You can't have one without the other?

Greetings..

Originally Posted by Greenslade

That's something that has puzzled me for a long time. If there was no dark, would we truly understand the Light? Would we question its nature or would we never give it a second thought, thereby not understand it and not be Enlightened? How different is the experience of all sunshine and roses to one that has known pain? Knowledge is one thing but understanding is something different and perhaps understanding is Enlightenment. Does knowing something exists mean you are Enlightened, or does the understanding through experience Enlighten you?

Perhaps that rocky road to true Enlightenment is about questioning and gaining an understanding from the answers that come of experience. Are you Enlightened because you know there is the Light, or are you Enlightened because you have experienced the dark and that experience gives you a better understanding of the Light?

You express your understandings nicely, i will share my understandings, too.. 'knowing' is the awareness of conditions, relationships, and happenings, sometimes from sources unknown, such as insight.. but, as you say, it becomes 'knowledge or understanding (i use the terms interchangeably) through Experience.. i sometimes comment that "i don't understand everything i know".. it is often the case that people, and even teachers, read or are told of conditions, relationships, or happenings, usually 'belief systems', and retell these stories without actually experiencing or understanding what it 'is' that the message 'points to'.. when this occurs through generations, the retelling of stories, it becomes tradition.. and so, people defend a tradition without having any actual understanding of its meaning..

People hear stories that have been told for hundreds and thousands of years, stories that have become venerable 'traditions', but.. at the source, these 'stories' represent one person's understanding and knowledge, they represent one person's experience of their relationship with Life.. it is this 'Experience' that is the source of knowledge and understanding, the the retelling of stories like 'non-duality' are evidence of no direct experience with the subject of the story.. there is no experience that reveals an actual condition 'known' as non-duality, to experience it requires an experiencer and that which is experienced.. the defenders of the belief in non-duality will tell you that the experiencer and the experieced are 'one', rendering the terms useless, actually.. but, what is understood after direct experience is that there is an inherent relationship between all manifestations of existence.. the experience and understanding requires that there is a 'relationship'..

The question is asked, regarding 'enlightenment', and i have no 'experience' of that 'story'.. its meaning is so different among those that want to believe the tradition of enlightened beings, that i simply can't experience all of the meanings to arrive at an understanding, so.. i set it aside to see what 'happens'..

If there was only Light and never darkness, never shades of different lightness brighter or dimmer, why would it be named 'Light', as we are already certain of the contrasting principle of Darkness? There is no condition that exists without comparison to something other than itself, if there were we couldn't perceive it or name it, or even experience it.. the notion that there is not a contrasting principle is speculation based on the desire to believe a 'story', but not on actual experience.. by definition, our own existence is that by which all else is compared, the comparison is experienced through our relationship with existence..

Be well..

Thank you, Tzu, and I'm with you all the way on this one. You might as well be reflecting my own thoughts there.

Perhaps those traditions made sense 'way back when' but do they make as much sense today? Very few of them do it seems, but then that is for those that perpetuate them. Being brutally honest, there's a part of me that wants to scream out over some things but then there's a part of me (most of it) that's still very human.

Duality and Separation co-exist, a relationship in itself. We have a relationship with both and so the Universe weaves its tangled web while we perpetuate the myths that both actually exist. But is there a contrasting principle or is that contrasting principle simply relative to where we choose to place our feet? Humans seem to like the idea that there are absolutes, but I enjoy the paradox that there are absolutely no absolutes. I feel a new thread coming on :-)

But isn't that what the Universe is all about? We gain our understanding through comparing and contrasting according to our own perspective, but when we think in absolutes does that then evolve into Duality and Separation and thereby creating its existence? If we look at a rainbow there is no separation between one colour and the next. Each colour exists individually but somewhere in between there's the fuzzy area where they blend into each other. Perhaps that's an over-simplistic view of the Universe but for me, simple is good. And from that single seed of simplicity comes the complexity of it all. We see one colour of the rainbow because we separate this colour from the next, choosing to ignore the fuzzy area between. But if we look at the whole of the rainbow then we see the different colours and the fuzzy areas. Bringing that up it becomes a part of the visible light spectrum, which is.........

Bringing that back to the OP, pain and pleasure are colours of the rainbow, we can see one colour because there is another colour next to it. But if we look closely enough, there are shades in between. In our linear thinking we see opposites, but then do we dare enough to see it as a part of the whole light spectrum and not so opposite after all? Are there opposites causing Duality and Separation or is it something we use to assist our perspective?

The saying of "you can't have pleasure unless you experience suffering" is kinda true...

But here is my view. How would we appreciate pleasure and happiness, if we didn't know the downside? Having joy and happiness 24/7, what would we compare it to? I'm only slightly happy today? Yesterday I was 90% happy.

I believe that in order to really know happiness, we have had to muck through some sort of drama/**** in our lives to appreciate the good times.

Originally Posted by Medium_Laura

would we appreciate pleasure and happiness, if we didn't know the downside? Having joy and happiness 24/7, what would we compare it to?

There are lots of variations of pleasure and happiness.

There's the pleasure of achievement.
There's relating to people.
There's aesthetic appreciation: painting, music, sculpture, countryside, birds & animals.
There's delight in how someone's mind works.
There's appreciating a book, a film, a story etc.
Then there's all the sensory pleasures: food, sex etc.
Then there's all the higher states of bliss: love, peace, joy, feeling blessed, connection to the infinite.

Yogananda wrote about the "infinite ocean of bliss" and "The soul's nature is Bliss, a lasting inner state of ever new, ever changing joy that eternally bestows Bliss that does not fade. One who has been made blissful by this joy of the soul, finds that the Bliss endures, even when he is passing through trials of physical suffering or death."

You can keep your fear, guilt & sadness. I'll settle for this.

Greetings..

Originally Posted by Aquarian

There are lots of variations of pleasure and happiness.

There's the pleasure of achievement.
There's relating to people.
There's aesthetic appreciation: painting, music, sculpture, countryside, birds & animals.
There's delight in how someone's mind works.
There's appreciating a book, a film, a story etc.
Then there's all the sensory pleasures: food, sex etc.
Then there's all the higher states of bliss: love, peace, joy, feeling blessed, connection to the infinite.

Yogananda wrote about the "infinite ocean of bliss" and "The soul's nature is Bliss, a lasting inner state of ever new, ever changing joy that eternally bestows Bliss that does not fade. One who has been made blissful by this joy of the soul, finds that the Bliss endures, even when he is passing through trials of physical suffering or death."

You can keep your fear, guilt & loathing. I'll settle for this.

There's another guy with a strange sounding foreign name than wrote some stuff that is pretty dark and depressing.. i could 'choose' to settle for his version of existence, but.. i'll just keep paying attention and let my curiosity reveal what 'is' happening here and now..

Be well..

Every action creates an equil and opposite reaction......

For instance, if the christian god , is totaly jsut and perfect, he wouldve aslo had to have been non perfect...

We are learning that the universe is running on contradictions (chaos), which creates harmony ( what we see as harmony)

Originally Posted by TzuJanLi

If there was only Light and never darkness, never shades of different lightness brighter or dimmer, why would it be named 'Light'

Why does it have to be named?

Originally Posted by TzuJanLi

There is no condition that exists without comparison to something other than itself

What about the example that I have of the new-born baby.

To recap:

Is a newborn baby unable to enjoy the comforting experience of their mothers touch and caress unless they are correspondingly beaten as well? Will the baby only develop a distaste for being physically hit only after it has experienced the warmth of a mother's loving embrace? This would be necessary so that that the new-born can properly compare the two experiences and develop the necessary conceptual framework to establish experiential value, and thus, what experiences he/she finds pleasing versus displeasing?

If there were we couldn't perceive it or name it, or even experience it..

You are conflating the "naming" of something with the perception/experience of it. Completely different.

the notion that there is not a contrasting principle is speculation based on the desire to believe a 'story', but not on actual experience..

I'm not sure if that is related to my OP. I never stated that there is not (what can be called) a contrasting principle. I merely stated that the contrasting principle has nothing to do with the experience of its "opposite".

Originally Posted by Greenslade

Bringing that back to the OP, pain and pleasure are colours of the rainbow, we can see one colour because there is another colour next to it.

Granted, this seems coherent at first, until you truly contemplate it and break it down and then it dissolves.

Greetings..

Originally Posted by LIFE

Granted, this seems coherent at first, until you truly contemplate it and break it down and then it dissolves.

So, the baby can only appreciate the loving touch of the mother if it is punctuated with periods of its opposite?

The baby doesn't 'appreciate' anything.. appreciation is a value judgement based on hierarchies of desirability, the baby has no understanding of the word 'appreciation', and us projecting our 'values' onto that relationship is not valid.. it is reasonable to speculate that the baby desires its mother's affections based periods of her absence or periods when she is distracted by other events, in other words 'comparisons'..

Comparison need not be an 'opposite', as you would have the conversation be perceived, but.. as i stated, "There is no condition that exists without comparison to something other than itself".. 'opposite' suggests agents acting in opposition against each other, which is not the point i intended to illustrate.. it is my intention to illustrate the existence of contrasting principles that act in unison to create experiencable relationships, and.. that the existence of independently observable and experiencable conditions act to create references for comparison and relationships.. so, in the reference of the baby, we see the contented baby AND we see the crying baby.. which is how we conclude that the baby appreciates its mother's loving touch..

Be well..

Greetings..

Originally Posted by LIFE

Why does it have to be named?



What about the example that I have of the new-born baby.

To recap:





You are conflating the "naming" of something with the perception/experience of it. Completely different.




I'm not sure if that is related to my OP. I never stated that there is not (what can be called) a contrasting principle. I merely stated that the contrasting principle has nothing to do with the experience of its "opposite".

I was also questioning the 'naming' of something that has no comparison to justify a name..

I am not conflating anything.. you are seeking to justify your faltering beliefs.. The quotes you use to reference your belief that am 'conflating naming with perceiving/experiencing' are non-sequiturs, they do not logically arrive at the statement you wish was accurately referenced.. now, to be more clear, in order to 'name' something it must be experiencable, which is not the case with a condition that is believed to exist without comparison.. so, there is a relationship between the 'naming of something' and the experiencing of that 'something'..

Be well..