by Will Arntz
Hello everyone.
Today I am going to rant about Big Time Drama.
What makes a good story? Actually the formula is pretty simple: Conflict. Opposition. Differences. Misunderstandings. In short Duality.
So if we move to “The New Paradigm” of oneness, interconnectedness, non-duality, and entanglement does that mean all the good stories go away? Is it the death of the Death Star? Darth Vader did become a good guy after all (oh yeah, that happened…).
And if we get rid of duality, what happens to all those standard “Boy meets Girl. Boy looses Girl. Boy gets Girl back” plots? They get summarily reduced to “Boy meets Girl. Realizes they will always be and have been One.” End of story.
OR – here’s a thought. Did God invent the Devil just to keep the drama of life going? One of my favorite stories (yes, it’s a story about duality) is from the Yoga Vasistha. It tells of a demon Lord who, while minding his own business torturing all sentient beings (as demons are supposed to do), somehow starts getting into Vishnu. This demon lord becomes a supreme devotee of Vishnu and practices all the time to achieve enlightenment with Vishnu. He’s a demon-breathe away…
His hand forced, Vishnu appears to the D Lord and says, “Great are your practices and devotion. But for the benefit of all beings you must renounce your search for oneness with the Divine and be a perfect demon.”
Now the demon Lord is a bit miffed at this – but he IS talking to the Creator of everything after all. So he keeps his response to a simple, “Huh?”
Vishnu goes on to explain, “Great is your achievement. But all the demons are following you because they love you, and soon all the demons will achieve enlightenment and thus the entire creation will collapse.”
“So?”
“Well,” says Vishnu, “this creation is not destined to collapse for millions of millenniums, and it must complete its destined path.”
So the demon Lord, in supreme love for Vishnu, agrees to relinquish dissolution in Nirvana to be a good (i.e. bad-ass) demon and do the things demons are supposed to do, until the end of time. Next > 1 2
