DAOIST Principle of Unity

All the opposites
spring from the very same source.
Neither superior;
differing only in name.
The Gate to All Mystery.

A DAOIST thought:
“The Gate to All Mystery
lies deep within us,
connecting the opposites;
in harmony and balance.”

As locked within us,
we all must search inwardly,
deep, deep within us,
to find our buried treasure,
where Psyche stores her secrets.

We ‘think’ that we know.
But that is mental construct.
Mind as Deceiver,
Pitting thought against itself.
Mind opposing counterparts.

Oh, what irony:
“Cogito — ergo sum”
becomes our motto.
A Cartesian fallacy.
Our ‘wisdom’ lost in contrasts.

We ‘know’ everything.
We apprehend everything;
only by contrasts.
Existential awareness
is gleaned through oppositions.

In linguistic terms,
this phenomenon is called
‘Principle of Markedness,’
proposed by Prague School scholars,
Trubetzkoy and Jakobson.

In semiotics,
Principles of Divergence
are also recognized:
‘Normal’ and ‘Irregular’
applied as descriptive terms.

And Claude Levi Strauss,
as an anthropologist,
a man of ‘knowledge,’
postulates the ‘raw’ and ‘cooked’
as human culture contrasts.

Some states —  ‘primitive’
and others —  much more ‘advanced’
along an axis.
His term: “Le Cru et le Cuit”
to distinguish all cultures.

In psychology,
Carl Jung, as psychiatrist,
depicts it differently.
“Life is born of opposites.”
Without it, stagnation rules.

‘One’ needs the ‘Other,’
“The Conscious” and “The Shadow”
for meaningfulness.
Each seeking out the other —
without need of prejudice.

Likewise the DAO,
as nature’s hermeneutics,
sees both in practice.
Principle of Unity.
Everything designed for Wholeness.

All the opposites
spring from the very same source.
Neither superior;
differing only in name.
The Gate to All Mystery.