience a duality between both? Does white represents your conscience and black your needs? Or is black the result of an acute shortage of expression? Do you often deal with the feeling to have to make a difficult choice between black and white?

How do you relate to your dark side? Do you see it as an inner enemy or as a force you must learn to handle? Are you able to confront your dark side? Do they life in harmony or is there a constant struggle between those two poles for supremacy? Or do you choose for the role to be an angel and do you cover your dark side? Do you feel something screaming in yourself, something that wants to be heard? Do you have the courage to show your colours to the others, or do you prefer to hide your dark tones?

© Copyright Johan Framhout 2009