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Why It’s Scarier to Think in Gray Than In Black-and-white
Non-dualistic spirituality, third eye openings, ego death, and learning to swim in “grayland”.
I have heard people, myself included, complain about how the “problem” with religion, politics, media, the different generations, and the world at large, is dualistic thinking. At the heart of conflict and warfare is our propensity to think in absolutes, to cling to our own belief systems while vilifying belief systems that contradict our own. Dualistic thinking is self-righteousness in action. “I am good, you are bad”, “I am right, you are wrong”, “This is beneficial, that is detrimental”, “This is an asset, that is a liability”, “I failed, I succeeded”, “It’s all or nothing”.
Our need to see ourselves as good, as righteous, noble, whole, as having chosen the correct path, spouse, job, way of life, is so powerful that it blinds us to the fact that the idea of goodness or righteousness is subjective and ever-changing. What may seem cruel in one circumstance (say killing a kitten) might be kind in another (killing a kitten who is in immense pain but unable to die). The field of ethics — a branch of philosophy that “involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior” — has given us an extensive lexicon (eco-friendly versus eco-unfriendly, moderate versus fundamentalist, organic versus…
