Life and Death: Pairs of Opposites and The Golden Mean

By Akhil Chandra

We live in a world of opposites where gain and loss, good and bad, pleasure and pain, life and death are as inevitable as the two sides of a coin. Yet, there is an underlying unity between the two contrasts.

One of the principal polarities in life is the one between the male and female side of human nature. The sublime union between these two aspects is symbolised by Lord Siva's depiction as a dynamic unification of the two, as the half-male, half-female Ardhanareeshwar.

In real life, too, there is a constant dynamic interplay between the two extremes of opposites and one has to strike a balance between the two. For this, we need to maintain a balance between good and bad, between winning and losing, and so on. This will help us to follow the path of right conduct in an unattached and fearless manner.

In modern science, existence of opposite extremes in nature is best described by the concept of positively and negatively charged particles of matter which combine during chemical reaction to achieve neutrality. Mathematically, also, equal positive and negative values add up to zero, mingling into oneness. The simple rhythmic motion of a pendulum has two opposite extremes of movement.

The same principle is widely visible in the nature of day and night, light and darkness, heat and cold. According to Indian thought also opposites are merely two sides of the same reality and can ultimately be reconciled in a single whole.

The Bhagavad Gita asks us to lead the unattached life of a self-controlled man, a karma yogi unmoved by pairs of opposites: "The Supreme Spirit is rooted in the knowledge of the self-controlled man whose mind is perfectly serene in the midst of pairs of opposites, such as cold and heat, joy and sorrow and honour and ignominy."

Chinese sages called this dynamic interplay of two extremes as Ying and Yang - positive and negative - and have extended this thought extensively to the function of daily life.

The Sufi saw merging of opposites in the unity of Brahman, the world-soul, and Atman, the individual soul. The path to enlightenment, then, involves the realisation of this and moving beyond it, to where one sees everything as part of the ultimate reality. Sufism says that it is not very important to distinguish between two opposites. It is more important to recognise that One that is hidden, and opposites are simply the manifestation of a basic oneness.

Sufis believed that the 'real' world ( maya ) is made up of opposites and is illusory ( mithya ). The philosophy of unification of opposites is omnipresent in Indian thought. The word 'yoga' comes from the Sanskrit word Yuj meaning to join or unite. It is the union of all aspects of the individual body, mind and soul. Hence, yoga reunites all opposites - mind and body, stillness and movement, masculine and feminine - in order to bring about re-conciliation between them.

For everything there is a complementary part representing the other part of extreme. In our daily life we should reconcile the play of opposites. This will allow us the possibility of accommodating widely divergent human experiences in an underlying harmony, bringing newer prospects and ethical views for the exploration and mitigation of human suffering.

If we adopt the complementary approach to problems we may discover to our pleasant surprise that seemingly irreconcilable points of view need not be contradictory but can make possible the striking of a balance between extremes. You cannot always win or lose or be happy or sad - so go on, find the Golden Mean.

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See also: Life and Death, Life and Beyond, Death and Dying, Body Mind and Soul)