The Struggle of the Opposites

A great master said: “Seek enlightenment, for all else will be added unto you.”

Enlightenment’s worst enemy is the “I.” It is necessary to know that the “I” is a knot in the flow of existence, a fatal obstruction in the flow of life free in its movement.

A master was asked, “Which is the way?”

“What a magnificent mountain!” he said, referring to the mountain where he had his haven.

“I do not ask you about the mountain, instead I ask you about the path.”

“As long as you cannot go beyond the mountain, you will not be able to find the path,” answered the master.”

Another monk asked the same question to that same master:

“There it is, right before your eyes,” the master answered him.

“Why can I not see it?”

“Because you have egotistical ideas.”

“Will I be able to see it, sir?”

“As long as you have a dualistic vision and you say, ‘I cannot’ and so on, your eyes will be blinded by that relative vision.”

“When there is no I nor you, can it be seen?”

“When there is no I nor you, who wants to see?”

The foundation of the “I” is the dualism of the mind. The “I” is sustained by the battle of the opposites.

All thinking is founded on the battle of the opposites. If we say such a person is tall, we want to say that she is not short. If we say that we are entering, we want to say that we are not exiting. If we say that we are happy, with that we affirm that we are not sad, etc.

The problems of life are nothing more than mental forms with two poles: one positive and the other negative. Problems are sustained by the mind and are created by the mind. When we stop thinking about a problem, inevitably the latter ends.



Happiness and sadness; pleasure and pain; good and evil; victory and defeat, these constitute the battle of the opposites on which the “I” is rooted.

We live our entire miserable life going from one extreme to another: victory, defeat; like, dislike; pleasure, pain; failure, success; this, that, etc.

We need to free ourselves from the tyranny of the opposites; this is only possible by learning to live from instant to instant without abstractions of any type, without any dreams and without any fantasies.

Hast thou observed how the stones on the road are pale and pure after a torrential rain? One can only murmur an “Oh!” of admiration. We should comprehend that “Oh!” of things without deforming that divine exclamation with the battle of the opposites.

Joshu asked the master Nansen: “What is the TAO?”

“Ordinary life,” replied Nansen.

“What does one do to live in accordance with it?”

“If you try to live in accordance with it, it will flee away from you; do not try to sing that song; let it sing itself. Does not the humble hiccup come by itself?”

Remember this phrase: “Gnosis is lived upon facts, withers away in abstractions, and is difficult to find even in the noblest of thoughts.”

They asked the master Bokujo: “Do we have to dress and eat daily? How could we escape from this?”

The master replied: “We eat, we get dressed.”

“I do not comprehend,” said the disciple.

“Then get dressed and eat,” said the master.

This is precisely action free of the opposites: Do we eat, do we get dressed? Why make a problem of that? Why think of other things while we are eating and getting dressed?



If you are eating, eat; if you are getting dressed, get dressed, and if you are walking on the street, walk, walk, walk, but do not think about anything else. Do only what you are doing. Do not run away from facts; do not fill them with so many meanings, symbols, sermons and warnings. Live them without allegories, live them with a receptive mind from moment to moment.

Comprehend that I am talking to you about the path of action, free of the painful battle of the opposites.

I am talking to you about action without distractions, without evasions, without fantasies, without abstractions of any kind.

Change thy character, beloved, change it through intelligent action, free of the battle of the opposites.

When the doors of fantasy are closed, the organ of intuition awakens.

Action, free of the battle of the opposites, is intuitive action, full action; for where there is plenitude, the "I" is absent.

Intuitive action leads us by the hand to the awakening of consciousness.

Let us work and rest happily, abandoning ourselves to the course of life. Let us exhaust the turbid and rotten waters of habitual thinking. Thus, into the emptiness Gnosis will flow, and with it the happiness of living.

This intelligent action, free of the battle of the opposites, elevates us to a breaking point.

When everything is proceeding well, the rigid roof of thinking is broken. Then the light and the power of the Inner-Self floods the mind that has stopped dreaming.

Then in the physical world and beyond, while the material body sleeps, we live totally conscious and enlightened, enjoying the joys of life within the Superior Worlds.

This continuous tension of the mind, this discipline, takes us towards the awakening of consciousness.

If we are eating and thinking about business, it is clear that we are dreaming. If we are driving an automobile and we are thinking about our fiancée, it is logical that we are not awake, we are dreaming; if we are working and we are remembering our child’s godfather or godmother, or our friend, or brother, etc., it is clear that we are dreaming.

People who live dreaming in the physical world also live dreaming in the internal worlds (during those hours in which the physical body is asleep).

One needs to cease dreaming in the internal worlds. When we stop dreaming in the physical world, we awaken here and now, and that awakening appears in the internal worlds.

First seek enlightenment and all else will be added unto you.

Whosoever is enlightened sees the way; whosoever is not enlightened cannot see the way and can easily be led astray from the path and fall into the abyss.

Tremendous is the effort and the vigilance needed from second to second, from moment to moment, in order to not fall into illusions. One minute of unawareness is enough for the mind to already be dreaming about something else, distracting it from the job or deed that we are living at the moment.

When we are in the physical world, we learn to be awake from moment to moment. We then live awakened and self-conscious from moment to moment in the internal worlds, both during the hours of sleep of the physical body and also after death.

It is painful to know that the consciousness of all human beings sleeps and dreams profoundly not only during the hours of rest of the physical body, but also during that state ironically called the vigil state.

Action free of mental dualism produces the awakening of the consciousness.

-From Chapter I of “The Revolution of the Dialectic,” by Samael Aun Weor