As we go in the path of life and explore this beautiful universe what we can see is that everything is held by opposite forces. Polarity is a concept needed by our limited system of awareness and perception to understand unity. If there is not truth, lie can’t exist. If there wouldn’t be good there wouldn’t be evil. Ying and Yang, Women and Men, Exterior, Interior, Positive, Negative. Electricity is a very practical example of polarity as if you cancel one polo there is not electricity found.
In the Buddhist tradition to attain Nirvana is to attain unity. Is ironic that the word Nirvana literally means Extinction. In unity, there is not time, not space, not activity, unboundedness. All negative words to describe unity. All the positive manifestations in our vocabulary are born from our divided reality and can’t describe unity. This is what creates time. Time per se doesn’t exist but as we can’t see unity, the whole, then we need time to perceive picture after picture of this, what we call reality.
As we are not able to perceive unity through our regular perception system, then it becomes a philosophical concept. In unity anyway, there are not opposite forces at stake, there is not polarity, there is not dualism.
The Tai-Chi with their opposites Ying and Yang or the Kundalini with the Ida and Pingala, helical serpents around the Shushuma channel of energy or the caduceus of medicine hold by the Greek God Hermes, are beautiful expressions of this polarity that rules our life. Time, space, rhythm, are the result of our incapacity to perceive unity but polarity. This is the great illusion that our sense system creates for as to be able to be human beings and spent our time in this beautiful mother earth.
The practice of meditation give as the chance to at least momentarily perceive unity. To understand, to explore, to enjoy this back and forth movement from dualism to unity, from local to non-local, from activity to stillness is the basic secret of meditation.