I often write about opposites. I've written about the Law of Opposites and the World of Opposites. You will also hear mention of the 'interplay of opposites' in Non-Duality teaching. What have opposites got to do with Non-Duality? Opposites would mean duality, right?

I call this world 'The World of Opposites'. The reason is that the world appears to be an imbalance, a splitting of a singularity into opposite qualities or opposite energies that separate and interact. The opposites seem to spread out and rejoin, over and over, creating the multiplicity of life that we see in the world. We understand the qualities of good and bad, right and wrong, high and low, true and untrue, real and illusory, strong and weak, formless and form, free and restricted, boundless and limited. This interplay of opposites forms the building blocks of the universe. It repeats in the falling of rain and rising of vapour, the flowing tides, the flow of breath, the procreation of life forms, the creation of night and day, magnetic forces, and so on.

This splitting of a singularity into opposing forces give rise simultaneously to the Law of Opposites. The Law of Opposites pervades the universe. It is the inevitable interaction between opposites, bringing repulsion and attraction, dispersion and reunification. What is done must be undone, what goes up must come down, what goes out must come in etc. The Law of Opposites maintains equilibrium in a universe that has seemingly fallen out of unity. The opposites that appear are like and unlike the singularity from which they have seemingly separated.

But that's not the whole picture. The Non-Duality understanding is that this is a play of opposites. The Singularity doesn't really divide itself into what it is and what it isn't. There is never anything other than the Singularity. The Singularity remains Whole. It's infinite. It has no limits. The universe can never be less than or more than what it is. The Singularity seems to split in two and interact within itself, with what is like it and its opposite. Hence the World of Opposites is a reflection of Reality. Reality is an Indivisible Infinite One Aware Being. Division and limits are illusory.

Let's consider as an example, Light. The Singularity is neither light nor dark in itself. It has no form, no space or time, no distance. Yet it is perfect clarity, which is the purest Light. The Singularity is Aware, it is alive and knows clearly. Light and darkness arise when the Clarity of formlessness seemingly divides itself into formless and form. Form appears to block the clarity. The blocking of clarity develops into darkness. We can then understand the Singularity as Pure Clarity, or Pure Light. Its opposites - darkness, obstruction and confusion - give the contrast to demonstrate the nature of the Singularity. So from Pure Light there appears the opposites of light and darkness, but they are never separate. There is a Continuum of Light ranging from most light to least light (or darkness). The most light is closest to the Singularity. The least is furthest from it.

Another example may help. Consider the range from white to black. White and black seem like opposites, but if you imagine or see the gradual shading from white, through greys to black, then it can be understood that the opposites are not truly separate. It is a continuum of shading.

So even when opposites appear they are not really divided. It is more of an apparent stretching out of Oneness into what is like it and what is not like it, with a range or continuum in-between. But truly there can never be anything other than Oneness. The opposites are illusory. There is only Reality.