On Dualism

DREAM that I was in a church building, my old church but not physically the same. I was on the second floor in a big hall kind of room. My sister was with me. I was cleaning out the piano bench. It was full of papers that had been left stuffed in there over time, like kids’ handiwork from Sunday school. I was aware of other things going on in various other places on the premises, like over there in another room there was a meeting or some kind of voting taking place, and the PA system was paging for Michelle Coby to go to that room, and I thought, oh, Michelle’s family has changed their last name. I was also supposed to be somewhere else but I didn’t want to be there.

As I cleaned I happened to glance out the window into the yard downstairs and saw that the kids were playing. They were in some kind of a boat or sled, although I couldn’t see anyone or anything pulling them, boys in one boat, girls in another. I said to my sister, the girls are so much cuter, because the boys were scruffy and untidy. Then I looked around the room which was bright with large windows, a few things on the wall but generally clean and neat. I thought about the room in the basement which was windowless and smaller and full of clutter. The basement was not directly under the part of the building I was in, it was in another wing.

DREAMWORK:

This dream seems to be about contrast, comparison, opposites: neat vs. untidy, girls vs. boys, light vs. dark, space vs. clutter, above vs. below; also making choices or voting. My sister shadow was with me, so there’s some things here I am not conscious of yet.

I am still seeing things in a dualistic light, making judgments as such. Light is still better than dark, order better than chaos, feminine better than masculine, etc. Even though in a deeper place I know that the whole animal has both sides, is only one continually changing and moving whole. This divisionistic, reductionistic view is more than a view, it is a deep seated belief in me, in the society I grew up in and still live in. The church is all about right or wrong, good or evil, heaven or hell. The keyword is ‘or’. You can only be one or the other, never both, never neither. In that one little word, ‘or’, there is a chasm from here to eternity, and you are forever banished from ‘the other side’ once you made your choice. At least that’s what the church has us believe. In that gap there is an ocean of fear, and you will surely drown if you try to cross it. With this fear the church has dominion over you.

In the dream, even though I chose to be where I was supposed to be, I was still in the church, under its rule and influences. Just as I am in real life. I’ve left the physical church, but here I am, still judging and condemning by pointing my finger – this is good, that is bad; this is beautiful, so that must be ugly. Definitely stunted and immature.

How do I healing myself of this then? By changing my last name, my family name, that which I’ve identified with since birth. I just remembered, Coby is the brand name of something I saw on some electronic equipment yesterday, and at first glance I thought it said Sony, but it was actually Coby. I wondered to myself whether they chose the name because it looked like Sony in a hurry. (It is actually a joint venture between a Hong Kong company and one in New York, and the owner is a Korean named Lee Young Dong. Interesting that Michelle’s real last name is Lee. Apparently the logo font is the same as Sony, so that’s why I had that first impression. They came up with Coby by dropping letters from the word ‘cowboy’.)

So, coming up with a name that echoes in some way my old name, but something new and youthful (Somehow I think of Coby as younger than Sony, with more energy and movement, but perhaps less stability? Sony being a symbol of established order and standard?) to grow from and build my own identity. This is about the part of my identity I want to show in the world. It is who I am, but not all of who I am. I will put all of who I am into it, however it may appear on the outside. (I am refining this for my own understanding – of myself – as I go.)

I ask my ancestors now, for help with finding this new name that is still part of them, and will also embrace the new me that will be revealed. This is a name for the new me who embodies oneness, who sees and holds everything as a whole, without fear or the need for approbation. I will leave this with you, my ancestors. I am grateful.

I want to be wisely discerning, without becoming narrowly judgmental. I want to have the courage and openness to embrace chaos and destruction and dirt, when that’s for the highest good. Being that this is an important underpinning of Daoism – nondualism – I am sure to learn a lot as I continue on this path, the pathless path, as Osho called it. I guess it is because of its formless nature that I resonate but at the same time feel intimidated by it. Much of who I am is formless, as if lacking boundary, yet I’ve spent so much of my life so far trying to have form, to con-form I suppose, to my own deep unhappiness. But this IS my form, this formlessness. I am happiest when I am in need of no armouring of any kind, just playing in creativity with kindred spirits. Like when I used to play in a band or music ensemble, feeling effortlessly in the flow, carried by the current of Life underneath, AND in great company.

But I see now that I need to change the way I hold things in black-and-white absolutes, before I can see past it to become one with all.

Reading Osho’s “Maturity: The Responsibility of Being Oneself” now. All I can say so far, is that I wish I had read it sooner…