Yin and Yang - 09.08.09

Student Question: I was just curious about Yin and Yang. What does it refer to? Is it just duality, opposites, polarities, male/female? What is it? “Yin and Yang are names within the Taoist tradition of the archetypal structure of phenomenal reality that always exists in a bifurcated form.” This can be likened to the modern example of a computer which works by virtue of a complicated series of zeros and ones (binary code). “And yet it’s infinite,” explains Shunyamurti, founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica.  “And it can become very complex, just as all language can because, in a sense, the entire universe is language; it’s information.” This idea of language—which works by contrast—leads to a development in the mind of a constant sense of lack, of missing the other piece, and the only way that this hole can be filled is the transcendence of the incomplete, ego-identity. Recorded on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.