You must play the game of duality to hack it

Updated July 4, 2023

First, Alexius thought his fear was caused by his father, who often beat him as a child. Next, Alexius assumed he caused it himself because he feared not being good enough. Then he stopped looking for a cause. And as there is no effect without a cause, fear as a specific feeling was gone. Thus he was free to go with the duality flow, which is not substantial, thus not in the body but in the psychological sphere. You can read where that is in The psychological zone is anywhere but in something solid. Photo © Alexius Jørgensen.

This article continues the previous one, Alexius’ childhood, about having one’s conditioned one-sided perception revealed as twofold.

When Alexius was about six years old, lying on the floor while his father kicked him, Alexius became aware that appearing as someone is a charade. Hence he instinctively mimicked fear by shivering all over. And since it seemed to hold off his father, he concluded that making the body tremble to appear scared was the way to stop being maltreated, thus feeling in control, although miserable.

He soon forgot everything he did was pretence. But he remembered provoking a muscle spasm in the body prevented him from feeling helpless, so it became his way of dealing with danger. But much later, when he again remembered everything is a pretence, he realised he did not need to manipulate feelings to be in control because everything is an illusion – also being authentic. One pretends it, like when we pretend to be someone definitive in a game. See more about playacting in Duality Hack #2 Pretending to be twofold undoes duality.

Furthermore, he recognised that no feeling is singular because everything comes in pairs of opposing elements that constantly interact in a world of duality. And aligning with this interaction, you feel complete. But as promised in the last article, this piece is not about Alexius’ way to the duality flow but how you join it and follow it to the end of duality.

Contrasts are the building stones of duality, so when you interpret something as beautiful, you are bound to see something deemed ugly. So if you do not try to correct or remove the ugliness to hold onto a distinct view of beauty, you feel the togetherness of twofoldness

Twofoldness occurs as automatically as breathing in is followed by breathing out – and it feels as satisfying. Accepting one polarity, it is replaced by another. Thus you remain in the duality flow till it is over, which is the end of the duality fantasy Photo © Alexius Jørgensen.

THE LONELINESS OF SINGULARITY VS THE TOGETHERNESS OF TWOFOLDNESS
Since everything is twofold in a world of duality, a distinct impression, such as love, is fake, so you feel disconnected when holding onto it. But, no worries, it is easily corrected. First, you perceive your singular feeling as ‘it is what it is.’ Then, in a state of expectation calling for nothing specific, your special feeling gently turns inside out and unveils its counterpart inside it. In this case, love gently opens up, and hate quietly moves out. However, like breathing in and out are interchanging, love and hate are not experienced simultaneously.

And then again, since the love you feel is defined by hate, which is characterised by love, there is no true love without hatred and vice versa. So when you have one of them, you have both. Therefore, if you, out of habit, suppress hatred to hold onto a specific memory of love, you feel disconnected until you remember that feeling connected comes from twofoldness, thus the collaboration of love and hate.

You may not notice the transition from love to its counterpart, hate, like you generally overlook the changeover of breathing in and out. Consequently, it probably takes time to acknowledge the constant movement between the opposing poles of duality: the duality flow, which like rolling waves, without highs and lows, runs throughout your awareness (read more about that here).

Nevertheless, since perceiving your reaction to an experience as ‘it is what it is’ aligns you with duality, you feel connected immediately. But not if you mistake your response to the experience for the experience because then you establish your specific interpretation of the experience as being it. For example, suppose a person leaves you, and your response is anger. But in a split second, you disassociate yourself from your feeling by mentally replacing it with your impression of the person, thus making your opinion your experience.

Another example is when your nostalgic reaction to a photograph from your hometown is mistaken for the image, and you perceive that as ‘it is what it is.’ Then nostalgia is not understood as something you feel but as the specific look of the image. Hence, you have used the perception ‘it is what it is’ to suppress your response to the image, thus appearing detached from your hometown proved to be as you see it. Therefore, you actually have used the perception ‘I know what it is’, thus hanging onto a single-minded opinion.

That something is ugly is not a fact but how you perceive it. However, this singular interpretation prevents you from seeing it as it is because everything comes in pairsn in a world of duality. Photo © Alexius Jørgensen.

If you uphold a romantic idea of love by hiding your hatred in a rigid part of the body, you set yourself free from this imagined fusion of a pshycholigal and physical issue by perceiving your reaction to the rigidity as ‘it is what it is.’

Since that reveals your response is twofold, there is no specific response to establish that your hatred is linked with the stiff body part. The sense of nothingness that replaces the suppoed link makes you laugh.

In short, when the experience you reacted upon is replaced by the meaning you assign to your reaction, and you state it as a fact, your perception is ‘I know what it is.’ That is why if you cover your bloated opinion by saying, ‘it is what it is,’ you do not feel vitalised by the interaction of opposites but fatigue from suppressing what you feel about something to appear above it.

So if you wish to be vitalised by twofoldness, it is not your experience of something you perceive as ‘it is what it is,’ but the specific response you determine your experience brings about. For example, if you decide your reaction to rejection is sadness, you perceive that as ‘it is what it is.’ It reveals your one-sided response is twofold. Thus sadness does not settle into definite grief but gently opens up and reveals gladness inside it.

In other words, when the definitive meaning you have assigned to a response is perceived as ‘it is what it is, ‘its opposite is revealed. That is not a metaphor. Literally speaking, you feel sadness replaced by gladness, not quickly but gradually and as automatically as breathing in follows breathing out.

However, you are probably so used to suppressing your initial response to something and replacing it with a made-up reaction that establishes you in the know that you are unaware of what an experience makes you feel. But when you become aware of that, ever so slightly, and perceive the definitive meaning you assigned to your response as ‘it is what it is,’ it opens up, and its counterpart unfolds from inside, as already described.

Therefore, since your reaction is not seen as singular but dualistic, it does not appear exclusively right or wrong, thus generating neither pleasure nor worry. Instead, it brings about satisfaction, remaining no matter what happens because it does not depend on something specific.

The perception ‘it is what it is’ does not set you free from anger but free to experience it paired with delight. In other words, this perception does not end duality but starts the enjoyment of the duality flow. However, everything with a beginning has an end, so enjoying the duality flow is the end of duality. Photo © Alexius Jørgensen.

Many people choose a distinctive opinion of something to escape feeling attacked, furious or hopeless. However, since you have to fight to uphold your specific point of view, what you try to escape is enhanced. In contrast, choosing an opinion that is twofold, there is no specific view to uphold, Instead, you are in the resilient energy between opposites, like the springy drive that makes a yoyo go up and down. Hence you feel revitalised by the duality flow.

Since it is not a sensational feeling of adventure but a gentle sense of pleasure, you may fail to notice it. Nevertheless, you will definitely notice that the present moment does not require any effort.

That does not mean you cannot respond with sadness if somebody rejects you. But since sadness is perceived as ‘it is what it is,’ it is revealed to interact with gladness. Accepting their interplay, another duality pair rapidly replaces it. Thus you continue in the duality flow.

When you anticipate your friends’ opinions about a specific feeling, it is as you experience it. Especially if you spin a story about the feeling and present it to others in a severe tone of voice enhanced by body language illustrating it. Women often use this trick to appear as if they feel something special. However, unlike women, men do not act as if they feel something important because they think feelings get in their way. Photo © Alexius Jørgensen.

Had you not perceived feeling sad as ‘it is what it is’ but held onto a definite feeling of grief, you would have had to cut off its counterpart, gladness, from your awareness by imagining hiding it in the chest, for example. Hereafter, when you want to hold onto feeling specifically sad, you do that by looking for pain in the chest. Read more about that in Duality Hack #7 Physical & non-physical issues do not mix. 

To sum up, when your unmanipulated reaction to something is perceived as ‘it is what it is,’ it is not limited to a singular feeling like shyness. Instead, you go back and forth between that and its contrast confidence, so the opposing elements can define each other, thus establishing genuine feelings.

Being amused by this potency, you remain in the duality flow. Hence the duality pair of shyness and confidence is soon replaced by another intensely experienced polarity. And so it goes until you feel so euphoric that there is no need for more, wherefore the belief in duality fades out.

If you repress your negativity to appear solely positive, you do not get the togetherness of the duality flow but the loneliness of singularity. Besides, being only positive, you do not feel genuine but fake because, without negativity, positivity cannot be defined. In other words, if you want to be genuinely positive, do not avoid your negative feelings by explaining them away but include them unedited so that they can define your positivity and vice versa. As a bonus, this interaction makes you laugh because you feel complete in the duality flow. Photo © Alexius Jørgensen.

Consequently, you should not use the perception ‘it is what it is’ if you do not want to have the belief in being and having more than that which is One undone. Instead, you better use the perception ‘I know what it is.’ However, to make it work, you must ignore the counterpart of what you claim to know. So if you, for example, want to appear as knowing the way, you must hide feeling lost, thus missing something. And no matter where you look, you do not see it because you keep insisting, ‘I know what it is.’

Should you want to speed up the undoing of the belief in duality, you say, ‘dunno what it is,’ thus forgetting you appear as someone in a world of duality. That does not mean you are transformed, or duality is replaced by non-duality. But it means you are in a state of not-knowing, so there is nobody to confirm duality as real. Read more about that in A state of not knowing and the after-effect.

Nota bene: You do not have to apply Alexius’ Duality Hacks perfectly. Willingness to undo the belief in duality is enough. Therefore, if you are not in touch with your unmanipulated reaction to something, you perceive how you sense your response as ‘it is what it is.’ After all, ‘it is what it is.’

How to suppress feelings?
If you are not already aware, here are a few samples:

• Talking about what others do or say instead of how that makes you feel.
• Trying to help others to remove the attention from you and how you feel yuorself.
• Falling in love hides the self-hatred inside.
• Talking about metaphysically things instead of acknowledging, what you feel.
• Being upset about something on behalf of others.
• Meditating, chanting, praying or doing similar things to fend off what you feel.
• Finding psychological, or any other kinds of explanation for what you feel.
• Eating or drinking to suppress ones’ feelings.
• Trying to prove a factual point to hide what you feel.
• Following ideas for living in the now, or trying to live by any other totalirian concept.
• Blaming others and justify your feelings by them.
• Much planning and control.
• Constantly looking for new things to buy or change.
• Trying to always be in a good mood.
• Working a lot and for instance clean your home, when you are upset.
• Reading or playing computer games regularly.
• Having revenge sex.
• Staging yourself on Facebook – perhaps to get as many likes and followers as possible.
• Publish photos of your happy and shiny life on Instagram.
• Quoting others to prove you are right.
• Keep imagining how to solve things or just making up stories.
• Sitting with crossed legs, locking the knees by bending them backwards, raising one or both shoulders or pushing them forward.
• Holding back the breath.
• Assuming to know what is right and wrong.
• Concluding this and that.

And how to not suppress your feelings?
In the duality flow feelings become very defined, but only in relation to their counterpart. Therefore, since they are not definitive but relative, you have no specific feelings to suppress.

NOTE: This article is part of Duality Hack #8 The duality flow goes to non-duality.

Nevertheless, since perceiving your reaction to an experience as ‘it is what it is’ aligns you with duality, you feel connected immediately. But not if you mistake your response to the experience for the experience because then you establish your specific interpretation of the experience as being it. For example, if someone leaves you and your response is anger, you rapidly disassociate yourself from your feeling by mentally replacing it with an opinion about the person to make your reaction establish it is your experience that the person is angry.

if you assume your response to an experience is the same as the experience because that does not reveal the interaction of opposites but states your one-sided opinion as a fact, thus that the world is not dual but the specific way you see it.

But in a split second, you disassociate yourself from your feeling by mentally replacing it with an opinion about the person that seems to establish your opinion as your experience.

Nevertheless, since the perception ‘it is what it is’ syncs you with duality, you feel connected immediately. However, this perception does not sync you with duality if you assume your response to an experience is the same as the experience because that does not reveal the interaction of opposites but states your one-sided opinion as a fact, thus that the world is not dual but the specific way you see it.

In other words, you have used the perception ‘it is what it is’ to disguise that you believe ‘I know what it is’. This happens, for example, when your nostalgic reaction to a photograph from your hometown is mistaken for the image, and you perceive that as ‘it is what it is.’ Then nostalgia is not understood as something you feel but as the specific look of the image. Hence, you have used the perception ‘it is what it is’ to suppress your response to the image, thus appearing detached from your hometown proved to be as you see it. In other words, you actually have used the perception ‘I know what it is’, thus hanging onto a single-minded opinion.