The Chinese symbol of yin and yang stands for the human perception of absolute opposites that are also complementary.

The Yang qualities are active, light, masculine, positive, upward-seeking and correspond to daytime.

Yin qualities are passive, dark, feminine, negative, downward-seeking, and correspond to the night.

Yin and Yang describe the polar effects of phenomena and their opposing qualities, such as summer and winter, which together with the transition phase between, make up the year.

[Image from www.medicineworld.org]

   This presupposition is one that many have trouble grasping and using in daily life. From the day we are born, our culture teaches us that people and things are good or bad, right or wrong, true or false, angelic or demonic; people are of the Black or White or Red or Yellow race. Sexual behavior is either heterosexual or homosexual.  Magnets have a south pole and a north pole, electrical terminals are positive or negative, mammals are male or female. We fail to recognize that these are shallow perceptions of apparencies in many instances.

    Doctor Kinsey proved with his extensive surveys of human sexuality that sexual behavior is not either/or. Sexual tendencies are a grey scale that more fits an inverted bell curve. Most people tend to identify with one or the other, regardless of physical gender, but secret inclinations can lead to experimentation outside of the absolute roles the culture tries to keep us within. Kinsey proved that people can be, for example, 80% hetero, but 20% homo, or vice-versa.

    There are species of amphibians and fish that can change gender if need be in order to keep the population of their species going. Some species of plants and invertebrate animals are both male and female, yet can also reproduce asexually.

    There has been extensive racial mixing in the United States. If you take an African-American and stand her next to an African Negro, you will immediately see why Whites of two or more centuries ago called them Black. African-Americans are much lighter skinned because of racial mixing, yet we still insist on classifying anyone with any African blood as Black, with the attendant cultural folkways and (thankfully, abating) stigmas.

    Things are not good or evil, they just are. This polarized thinking is not valid when applied to a relativistic space/time existence. There is nothing pure or absolute about life in this continuum.

    All opposites are complementary and together make up the whole. Many women have strong masculine qualities, and men have feminine qualities (much as many of them try to deny it). These opposite qualities make up the whole individual. The mix of male and female in any one individual is not even constant, but varies through time.

    These opposites transform each other. The maximum effect of one quality, like a pendulum, will swing toward the other extreme and back again. The opposite qualities grow stronger and weaker over time. They are relative.

Presupposition #3: Absolutes do not exist in the space/time continuum.

    Our perception is trained from birth to think in this polarized manner, therefore we perceive it to be true. You see it because you believe it -- it’s as simple as that. And because you believe it to be true, you behave accordingly. Dandelions are bad, so you kill them in your lawn. Cockroaches are bad, so you call the exterminator. Murderers are bad, and we kill them. We can easily justify our behaviors against what we perceive as bad as being justified.

Corollary A: Absolutes do, however, exist in the quantum dimensions beyond as symbols, metaphors, archetypes and the Divine.

    Visualize the universe as a pyramid, with the Divine at the very top point. This point does not exist. It has no form. There is nothing at this point but pure potential. As the pyramid expands, consciousness takes more and more form and diversity until you get to the base portion. This base is the space/time continuum where there is maximum individuation and diversity of forms.

    It is here that we live and it is here that we die, at the base of the pyramid. Yet we exist all the way to the very top point -- the vanishing point.

    The absolutes that are encountered in the upper levels of the pyramid do not exist at the base, yet they can affect existence here in the base through our thoughts, which influence our behavior. If you think of the metaphor, “He is a black hat,” like they dressed the “bad guys” in Westerns back in the 50’s, you will behave toward that person accordingly. Cops today speak of the “bad guys” and will consider themselves as one of the “good guys”. These “good guy” cops can go bad; they can become corrupt and they frequently drive drunk. The “bad guys” that they oppose could be taking care of a family in the best way they know how.

    In the words of a popular song of the ’60’s: “There are no good guys. There are no bad guys. There’s only you and me and we just disagree.”

    In truth, every single one of us is both bad and good. There are no absolutes in this space/time existence. If you cease judging in these absolute terms and behave accordingly, you will be much happier and you will cause others much less grief and pain.

Corollary B: Behind every behavior is a positive intention. Underlying all perceived evil is the conviction of righteousness on the part of the perpetrator.

    I have never met anyone who did not consider himself one of the good guys. The man who circumcises young women in Africa honestly believes he is doing a good thing for her and for her family’s honor. We perceive it as bad because we do not do this, whereas it is really just different. We circumcise baby boys and think nothing of it.

    Punishments can be harsh. We are horrified that in some cultures theft is punished with the amputation of a hand. Yet we in the USA think nothing of putting a thief into a prison where he will be brutalized by other prisoners. Some even laugh about the common occurrence of men raping other men behind bars. "Serves them right," we think.

    A few years ago I received a grant from the State of California to teach writing to gang-bangers in a Youth Authority prison. This gave me a chance to safely interview teenage men convicted of violent behavior. We are certainly all horrified at gang members who commit drive-by shootings. I am going to tell you right now that these young men consider themselves to be heroic in their efforts to safeguard their neighborhood. They consider themselves to be soldiers and do not see their actions as different from other soldiers, including the “collateral damage” of dead and injured non-combatants.

    This problem runs very deep and one of the biggest factors is the alienation of gang members from the majority culture. They are not “bad” people. What they are is mis-educated, living in poverty and insulated in their barrio or ghetto from the rest of the world. Their intention is good; their behavior is destructive in the eyes of the majority culture. Our police have waged war against them for many years with no progress; it further alienates them. Demonizing them does nothing toward a solution.

    If you truly wish to develop quantum consciousness, you will have to begin the difficult task of ceasing to think in absolute terms and to stop judging other people, stop asserting your own rightness. Our culture is thoroughly poisoned with judgmentalism.

    If good intentions make a good person, then we are all good. That’s the point.

    It is very difficult to train yourself out of toxic thought patterns. I have been working on it for almost twenty years and still have a long way to go. The reward that awaits is serenity and contentment. The more you grow into your quantum nature, the greater the reward. It really is worth the effort and you will cause yourself and others less and less misery.

    Hey, I never said this would be easy.

    See related essays, “The Four Most Toxic Thought Patterns” and “A Universal Objective System of Ethics.”