The Illusion of Duality

Physics and mysticism reach the same point, as this rather excellent film ‘divide and conquer’ shows. It’s explores the illusion of duality. The illusion of separateness which, in Hindu philosophy, has three layers (malas). The belief that ‘I am separate from God/consciousness/nature’, therefore ‘I am inferior’ and therefore ‘I have to do something, get something, take action to prove myself.’ It leads to greed, to accumulating wealth and power, perpetuating the illusion of duality.

Last year, the richest 1%, gained $6.5 trillion, bagging twice as much wealth as the rest of the world put together over the past two years, now accounting for over 60% of global wealth.  A tax of up to 5 percent on the world’s billionaires could lift 2 billion people out of poverty.

In Hindu philosophy the goddess Shakti is power, energy, atoms, elements, the dance of life, the material world. The Greeks called her Moneta; the Romans, Mater. Money and the material world come from this root. In Sanskrit, Maya is the creative force. Maya is also defined as the power that makes the real seem unreal and the unreal seem real. The world of manifestation is illusory in the sense that everything is energy.  E=MC². Everything is connected. This is where physics has got to.

The word ‘economy’ comes from the Greek ‘oikonomia’ which is the art of living and being an active and ethical participant in the world. The most striking difference between ancient oikonomia and contemporary economics is that the latter is fundamentally distinct from ethics. With that we disrespect Nature, the Earth, each other and ignore the inter-connected whole, The Gaia principle of the late James Lovelock.

The accumulation of more wealth by the rich requires the principle of ‘divide and conquer’ as this film illustrates. Has this not been the theme of the past few years? Brexit/remain. Vax/anti-vax. Republican/democrat. Ukraine/Russia. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, technology is being created apparently for our good, but actually to accumulate more wealth for the few by increasingly enslaving the many. I say wake up. Make Orwell fiction again.