We have all had the experience of going to the movies. They have a magical power to transport us to very different times or places, and in the good ones we become deeply engrossed in the story. When we walk out, we are often amazed by the abrupt return to our own everyday world. Something quite similar occurs with spiritual realization. Suddenly, we see life in a profoundly different way. We are still right where we were before, still surrounded by the people and circumstances that were there before, but it is all seen with a totally different understanding.

From early childhood, we are taught to see a fragmented reality that we can navigate only by making endless choices and decisions: that and not this, this but not that. By making distinctions and remembering those given social priority, we find our way through our dualistically envisioned world. The dos and don’ts, the “yours” and “mine,” of childhood become the liberal and conservative, believer and infidel, friend and foe of adulthood. Oftentimes, the boundaries we superimpose on life resemble the proverbial lines drawn in the sand by a movie character distinguishing friend from foe. In reality, we forget their arbitrary nature and defend the edges of our perceived separation with deadly seriousness. We live in a maze of opposites within which we have lost our way. The eternal drama of good and evil is but the most pronounced of the numberless pairs of opposites between which we are torn.

Duality is the nature of existence, and its alternating play of forms is eternal. And we see this in every movie we watch. It is rare if there is not some villian who must be brought to justice or some physical calamity that must be heroically overcome. Without such a play of opposites, our interest would wane and ticket sales would plummet. In a far more important theater, that of life itself, duality sets the stage for the universal spiritual drama, and it is the condition in which we discover our nakedness, self-conscious and separate from everything else. Just as we cannot know hot without cold, or up without down, it is only as individuals alone and vulnerable that we intuit the wholeness that is missing—our true nature. From this moment on, whether we realize it or not, our deepest desire is for this wholeness.

While we may dream of the day when the lamb will lie down with the lion and the clashing opposites of life be calmed, we will never find the way to that resolution in external events. The solution lies in our relationship to the events. It is somewhat like the relationship we have as viewers to the movie we are watching. Though we are engrossed in the movie, we know at a deeper level that we are sitting a the theater and the story we are watching is not real. On a spiritual level, there is a parallel. We continue our daily lives, going to work, raising a family, but the way we see it changes. When we ultimately realize that all things are one, and no longer define ourselves within the limits of this and that, we find the peace, love, and compassion that come with the transcendent vision of wholeness even while we are in right in the middle of our busy lives.