Illusory duality and presence found in ordinary living
Illusory duality and non-duality, both, are found in the ordinariness of life and in life’s peak experiences. Ordinary life moments are more plentiful, so you have a bigger pond when you go fishing there, in ordinary. In the ordinariness of life is where “presence” actually lives. When you get enlightened, you don’t leave this earth, and go live somewhere else.
Nope; you continue living here, but your perspective is a paradigm shift bigger and beyond. We don’t “go-to” enlightenment; we “find” enlightenment and presence, where we already are. Presence is ever-available in those ordinary moments of life, which are actually very alive with potentials, hopes, and dreams, despite their “ordinary” appearance.
No one to blame for illusory duality
And, thus, you have the illusory duality of life: life is both ordinary and magical in the same opposing and dichotomous moments. Attachment to a particular outcome is the only thing that kills all the options of potentials, and traps one in the illusory duality of life.
So, what is illusory duality? Generally speaking, illusory means not real, and duality means more than one or dual, oppositional or dichotomous. So “illusory duality” could be extrapolated to mean: a not real, dichotomous, or oppositional, illusion.
It’s a shame, there’s no one to blame for all the pain that life brings.—Jewel
Today’s Monday Music will point to the not real, dichotomous or oppositional illusory duality of life, and the pain life actually brings. Our song selection today is again from poet-songstress Jewel, whose lyrics frequently make commentary on our common human condition. The official YouTube video is posted below, but to focus on the actual lyrics first, without visuals, seems important to this song’s message. The video is very engaging as well, but the purity of the lyrics merit a first look.
Not dirty, and yet, not clean either
Jewel’s song “Stand” starts out with a common every-day occurrence at the corner shop, but there’s also:
“…. a shoplifting cop
See the old lady with a gun
See the hero try to run”
A shoplifting cop? An old lady with a gun hidden in her knee-highs? A hero who is running? These are odd, polarized opposites. Are they images of an illusory duality? What is this song about? What is Jewel getting at? Her lyrics continue:
“Nothing’s what it seems, I mean
It’s not all dirty, but it’s not all clean
There’s children paying bills
There’s monks buying thrills
There’s pride for sale in magazines
There’s pills for rent to make you clean
Marvin Gaye, there’s no brother, brother
Woody Guthrie’s land can’t feed Mother”
Seems like Jewel might be pointing in the direction of this illusory duality nature of living. Her song “Stand” seems to have a little of a Yes-AND! approach to life, an open approach allowing for all of life, its rude truths, idiosyncrasies and polarities. Jewel’s Yes-AND! version of life begins with that neutral statement: “Nothing’s what it seems, I mean, It’s not all dirty, but it’s not all clean.” And in the naming of both the good and the bad, and everything in between, there is space for non-duality to emerge, for non-attachment to outcome to grow, and for acceptance and surrender to simultaneously exist where everything isn’t clean, but it’s not all dirty either.
It’s a shame, but not the end-game
Life is beautiful, and life is gritty; it’s both, and neither at the same time. The most religious of us, monks, buy thrills; and those of us who might be the most innocent, children, are saddled with the adult responsibility of paying bills. Where is Marvin Gaye’s human compassion of “brother, brother”? Marvin Gaye is another soul-full music artist who sang about equality and love, among other topics. Jewel’s lyrics also reference Woody Guthrie who was a 1940s folk song hero who named great big inequality pink elephants of those political times. Jewel pulls those data sets into her “Stand” song as well.
The chorus of the song brings the message home:
“Mothers weep, children sleep
So much violence ends in silence
It’s a shame there’s no one to blame
For all the pain that life brings
If you will just take me It might just complete me
And together we can make a stand”
Truer words were likely never spoken: “It’s a shame there’s no one to blame [f]or all the pain that life brings.” Imagine that? There is no one to blame. There is just presence and experience. Attachment is where the blame game starts. You can’t even blame your ego! It’s just a form of you, currently in the saddle driving your life energies.
Life brings pain…and joy, and a thousand other permutations all along the gamut of emotions. A recent Central Virginia Happening, the Swannanoa Palace Homecoming 2015 focused on “The Electrifying Power of Male-Female Balance.” Jewel’s song “Stand” takes that individuated-and-also-coupled format of male-female balance, and sends it out into the world at large, speaking to the electrifying balance of rich and poor, weeping Mothers and sleeping children, law-enforcing and law-cheating cops, kind old ladies who have guns hidden in their hose…the electrifying balance of duality and non-duality, BOTH, found in the ordinariness of the illusory duality nature of living. “Nothing’s what it seems, I mean; It’s not all dirty, but it’s not all clean.”
Violent silence
“So much violence ends in silence,” Jewel sings. The worst silent violence is the ego acts we all perpetuate on our own selves, and on those around us. It is a shame, but there is no one to blame. The next set of song lyrics seem like Jewel may be suggesting that in “Union,” in Unity, there may be a solution. Jewel sings: “If you will just take me, It might just complete me, And together we can make a stand.” Aren’t there spiritual schools who promote unity too?
It is open to interpretation what Jewel is actually referring to, but here’s one version [in brackets] to try on for size:
If you will just take me
[As I already am now, warts and warts and all]
It might just complete me
[By filling in my missing places for me for a time]
[I might experience what it is like to be whole]
[And then, I will know how to ‘fill’ my own holes, myself]
And together [As two complete wholes, without any gaps unfilled]
We can make a stand [Against whatever negativity presents itself].
Together we stand
What a wonderful world that would be! Everybody holding space to care about everybody else? Everybody making room, and offering to fill the gaps, to notice another’s need, and then to offer to take it on board, and complete that person, without attachment to outcome or need for reward?
There are more examples in the lyrics about life’s polarities: homeless men buying lunch because the mayor spent his money on hookers; being served food by a waitress but not really being in connection with the waitress or the service; the lies of politics that make our country run, while utopian dreams of Martin Luther King die in the corner.
And then Jewel sings “You will love me, and I will love you.” What is that about? What the ancients and mystics have been purporting for all time: love is the answer. And we DO actually love everyone else, just like a family at the holiday table loves everybody, but may also have funny, chaotic and perhaps even hateful ways of showing that love. Love is energy manifested in the form of action and behavior. Love is like a river that runs unstoppable to the ocean, above ground, below ground, carving out canyons and spreading out into wide lakes. Or being absorbed into the atmosphere, only to fall back down to the earth as rain droplets. Love, like presence, is always available, in one form or another.
We wake up to the love of the universe in our own season. Jewel’s song “Stand” points out the different permutations of paradoxical forms of love which got stuck in one egoic trap or another. And Jewel ends the song with two declarations:
-
We will love each other; and
-
It’s a shame there’s no one to blame for all the pain that life brings.
Standing together in the illusory duality of life
Life is painful. You can’t know the joy with without the sorrow. Without lines or dots, form is formless. To have satiety is to be able to witness without attachment; to see the movie on the screen, AND to see what is behind the movie on the screen; to see the form, and to see the formless, without attachment. Together—form and formlessness, duality and non-duality—we can make a stand, even in the illusory duality of life.
Please enjoy Jewel’s “Stand” as posted by Atlantic Records on YouTube:
This Monday Music selection offers some advice about noticing the presence in the illusory duality of ordinary moments. Enjoy the music, and use the Grounded Relating Monday Music Challenge to stay present to yourself throughout the week.
Full lyrics for “Stand” by Jewel, as posted on atozlyrics.com:
“Stand”
Walk in a corner shop
See a shoplifting cop
See the old lady with a gun
See the hero try to run
Nothing’s what it seems, I mean
It’s not all dirty, but it’s not all clean
There’s children paying bills
There’s monks buying thrills
There’s pride for sale in magazines
There’s pills for rent to make you clean
Marvin Gaye, there’s no brother, brother
Woody Guthrie’s land can’t feed Mother
[CHORUS] Mothers weep, children sleep
So much violence ends in silence
It’s a shame there’s no one to blame
For all the pain that life brings
If you will just take me It might just complete me
And together we can make a stand
A waitress brings me lunch
We meet but do not touch
On TV, D.C. is selling lies
While in the corner, King’s dream dies
Go to the counter, pay for me and my friend
A homeless man pulls out a roll, says it’s on him
The mayor has no cash
He said he spent it on hookers and hash
[CHORUS] Mothers weep, children sleep
So much violence ends in silence
It’s a shame there’s no one to blame
For all the pain that life brings
If you will just take me It might just complete me
And together we can make a stand
you will love me, I will love you
you will love me, I will love you
[CHORUS] Mothers weep, children sleep
So much violence ends in silence
It’s a shame there’s no one to blame
For all the pain that life brings
If you will just take me It might just complete me
And together we can make a stand
