https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=ddTBfL7FECQ
Alright, Swords into Plowshares asks, Jonathan, how does an understanding of the meaning of facing time in the fall, alongside the meaning of an unprepared approach to knowledge of opposites, relate with the non-dualism of the super cosmic absolute? Uh, facing time in the fall, I’m not sure I totally understand your question, but if I think I understand it, there’s a sense in which duality is part of the world, not dualism in the sense of, um, of like this, this like inseparable, like this, these absolute opposites, let’s say, kind of like Manichaeism like we talked about before, but duality is the motor of manifestation. That’s why God creates heaven and earth, creates these two basic categories, and then, then it’s like a, it’s like a, it’s like a one and a zero, right? It’s the motor of reality. It’s like on, off, on, off, on, off. That’s how a motor works. And so reality, that’s how reality works too. It has like a, it has two modes, like two opposites, and then within those opposites, then, then, uh, that’s how reality manifests itself. And so, but the idea is that of course that is not absolute, like the absolute is beyond those opposites, and is actually non-dual, um, but, but duality is real. It’s not a, it’s not an illusion the way that a lot of people tend to think about. I don’t, I don’t really dislike that. Um, and so, and so you could say that the, Saint, Saint, um, Saint Ephraim the Syrian has a wonderful image of that in the, uh, in the hymns to paradise, where he says that if Adam and Eve had waited to receive the fruit, uh, from God, rather than take it for themselves, then they would have seen sickness as someone who is healthy. But because they took the fruit for themselves, then they saw health as someone who is sick, right? So it’s like, you could understand that if we had taken the fruit in the proper manner, then duality becomes an expression of, of something above it. But when you fall into duality, then you get trapped in these opposites and you get trapped in this, like, in a sense that inside, outside, you know, how, as soon as Adam falls, what does he do? He like blames Eve, right? He just like, it’s her. And so right away you see this, like, this inside outside. What does he do? He’s afraid because he’s naked. He realizes, he sees now the world outside of him as dangerous right away. And so he’s, he’s, he’s a slave of the, of the duality. He’s already become a slave of duality because he sees the difference between inside and outside as completely, as an absolute state. Um, and so that’s the difference. That’s the, that’s the difference. But I mean, I say that, but it’s like, it’s not like I live in a non-dual, continual non-dual realization. So it’s not like I, I, I completely understand it. We have glimpses of it.