Qualities

[Guest guest]

We know that life, aka Maya, is full of qualities. The quality of

opposites is the most prevalent.

 

For example up and down, hot and cold, east and west, etc.

 

I have realized however, that there are qualities which rise above the

physical plain. These are qualitites that have no opposite. One has to

wonder why do such qualitites exist? And the answer I now know is: these

are qualities of Goddess.

 

Take for example the concept of peace.

 

"Oh. Oh. But Brian!" You shout, "The opposite of Peace is war!"

 

Or you may say, "But surely thought is the opposite of Peace!"

 

But lets meditate on it for a second. Take a deep breath and ask yourself

what the true nature of peace is.

 

To me, Peace is complete and whole unity, with no desire to act, and no

ability to react. Peace expresses only love and nothing else.

 

In actuality, peace has no opposite, because if it did it would not be

peace it would be something other than peace. The perfect way to think

about this is to use a quality of three.

 

The Three Gunas, the three thieves. Rajas (aka Roger), Tamas, (aka

Thomas), and Satva (aka Steve).

 

Roger's a nasty bastard. He travels with his two best friends Tom, and

Steve. They are all theives, they live and work together, they are never

apart. They hide in the woods and steal from those who travel the roads

unprotected.

 

One day you are traveling these dangerous woods (called Maya) and out from

behind a tree jump these three men. Roger shouts, "give me all your energy

(aka attention)!"

 

You stop, frozen with fear, such great and powerful theives as these you

have no recourse but to offer them what they want.

 

So you pay them their dues, and they proceed to strip you of everything,

including the clothes on your back.

 

The thieves begin to argue, Roger says, "Lets kill this person!"

 

Tom says, "naw, we got everything, lets tie him up and leave!"

 

Steve says, "No. We should just go. There is no need to do anything more."

 

The three argue for a while and then decide to tie you up. They tie you

naked to a tree and then leave.

 

Later Steve returns, unties you, appologizes for his friends and runs back

into the forrest.

 

This is the classic tale of the three gunas (with my twists added).

 

Roger (Rajas) is the guna of action, anger, lust and greed.

 

Thomas (Tamas) is the guna of inaction, sloth, laziness and procrastination.

 

Steve (Satva) is the guna of balance, fairness, harmony, and happiness.

 

Each of them will rob us of our energy / attention and the only recourse

we have is place them at three corners of a triangle and plant ourselves

directly in the middle away from them all of them, but facing them so we

can see what they are doing. That's what the triangle - dot yantra

symbolizes to me.

 

The center of that triangle, the bindu, is peace. It is beyond the gunas,

beyond the qualities of three and the opposites.

 

Peace is a concept beyond all of the universe, beyond reality, beyond Maya

herself. (Not that Maya can't experience peace mind you, she just chooses

not to.)

 

Let me hit this from a different angle. What is the opposite of war?

 

Ever contemplate it?

 

I feel that repression is the opposite of war. War is expressed anger.

Repression is the opposite of that. Each is about anger and anger is not

peace.

 

I have come to understand that opposites are really just opposite

reactions to the same affliction. Hot and cold are opposite reactions to

the vibration of molecules. Each just describes a vibration. Thus they are

actually just about the vibration, it is the mind that says, that is hot

or that is cold.

 

Another example: people who are drawn to addiction have pretty much the

same kind of affliction as those who decry it and crusade against it. I

think both are driven by fear or pain. Addiction is often a desire to end

pain. Looking for a quick fix to a problem that is actually created by the

mind. People who campain against addiction (as opposed to campaining for

peace which is completely different but still not really trying to be

peaceful because there is no campaining for peace when one is at peace).

So people who campain against addiction often have similar pain and use

their addiction to stopping addiction to avoid feeling the pain. Both are

afflictions, they are just opposite reactions to the same affliction.

 

When I first started contemplating love so many years ago, I wondered what

the opposite of love is. Is it hate? Is it rejection? So many

possibilities.

 

I have come to realize that love is another quality of Goddess that

expresses no true opposite in her creation. Love is another quailty that

lies beyond Maya. Its expressed in Maya but is not actually of Maya. Kinda

like us in that regard.

 

Love and Peace are two principals I have found that are beyond the law of

opposites. They exist beyond it because they are completely separate from

the universe itself, or to put it another way, they permiate everything

in the universe equally, and thus cannot have an opposite.

 

What other qualities do you feel are beyond the law of opposites, and can

be ascribed to Maa Herself? What other pointers are there in life that

point to her and not to illusion?

 

Its wonderful to have a place to discuss this and learn.

 

Love.