Duality is at the core of man’s existence

CHENNAI: It was a sparkling morning, full of intense beauty. There seemed to be extraordinary order, but, of course, inside each house there was disorder — men plotting, children crying or laughing; the whole chain of misery stretching unseen from house to house. Spring, autumn and winter never broke this chain.
But that morning, there was a rebirth. Those tender leaves never knew the winter nor the coming autumn. They were vulnerable and therefore innocent.

From the window one could see the old dome of the striped marble cathedral and the many-coloured campanile; and inside, dark symbols of sorrow and hope.

The man I saw, was a painter. He had long hair, delicate hands, and was enclosed in the dream of his own gifts. He would come out of it — talk, explain — and then go back into his den. He said his pictures were selling and he had had several one-man exhibitions. He was rather proud of this, and his voice told of it.
And then there was the army, within its own walls of self-interest; the businessman, enclosed in steel and glass; the housewife, waiting for her husband and her children.

There was the museum-keeper, and the orchestra conductor, each living within a fragment of life, each fragment becoming extraordinarily important, unrelated, in contradiction to other fragments, having its own honours, its own social dignity, and its own prophets.

In the common greed, hate and aggression, human beings are related. It is the mind and the heart that divide — God and hate, love and violence — and in this duality, the whole culture of man expands and contracts.

The unity of man does not lie in any of the structures which the human mind has invented. Co-operation is not the nature of the intellect. Between love and hate there can be no unity, and yet it is what the mind is trying to find and establish.

Thought has constructed this culture of aggression, competition, and war; and yet this very thought is groping order and peace. But thought will never find order and peace, do what it will. Thought must be silent for love to be.