Shadow Self series..

Light and Dark in its purest form

The concept of light indeed has the concept of “not light”, or darkness, built into it, just like “yes” implies the existence of “no”, “up” the existence of “down” and so on. However, these implied dualistic counterparts are mainly conceptual. The concept of light implies dark, but that doesn’t preclude light without the existence of darkness in experience.

 

A dualistic concept or idea implies the existence of its opposites since our conceptual thinking is relative, but the actual existence of the thing the concept points to does not necessarily do so.

 

As for good and evil, does good exist? Is there an objective of “good” that exists today? If yes, or no, then what is the object of “bad”; Good is relative, and something that only exists conceptually, which by definition could be applied to “bad”.

 

Is a dark place always an evil paradigm or a ‘bad’ environment where negativity thrives? Or  can it be that the dark is waiting peacefully to be enlightened?!

 

In the “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato describes that when one, who has been in the darkness for a long period of time, comes out to the light it burns their eyes and they run back to the cave. So in a sense, the darkness is their light and is their “good” while the light that burned their eyes is perceived to be evil.

 

The notion of the dark and the light coexisting is a debate that has raged on for many years. It can be suggested that the role of the light or ‘the good’ is to simply destroy, squash and rid us of the dark ‘the bad’. Is it really that simple, is that at all necessary or have we misinterpreted the role of the dark and of the light?!

 

The Yin/Yang effect of dark and light suggest one cannot live without the other. Yin and Yang carries two principles, one negative, dark, and feminine (yin), and one positive, light and masculine (yang), whose interaction influences the destinies of creatures and things.

So why do we seek to destroy the dark?

If we are to escape or reshape the boundaries we place on our own existence we would discover that the true universe considers dark and light to be yin and yang, and that, beings that we call “benevolent” (light) coexist with beings we call “malevolent” (dark) and that there are very many shades between.

 

If we were to reshape our perception of light and dark could it be that being peaceful and friendly coexisting with people and objects that we despise, would this really cause our evolved primitive minds so much distress?!

 

What about light and dark in its purest form? Away from the ideology of good vs evil, light and dark simply need each other! Does the light nourish the darkness and does the darkness love the light? Darkness is usually described simply as the absence of light; this description also works well as a physical description. Therefore they need to coexist to survive.

 

“I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars.”

 

The dark and the light, they exist side by side, sometimes overlapping but most importantly one explaining and making sense of the other. Metaphorically the darkened path is as illuminated as the lightened, one truly needs the other to survive, coexistence is necessary to see the beauty of both!