Yin Yang: The ancient philosophy of balance and harmony
Explained Philosophically, Psychologically & Mathematically
When people see things as beautiful, ugliness is created.
When people see things as good, evil is created.
As there cannot be a shadow without light.
Chinese call this Yin Yang — The Dance of Opposites
Which can be explained philosophically, psychologically & mathematically:
In Ancient Chinese philosophy, yin and yang is the idea of dualism, that opposite or contrary forces can be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world.
Yin symbolises as feminine and passive. It represents the energy of Earth and Moon. It has a mixture of being dark, cool, soft, still & contemplative.
Yang is portrayed as masculine & active. It represents the energy of sun. It is described as energetic, expansive & warm.
If you notice the symbol of yin yang, it doesn’t has a fully black side set against a completely white side.
The white has a bit of black and the black has a bit of white in it.
So basically, yin elements can contain certain parts of yang & yang can have some components of yin.
Like in men & women.
Men have a certain feminine quota and women tend to have a certain masculine quota. It’s not enough to overpower them but there are hints of it present in them.
In their natural element, Yang is stronger during the day when the sun is out and Yin takes over at night when the moon comes to play.
Like in females, their feminine nature will take dominance and in men, their masculine nature will take dominance.
The philosophy also believes that there is a higher power in the universe, ‘the way’
And ‘the way’ instead of being all good (yin) or all bad (yang), is a little bit of both.
It’s similar to how the Gods in Indian scriptures & Greek mythology succumb to the same emotions as humans do — greed, lust, power, jealousy, love, faith etc.
Neither yin nor yang is absolute — as in nothing is completely black or white.
The kindest person you know has freckles of cruelty in them,
The happiest person you know had their depressive moments at home,
The gentlest soul is filled with rage about that one thing.
There is no purity of any kind.
It’s a trap to think of life as only good or life is just cruel.
Because holding onto one part of this duality in nature creates a dam for the other part.
Which eventually leads to a flood of chaos.
The wisdom of the Yin-Yang is to see how a world without light would be hell but so would a world with constant daylight.
Yin and Yang have a constellation of philosophical beliefs which is rooted in 3 principles.
1/ The Principle of change
Reality is in a state of flux which means that something can change form positive to negative on the demands of reality at any given moment.
Think of it as a TV Show character swinging from victim to villain & then back to victim.
2/ The Principle of Contradiction
Everything in the universe is composed of opposite simultaneously existing elements.
You see, elements and forces come in pairs
- sun-moon
- masculine-feminine
- light and dark
- hot and cold
- pull and push
- creation and destruction
The opposing forces in nature rely on each other to exist like action and reaction.
If your walking wasn’t counterbalanced by friction, you wouldn’t have been able to walk.
3/ The Principle of Holism
Everything is connected.
Nothing exists in isolation.
You will never be able to see the complete truth without looking at the entire, interconnected web of experiences and events.
And if you want to do so, you have to let go of the idea of categorizing everything as right & wrong.
Yin-yang is not only important for balance but also for keeping the good and bad at each other toes.
If good is needed in this world then evil is needed just as much.
To keep the good polished, as in to make the good, better.
The contradiction between good and evil ups both their level and in retrospect ups the level of humanity.
Now Universe is a beautiful thing that can be explained by Mathematics right?
As Galileo Galilei said, ‘Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe.’
In maths, the symbol of yin yang is equivalent to the golden ratio.
x-1/x =1
which represents the principle that maximally opposing tendencies complement one another & form a unity.
Just like how the two opposite sides have the same shape in symbol.
One side is the negation and inversion of the other side, but this can’t be done with just any shape.
Not every shape can be inverted and then added to itself to form a perfect circle that represents unity.
Golden ratio is a number in mathematics that equals to 1.61833…
This number is special because it is the corner stone of spiral geometry which is seen everywhere in nature.
Yin Yang is the idea that there is duality to everything.
But it’s not a conflict between two rivals.
Instead, there is this balance to be found in their contrast.
Yin and yang are interdependent, the definition of one requires for the definition of the other to be complete.
Each point contains the beginning of the other aspect.
It’s how the day becomes night & then night becomes day.
Yin and yang is also not static, it flows and changes with time,
Think of day and night. The day flows into the night.
Sometimes Yin & yang transform into one another to counter balance nature.
Some species of fish have females that transform into males when the population of males isn’t enough.
It’s similar to how we grow because of the problems we face.
For eg — let’s say a person is going through a mid-life crisis (this would be yang)
The challenges of the crisis push the person to seek wholeness again (that would be yin)
In striving to be whole against the crisis the person experiences a transformation & becomes better & unlocks new levels of themselves.
Now if the person rejects the crisis, they would be at a certain disadvantage as they won’t get to go from crisis to transformation.
So what does this mean for you?
Firstly, don’t reject the crisis and secondly, have aspects of both good and bad in you.
Be the person who is kind but also not a doormat that anyone can walk over.
As Patrick Jane in The Mentalist said,
“It’s all about the balance, Grace. Yin, Yang. Nice, bitch.
Little bit of bitch inside the nice, a little bit of nice inside the bitch.”
Thanks for Reading!
