What is The Glorious Both/And?
The glorious both/and is how I describe the most powerful revelation on my "return path" from self-negating nonduality. Its' what healed the false divide between spirit and matter that is tragically central to either/or nonduality, so that I could bring the transcendent down from the mountaintop into the immanent. It represents the paradox of both/and nonduality, and the turning point where I not only saw that oneness and separateness were both real, but that they, like all opposites, are co-arising and inextricably interwoven, rather than mutually exclusive. When reality came rushing back 1,000 fold, I wept tears of joy as well as sorrow - crushing grief for all the real things I'd been convinced to turn away from, and that had been sapped of their significance, their richness.
It has many other terms of endearment we can dive into, including a oneness of multiplicity, the third thing, uniduality, unity of diversity, transimmanence, formlessness enformed,
And it frees us from reality as a process of reduction, to a worldview of emergence.
It has many other terms of endearment we can dive into, including a oneness of multiplicity, the third thing, uniduality, unity of diversity, transimmanence, formlessness enformed,
And it frees us from reality as a process of reduction, to a worldview of emergence.
Unless the relative world is seen on an equal plane with the absolute, unless the many are seen as holy as the one, then we never arrive at the great secret: that the many and the one are a single thing - Jason Shulman
No relative only, no absolute only. We don’t need those traps. They are not opposed but benefit from each other, the way sound and silence dance, making music.”
Here are a few eloquent ways I've heard it described...
Unity of Opposites
It's sometimes described as dialectical, a notion Diana & Joel Kramer explore in The Passionate Mind Revisited:
"A dialectical worldview considers how unity and diversity are intertwined in the very fabric of existence and embedded in each other—with neither being more real, important, nor profound than the other. In fact, neither wholeness nor separateness could exist without the other. “Separateness” is not only just as real as “unity”—it is only through actually being separate entities that unity can express itself. Unity only exists within the many forms that multiplicity takes—not separately from them; both unity and separation are embedded within multiplicity. The unity embedded within individuated diversity does not negate the equal reality of boundaries and separation, which are part of individuation. Separation, boundaries, and individuation are not illusory, nor do they exist in some inferior way. Unity only manifests in the evolving forms of the Many (multiplicity) through time: So in a real sense the One is the Many."- Diana Alstad & Joel Kramer, The Passionate Mind Revisited. Chapter "It's All About Time"
Here are a few eloquent ways I've heard it described...
Unity of Opposites
It's sometimes described as dialectical, a notion Diana & Joel Kramer explore in The Passionate Mind Revisited:
"A dialectical worldview considers how unity and diversity are intertwined in the very fabric of existence and embedded in each other—with neither being more real, important, nor profound than the other. In fact, neither wholeness nor separateness could exist without the other. “Separateness” is not only just as real as “unity”—it is only through actually being separate entities that unity can express itself. Unity only exists within the many forms that multiplicity takes—not separately from them; both unity and separation are embedded within multiplicity. The unity embedded within individuated diversity does not negate the equal reality of boundaries and separation, which are part of individuation. Separation, boundaries, and individuation are not illusory, nor do they exist in some inferior way. Unity only manifests in the evolving forms of the Many (multiplicity) through time: So in a real sense the One is the Many."- Diana Alstad & Joel Kramer, The Passionate Mind Revisited. Chapter "It's All About Time"
"Either/or thinking has difficulty with a dialectical synthesis that unites polarities because it assumes that one viewpoint must be more real and primary than the other: Seeming opposites are either “this or that,” but not “both and.” Either/or thinking cannot conceptualize two seeming opposites being equally real and fundamentally embedded in each other. The way we’re taught to think makes it difficult to see the embedded nature of much opposition because at first blush the two sides seem so absolutely different and opposite. If you look from a more inclusive level of awareness, you can see that they are not. - Diana Alstad & Joel Kramer, The Passionate Mind Revisited
Transimmanence
Transimmanence specifically heals age-old split between the spiritual and the material, in other words the marriage of the transcendent and the immanent, that was the most breath-taking revelation and turning point on my spiritual path.
Transimmanence specifically heals age-old split between the spiritual and the material, in other words the marriage of the transcendent and the immanent, that was the most breath-taking revelation and turning point on my spiritual path.