In this world we cannot have light without also having darkness, good without bad, day without night, up without down, peace without war, love without hate, equality without inequality, men without women, children without adults, power without weakness, time without timelessness, mortality without immortality, sameness without differences, change without changelessness, temporality without permanence, union without separation etc. It is impossible to conceptualize any of these pair of opposites without presupposing the existence of the other. Our world is thus a world of paradoxes, a world of opposites, and a world of contradictions. Simply stated, our world requires the simultaneous existence of good and bad!

However, despite the paradoxical nature of the world some of us find ourselves wishing for only one side of the pair of opposites to exist. I find myself wishing that the world were a loving and peaceful place. But my rational side automatically knows that for there to be love and peace that there must be hate and war. I cannot even conceptualize love and peace unless I also conceptualize what hate and war.

What does this mean? Does it mean that if pure reason is ones guide that one must acquiesce to the inevitability of war if there is peace? Yes. In this world there can be no peace unless there is also war. This means that at the political level countries must always prepare for war for their desire for peace implies that there must also be war. On earth the pair of opposites must exist; it is as simple as that and to wish for one side of the pair without also realizing that the other would follow is to be foolish. You cannot have day unless you also have night. If you have peace war will follow it; if you have love hate will follow in its train etc.

This is existential realism. Be that as it may, still one seeks a world of only love and peace. So why does one do so? It is obviously irrational to desire only peace and love when pure reason tells one that those cannot exist unless war and hate also exist.

EXISTENCE OF A WORLD OF SAMENESS

People are not stupid in wishing for only one side of the equation of good and bad to exist. What they have to do is accept that in our temporal world the pair of opposites must always exist and adjust to it; they also should accept that there is a different world, a world where the pair of opposites is reconciled.

In the world of spirit (for now take that world as a conceptual possibility) there must be absence of opposites. In spirit all things are the same, are made of the same stuff, are equal and are united.

Only the non material and the same and equal can unite. Where there are differences there can be no union.

Our world is a world of differences, therefore, there can be no permanent union, and there can only be temporary union in our world.

There are two worlds: our world of differences and another world of sameness. The individual, each of us, simultaneously lives in those two worlds. One is at the same time in the world of union and in the world of separation, in the world of spirit and in the world of matter, in the world of sameness and in the world of differences, in the world of equality and in the world of inequality. We are, as I speak, in spirit (union, sameness, equality, love, peace, happiness, permanency etc) and simultaneously in the world of its opposite, our world.

As it were, while in the world of spirit we chose to experience its opposite and somehow invented that world, our world, and find ourselves also in it.

Our earth is the world of opposites; it is so because it is designed to oppose sameness. The world exists to oppose union. Our world came into being to oppose the world of spirit (if you like you could employ the Anglo-Saxon word, God, for spirit).

As long as one accepts the reality of the world of opposites, one cannot verify the existence of the world of sameness. The only way to know that the world of sameness exists is to leave the world of pair of opposites. How do you get to experience the world of sameness?

Meditation attempts to get folks to the world of sameness. In meditation folks are encouraged to negate our world, to tune out our world and its conceptual categories and refuse to think and see anything from the perspective of this world. If the individual persists in such meditative activity he may escape from our world and enter a world where all are the same, a world where there is no subject and object, no you and non-you, no seer and seen, no space and time; in short, one enters a world of oneness which is by definition a joined world and a world of peace and joy.

In the meantime, as long as we live in our world we must accept the pair of opposites. If you work for peace you must also accept that other folks must work for war, for both peace and war must co-exist in our world.

If it were possible for only peace/love/happiness to exist in our world it would no longer be our world. A world where only peace/love/happiness exists is a world where the pair of opposites has been reconciled into a world of sameness and that world is not our empirical world.

If you love you must expect some people to hate; indeed, you must also expect to see some hate in you, for both love and hate must exist in you.

YOU MUST DO YOUR PART

The philosophy of accepting the pair of opposites could lead to cynicism and folks say, well, if the opposites must always exists it is foolish to work for peace, especially since evidence shows that those who work for war tend to be more prosperous than those who work for peace. Cynicism could dispose one to join the ranks of those who seek power, wealth and glory. Actually, this cynical approach to life is the view of political realists, such as Henry Kissinger (and before him Machiavelli, Hobbes, Metternich, Bismarck, Pareto, Stalin, Hitler etc).

As political realists see it, the world is a jungle and law is artificial. In the real world the more powerful defeat the weak, rule them and take their territories.

A powerful Rome defeated and ruled Europeans and the Mediterranean world; a powerful Europe took over the Americas , Africa and Asia .

As political realists (in International Relations, World Politics) see it, each country must prepare for war and strive for military power. In so far that there is any kind of peace in the world, it is always temporary and, at any rate, is a product of balance of power. If you are as powerful as other countries they would hesitate attacking you; conversely, if you are weak they would attack you, defeat you and take over your lands. Therefore, always prepare for war and devote the greater portion of your resources (budget) to military affairs, even if it means not providing health insurance to over 45 million Americans. Domestically, fund a strong police force, build jails and prisons in every street corner, hire punitive judges and if the people act out, arrest, try and send them to jails. Spend on internal security and ignore social welfare issues. In short, to political realists the primary function of government is security.

Make no mistake about it, political realism rules our contemporary politics. And you know what, political realists are right; they are clever but by half.

Why by half? Because it does not take extraordinary intelligence to recognize that all nations that based their rule on power eventually fall.

Let us see: Rome ruled the world for four hundred years and fell. Europe took the world and is now fallen. America is still young, only four hundred years, and probably could muddle through for another two hundred years as a superpower before historical reality relegates it to has been place for past empires.

Adolf Hitler, a practitioner of power politics, made all sorts of maniacal noises about going to be in power for a thousand years. In the meantime the superman was addicted to amphetamines and was ravaged by Parkinson disease and at age fifty six (when he blew his idiot brains out with his own pistol) he looked and felt like a man in his nineties; so much for been the most powerful cockroach in the world. (When eventually we destroy each other with our nuclear weapons cockroaches would inherit the world, so you tell me who is smarter: human beings or cockroaches?)

(Hitler had no sense of humor; if he was humorous he would have appreciated the meaninglessness, purposelessness, worthlessness and valuelessness of everything we do on earth. So we become powerful, eh? Then we die and our bodies rot and smell like shit. What kind of power is that? If only human beings were reasonable they would recognize that there is no point to their earthly existence and that to the extent that any thing in it matters at all it is love. Love all people and you know the only happiness there is in an unhappy world.)

Hitler’s mad empire lasted twelve years. The Soviet so-called communist empire lasted seventy years and is no more.

The verdict of history is that empires come and empires go; powerful people come to the world stage and make their usual noises and eventually are heard from no more.

This does not mean that folks should not pursue power. One is not sentimental at all. Folks must pursue power, for in as much as we live in a world of pair of opposites folks must pursue power if others pursue peace; the one activity cannot exist without the other.

Whereas some folks must pursue power and should, if your own calling is to pursue peace, you must do so. Pursue and teach peace if that is what you are here to do and should do.

The world of opposites needs you to pursue and teach peace and love so as to balance those who necessarily must pursue power and war. I would say that folk’s genes dispose them to doing what they do. There are those who are here to pursue power and will succeed in it and there are those who are here to seek peace and can only succeed if they pursue peaceful activities.

(I understand power politics; nevertheless, that is not my calling; my calling is to teach peace, the opposite of war. I can only succeed in teaching peace; I cannot succeed in the world of power and war. However, this does not mean that I do not accept the inevitability of power and war; I know that war and peace must co-exist in our world.)

Each of us is here to do something and must do it. Some are here to pursue power and are doing it. Let them do so for everything in their lives prepared them to seek power (and its consequence, war). We need powerful animals in the world of animals. If your own role is to seek and teach peace, you must do so. We also need peaceful animals to counter balance warring animals. Do your part and leave other folks to do their part.

There is another world, the world of spirit, a world of sameness, a place where there are no pairs of opposites and a world being, not doing (spirit dos not need to be fed or clothed hence does not have to work to produce its upkeep).

Is the world of spirit real or just a fop folks use to deceive themselves? You have to answer that question for yourself; at any rate no one can answer it for you.

If you believe that spirit does not exist and that all that matters is the here and now, so be it. Go ahead and become all powerful like Hitler and when you die, your body would be used to fertilize flower beds, as was Hitler’s body (he was burned and his ashes dumped in the rose garden near his fuehrer bunker, so much for your power, my friend).

Do what you feel like doing. That is the nature of being on planet earth. We are here to do whatever we feel like doing.

If your vocation is to teach peace and love (they are the same) do so. The fact that you are working for peace and love between people does not mean that the world would be a peaceful and loving place for, by existential necessity, there would be those working for the opposite of what you are working for. This world would always be a world of opposites.

If you work for peace your benefit is that you feel peaceful; if you work for power, your gift to yourself is tension.

Spirit is unified hence its peace. If you accept unified spirit, that is, accept that all human beings are one and that despite their silly dances of imaginary power and differences that what they need most is love, and love them, you experience love. If you experience love you experience peace, for both are the same; where one is the other is.

The world is the opposite of spirit; separation is the opposite of union; if you work for hate and separation you obtain what you worked for and should not complain that you live in interpersonal conflict and in a world at war with itself.

Each of us is doing his part and taking the consequences of his action. As we sow we reap; as we make our beds we sleep on them. There is no way that we can obtain what we have not worked for. Therein lays the justice of God.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

May 10, 2007

Dr Osuji can be reached at ozodiosuji@gmail.com

Robot  Villager

# 1 In the empirical world, for there to be light there must be darkness, good and bad, power a...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 10.05.2007 15:40