The Illusion of Separation.
by Diego Alcaraz Poletti.
According to the Britannica, Dualism in philosophy is known as the use of two heterogeneous principles to analyze the knowing process as is the epistemological dualism, or to explain all of reality or a great aspect of it as it is metaphysical dualism. Some examples of epistemological dualism are being and thought, subject and object, and sense datum (what is given to see) and thing; examples of the latter on the other hand are God and the world, matter and spirit, body and mind, and good and evil.
This perspective from where we can judge all of reality has been around since the early Sankhya and Yoga schools of Hindu philosophy. Due to the dynamic nature of culture, this knowledge has been going around and being adopted by different civilizations through their great thinkers. Plato and Aristotle were the closest ones to the western world to start conceiving the preconceptions needed to understand these ideas. With Plato’s theory of Forms, we understood that distinct and immaterial substances of which the objects and other phenomena that we perceive in the world are nothing more than mere shadows. He argued that for the intellect to understand these ideas (all kinds of information and not just the material before the eyes), the mind must be a non-physical, immaterial entity.
Dualism is also used to describe the separation between our subjective conscious experience and the external world which we are experiencing; that feeling that we are a separate entity from others and the world, and this is translated at any level, to the fundamental belief that we are separate from Nature and from the Divine. Dualism led to the belief that everything is made of different, independent elements that coexist but unrelate to each other at deeper levels.
Einstein once said that “the greatest illusion in this world is the illusion of separation” Things that seem to be separate and different are actually one and the same. We are all one nation, but we live as if divided. We are all connected, and everything is connected, yet we treat nature as if we can simply replace or as if it is alien to us.
According to the hermetic philosophy “the principle of polarity is: Everything is dual; Everything has poles; Everything has its pair of opposites; Like and unlike are the same; Opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; Extremes meet; All truths, are but half-truths; All paradoxes may be reconciled” so at this point we understand that opposites are just two extremes of the same thing but in different frequencies, to illustrate, we have hot and cold, complete opposites but just in degree.
Allan Kardec, founder of the spiritist doctrine, stated in his studies that the soul is an intricate spirit, and the body is only its envelope. He also wrote that humans are composed of three things: first, the body or material being, similar to that of the animals and animated by the same vital principle; second, the soul or immaterial being, the spirit incarnated in the body; and third, the link that unites the soul to the body, an intermediary principle between the body and spirit.
Many cultures and religions across time have identified these three elements that allow the perfect balance for God to manifest in the material. Whether we are all part of the dream of a great conscience, or just matter going through infinite space, in the end we are all part of one cosmic equation that knows no ends and no beginnings. It is said that we are the universe experiencing itself, I am of the belief that the process of cognition is the perfect balance that this holy trinity of body, mind and spirit allows us to experience. Many great thinkers throughout time have come to the same realization of this balance of three elements; Matter, spirit, and thought; Feminine, Masculine and one; Father, mother, and child; Father, son, and holy spirit. Furthermore, it is worth to mention the triquetra symbol which has the goal of showcasing the power of three and connectedness of all things, it represents the sun the moon and the planet; birth, life, death; birth, death, rebirth; earth, air, water; earth, sea, sky; past, present, future; and father, mother, and child.
Many of the issues we face in the present as humankind are due to the illusory idea of separation. We harm others and ourselves because we see ourselves to be separate from the things we are conquering or damaging. Wars, famine, genocide, are all consequences of the failure we are reaping from ego projected in the most negative way. We fail to see the responsibility in our actions and praise or condemn the divine for every victory or every defeat. We ask God for miracles, and blame the devil for our mistakes, we require nature for resources, we consume, create, and destroy without empathy and without gratitude. All these things are seen from a limiting perspective. We must learn to go beyond our limited beliefs to see the connection between all things and our place and role in the great complexity of life. We don’t know ourselves to depth and this is what leads to the idea that we can find answers in the external. Unknowing that through self-discovery and introspection we can better understand ourselves and thus, better understand the outside world. I once read that there are no outside forces called God or Satan controlling us. Good and evil are our own spiritual awareness or the lack of it. Transcending duality is realizing that God and Satan are one and the same, us. In this way, I came to the conclusion that we are beings capable of matching the vibration of all kinds of frequencies, the less we know ourselves, the lower our vibration is, and the more separate we become from ourselves, others, and the environment; and the higher we raise our vibration the closer we are to the frequency of love, from that perspective we see the uniting point of all things and we understand empathy and compassion. Judgement is dissipated from our perspective, and we only have room for appreciation and gratitude.
