The nature of the duality is opposites. Contrast is simply part and parcel of living in a physical universe. We get hungry, we feel full, night gives way to day, injustice coexists alongside justice, and feeling bad is seemingly inevitable at some point after feeling good. I get my life to a really good point but it never stays that way. That probably happens to almost everyone unless you are some kind of master.

I am 65 years old now, and getting tired of the rollercoaster ride.

I have taken endless seminars, read books by the dozens, employed a host of meditation and other self-help techniques – but nothing seems to change the duality for me. Bad always follows good, which is then followed by good again and then, eventually, bad. This led me to a re-examination of the idea of karma.

Karma has been defined as “what goes around comes around,” but that is much too simplistic. When we consider that many of us have had multiple lifetimes on earth, karma becomes very complex. Moreover, the veil of duality obscures the previous lifetime(s), so we are always coming in “cold” – ignorant of what we have done in our past lives. We have to live for decades before we discover what our karma even is – unless we get a really good astrology or numerology reading, or go to a psychic who isn’t a fake. I studied numerology when I was in my early 40s, in an attempt to understand why I kept going up and down the rollercoaster of duality and karma. A good numerology reading will tell you, in a general sense, what your karma in past lives has been. For example, my reading told me that I had a karmic lesson in the area of responsibility and family, and another in the area of inner awareness and spirituality. This was spot-on, and gave me a general idea of what I had to work on. However, even a good reading cannot tell you exactly what you did in previous lives. If you knew that, you would have a much better idea of how to handle your personal karma.

My astrological sign in Scorpio. Scorpios often have a volatile temperament and feel things very strongly; we have high highs and low lows. My former podcast host on the Interview With Spirit Show, Amanda Goldston, is just like me. And so in my life I have suffered from suicidal depression, but have also experienced the most exquisite joy. But I look around at my friends and family members, who all are on a more even keel than me. I asked myself, “Why am I so up and down all the time?” The first thing I did was remove any physical reasons for my ups and downs. I went to see doctors and alternative health practitioners; I took care of the physical reasons for any ups and downs (for me this involved, finally, going on a high fat, low carb, and no sugar diet, which has put me physically in a good place). That was great, but I was still experiencing emotional ups and downs; so what was the reason for that?

I eventually discovered that ups and downs is simply a part of life in the duality. It took me a long time to finally come to grips with that. “But that isn’t the way it’s supposed to be!” I would say. “The idea that you have to experience ups and downs is nonsense. I should be able to feel great ALL the time!” And so I embarked on a spiritual quest to find the magic bullet that would allow me to always be in the light.

I took seminars, meditation courses and energy healing courses, all designed to put me in the light. After all, light transforms darkness, I thought; so the more light I am the less darkness I will experience. However, after 20 years of this I was STILL experiencing ups and downs. I was stumped! I concluded that life in the duality means that you take the good with the bad (as billions of other people have concluded, I suppose).

Then one night last month I had a horrible nightmare. I was trapped in a massive war where people were killing each other left and right. I was spotted and a whole bunch of fire came my way. I knew that I would be dead very soon unless I started killing a lot of people. However, as death and destruction rained down on me and I began to fire back, I realized that my situation was hopeless. I simply couldn’t kill enough people to get myself out of the situation. That’s when I woke up with the word “love” resonating in my consciousness. The first thing I did was re-live the nightmare and put love into the situation. I had to do this because I was still resonating to the horrible feelings of war and death and hopelessness. I did this for about 10 minutes until a quote from Albert Einstein came into my head: “You can’t solve problems with the same consciousness that created them.” Then I had a realization, and all of the bad feelings associated with the dream disappeared.

I understood that behind my “downs,” behind every negative emotion I experience, is a lesson. Sometimes this appears as an energetic “jewel” or packet of information, but it is always BEHIND the negative emotion.  I understood the reason for my experience of the duality, and why the downs occurred: I needed to look behind the downs for the lesson. To do that I had to embrace the negative.

Suddenly I understood: By trying to be in the light and ignoring the darkness, I was avoiding the lessons, the jewels, that the duality was presenting to me. It was just an excuse to avoid the lessons I had to learn! The negative is just a signpost telling me that there is something important behind it.

For the past three weeks I have been embracing my negative emotions, throwing love on them, and looking “behind” them. It’s been great! I’m realizing that the duality isn’t evil, it isn’t a punishment, it just IS.

Throughout my life negative emotions continued to pop up. I understand now that if the lesson isn’t learned, it will simply repeat. I learned that I must embrace the duality if I am ever going to make any real progress. So the answer for me is not to try to be in the light all the time, but to embrace my personal darkness and then infuse it with light. I’m sure many people have realized this over the years, but it’s new for me in a very powerful way. I understood that the darkness isn’t evil. It’s just there, perhaps as a result of my karma from past lifetimes. By trying to avoid the unpleasantness I was ignoring the lessons. Now I infuse my negative feelings with love and look for the lesson. It seems to be working. And I also understand that I needed my seminars, my meditations, my energy healing courses, so that I could get myself to the point where I was aware and strong enough to confront the duality. It’s pretty cool.

The duality has a purpose: to get you to see your karma. At this point in the development of human consciousness it’s possible to simply look behind the negative emotion and transform it. You don’t have to do 3-year amends projects, or embark on grueling or expensive self-help programs. You can use the inherent power of your own consciousness, your power of thought and intent, to quickly move past the karma.

On a less personal level, I understand much better how karma works.

How Karma Works

Person A and person B, or group A and group B, or nation A and nation B, come into confrontation somehow. Their desires are different. Eventually the situation escalates into conflict. Over millennia a very powerful vibrational meme gets developed: the resolution of problems via fighting and war. Fast forward, say, to the beginning of the scientific revolution. Human consciousness is beginning to understand more about the world and the universe we live in; we’re beginning to understand more about ourselves. The population is increasing; hundreds of millions more beings are coming onto the planet. One day Joe Schmoe goes to the bank and takes out some money. On the way home he is surrounded by footpads who try to rob him. Joe is carrying a weapon. He now has a choice: to kill these bastards or to take the peaceful path. The only problem is that the peaceful path makes Joe a lot poorer. He gets madder and madder as the footpads approach him with the obvious intention of robbing him. He thinks, “Why should I let these worthless parasites take what is honestly mine?” So Joe gets into a fight, kills two of the robbers, and gets killed himself.

Upon his ascension out of the body, Joe and the two robbers see what really happened. The footpads were there to allow Joe to make an incredibly important choice: between love and hate. To transcend the duality and the wheel of karma. All three of them see that Joe’s decision put more negative energy into the human consciousness grid. All three of them see what could have happened: a rise in the vibe of the entire species, if Joe had chosen differently. (Note that the opposite is also true: the two footpads could have made the decision not to rob Joe! That is the opposite side of karma, and perfectly represents the duality: the “bad guys” also get a powerful chance to overcome their karma and add good vibes to the human consciousness grid, as well as letting Joe off the hook. In other words, both sides of the duality have an equal opportunity to raise the collective consciousness, not just the “good guys”!) Joe and the two robbers don’t get angry at themselves, because the veil was there to obscure the truth. They all vow to do better next time. Thus, when Joe and the two robbers come back during their next lifetime, they will be presented again with similar choices between love and hate. Perhaps this time Joe will be the footpad and the two robbers will be the good guys. That’s karma.

In order to advance the species, enough people have to make the incredibly hard decision to allow themselves to be robbed and take the peaceful path, or to decide not to commit the crime even though it is their karma. Tolerance and love has to create a strong enough morphogenic field to overcome millennia of intolerance. That’s how the duality works. In order to get to a higher vibe, there must be good guys and bad guys, who both have the choice to (hopefully) make a decision based in love, and raise the vibe of the entire planet.

Karma on a National Scale

Here’s an example of karma on a national scale. During the Revolutionary War for U.S. independence, the colonists were divided between those who were loyal to the British government (Loyalists, or Tories) and those who favored independence (rebels). You might think that after Yorktown (the last battle of the war)  everyone settled up, peace was reestablished, and the country was united. But that’s not what happened at all.  During and after the war many Loyalists were killed and about 60,000 or so of the 300,000 Loyalists were driven out of the country, and their homes and property were seized. The nature of that civil conflict was aptly summarized by Thomas Jefferson when he said, “Peace is that brief glorious moment in history when everybody stands around reloading.” At the founding of our country we didn’t choose the path of tolerance, so the lesson repeated. One hundred years after that we had the Civil War. Apparently we still didn’t learn the lesson because one hundred years later, that karma is coming back to haunt the United States in obvious ways: our country is bankrupt, corruption in government is rampant, the people are under terrible stress. Hillary vs Trump is just a reflection of that old conflict between the Loyalists and the rebels, the North and the South. The lesson always repeats. That’s why tolerance is so important now after the election of Trump.

Tolerance

The masters who came down to the planet were so important. In order to give the species a chance, somebody has to start the vibe. People like the Buddha, and Jesus the Christ, came to earth to start a powerful vibration of love in human consciousness. If enough people (like Gandhi, who, when confronted by his killer, instantly forgave him) pick up on that and apply it, the morphogenic field of love becomes more and more powerful. Only a relatively small handful of people have to do this for the human race to begin advancing, because hate is just a lower harmonic of love, and is subsumed within it.

The reason why it takes so long for a species to advance is because it’s so hard to make these decisions. It’s almost impossible to find love in a vibe that supports so much hatred. It’s almost a miracle when it happens. But the lesson repeats and repeats and repeats, because life is a far grander play than we see behind the tawdry, ignorant veil of materialism. Karma isn’t about getting robbed or keeping your money. It isn’t even about “what goes around comes around.” It’s about love versus hate, and what kind of society we want to have on this planet.

You can break it down very simply: the hallmark of fascism and tyranny and misery is intolerance. Hatred manifests itself in intolerance and leads to all of the ills in human society. Love manifests itself in compassion and tolerance. That’s human history, that’s the fundamental human expression of the duality for the past 5,000 years.

Situations change because the lesson must repeat. It must repeat because life is benign, because life wants to move forward to a higher state. Beyond the materialism of the duality is the One consciousness, which wants to experience and advance itself in understanding. Behind the duality is love.

As I said already, it’s not about Trump vs Hillary, it’s about tolerance vs intolerance, no matter which side you are on.

When we execute psychopaths and psychotics who cause death and destruction, for example, we take them out of the world so they can’t cause more trouble, and allow everyone else to live in peace. We think we’re doing the world a favor, and it does work for a time. But it’s the wrong decision because it reinforces the consciousness that causes psychopaths and psychotics to come into existence: intolerance and hatred. Warped people are simply people who haven’t been shown tolerance or compassion.

The lesson repeats century after century because the physical aspect of life is only one part of it. The other part is beyond the veil and programs physical action. It’s the spiritual aspect and it transcends the material world.

The “bad guys” come back, over and over again, until we finally get it. As Walt Kelley once said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” That precisely describes the wheel of karma: One lifetime you are the good guy, the next lifetime you are the bad guy. Karma continues because we haven’t yet learned the lesson. The lesson is, when do we exercise tolerance and compassion?

This is why Jesus the Christ said, “Turn the other cheek.” I totally get that now. Why? Because there is no other solution than tolerance and love. There just isn’t. That nightmare I had illustrated the point vividly for me, in unmistakable terms: You can’t kill enough bad guys, you can’t fight hard enough to overcome the situation; and even if you do, it’s only temporary. You can be a tough guy and carry a gun and kill the bad guys, but you’ll just come back the next time as a victim. The lesson will repeat over and over and over and over on the broadest scale: the wheel of karma will continue, and you’ll still be on it. You can’t solve problems with the same consciousness that caused them.

To transcend the duality we have to learn the lesson. To learn the lesson we have to dissolve the negative vibe that holds it together. The only way to dissolve the negative vibe is through love and tolerance.

I used to hate that saying, “Turn the other cheek.” To me it meant give up and roll over. “Why should we reward criminals and punish honest people?” I would think. “That just adds more injustice to the world. Besides, nice guys finish last. Just look what happened to that guy who got robbed!” But things are not always what they seem. It’s perfectly reasonable to not reward criminals and to punish honest guys! If we do, the law of attraction says we will get more criminality.

However, by smashing and executing the criminals we create more criminality because we strengthen the vibration of hatred and intolerance. The lesson repeats. The only way to ensure zero criminality is to always take the path of tolerance. It’s really, really hard; especially in a world where it often appears that crime does pay. The only reason we have made it this far is that enough people performed little miracles of tolerance in their daily lives. They strengthened the vibe of love enough so that the human race is finally able to BEGIN to confront the evil we have created on this planet. We still have a long way to go.

The real action is beyond the veil of duality. The duality is just there to help us see past the overt materialism of our world. The duality presents us with non-optimum situations so we can see the real purpose behind the situation. That purpose is always benign because consciousness is pure love.

I don’t understand why this is, frankly. I don’t understand why places like earth exist; I’m not that aware yet. I don’t understand why we have to go through this nonsense in the physical universe – the suffering, the injustice, the misery. Consciousness is pure love, we don’t need physical bodies, really. When we release attachment to the body we find the One consciousness, and pure joy. But apparently we decided to play the game of “Physical Universe,” and now it’s a really, really big deal. We made it that way, I guess, by our accumulated karma, so now we have to release that karma. The only way to do that is through tolerance and love. That’s what enlightened people throughout history have been telling us.

It took me long enough, but I’m finally listening.