Duality
Last weeks, I was finalising the teaching material for the course “Systems thinking and Taoist philosophy” and I was struggling with the explanation of the duality of our reality, which actually is not a duality. Only to our perception. But as we have grown up with and in this duality, it is often difficult to see and experience the Oneness of the whole.
Then I remembered a conversation with a patient of mine about the dilemma of duality. She then gave me a poem by one of the greatest system thinkers of the West, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In the poem about the leaf of Ginkgo biloba, Goethe writes about the unity of the leaf, which clearly shows two parts.
I cannot tell it better than Goethe. Therefore I do not want to withhold this poem from you.
Gingo biloba (1815)
Dieses Baum’s Blatt, der von Osten
Meinem Garten anvertraut,
Giebt geheimen Sinn zu kosten,
Wie’s den Wissenden erbaut.
Ist es Ein lebendig Wesen?
Das sich in sich selbst getrennt,
Sind es zwey? Die sich erlesen,
Dass man sie als eines kennt.
Solche Fragen zu erwiedern
Fand ich wohl den rechten Sinn;
Fühlst du nicht an meinen Liedern
Dass ich Eins und doppelt bin?
Johann Wolfgan van Goethe
1749-1832
This leaf of the oriental tree
Was entrusted to my garden
And has a secret idiom,
That the initiate considers.
Is it a living being,
That in itself is separated?
Is it a couple that understands each other,
So that one knows them as one?
The answer to such questions
I found the right way:
Does my song not give you the feeling,
That I am one and double?
Translation Gaston D’Haese
