Life flows in dualities, our task is not to solve them, but to navigate with awareness.
By Roshan Jayasinghe
This article is Part I of a three-part reflective series, The Pre-Recognition of Our Suffering. In this first piece, I look at the dual currents of energy that move through life. Part II will turn inward to the weave of our human conditions, and Part III will move deeper still, to the silence that holds them all.
There are questions in life that do not ask for answers but for awareness. They arrive like whispers carried on the wind, not to be solved, but to be seen. In the rhythm of breath, in the fragility of the body, in the contracts we make with one another, and in the tools we shape from nature’s gifts, a single truth echoes: everything flows as energy. And in its flow, we discover not certainty, but mystery.
Life, in its most mysterious form, moves through us as energy. This current, unseen yet undeniable, animates every thought, every gesture, every breath. It shapes stories we could never script, yet always call our own. To live is not to control this flow, but to breathe with it, moment by moment, with the awareness that the beauty of life is not in certainty but in its unfolding.
And yet, within this flow, there is paradox. The same current that allows us to nurture, protect, and uplift also carries within it the impulse to wound, diminish, and destroy. To be human is to hold both streams within: the gentle river of compassion and the violent surge of harm.
The Duality Within
Why does such duality exist? Why can a being capable of love also be capable of cruelty? Perhaps it is not a defect of nature, but a gift, the freedom to choose. Energy itself is neutral, like the sharpness of a blade. In one hand, it carves beauty. In another, it cuts deep wounds. What determines its path is not the energy but the awareness of the one who wields it.
Acts of kindness and acts of cruelty arise from the same source: the living current that animates us. What differs is the channeling, whether it flows through clarity and compassion, or through fear, ignorance, and ego. This maneuverability is the marvel of human life. We are not passengers carried by instinct alone; we are navigators, entrusted with choice. And yet history, both personal and collective, shows how often we fail to steer with wisdom.
When we look at the violence of nations, the corruption of systems, or even the unkind word spoken to a neighbor, we see the same truth: energy turned against itself. What is unresolved within the individual reflects outward into society. To recognize this honestly, without judgment, is already the beginning of liberation. Awareness itself becomes the compass.
The Body as Witness
The physical body is the vessel of this current. It is the living canvas upon which energy paints its story, in vitality and sickness, in strength and fragility. When we fall ill, when we are injured, or when our bodies falter, it is not only a biological event. It is also a reflection of energies within and around us shifting, colliding, or becoming imbalanced.
At times the disruption arises from within: stress unexpressed, wounds unhealed, patterns inherited through generations. At other times it comes from without: an accident on the road, a natural disaster, or simply the convergence of another’s force with our own.
Picture this: I ride my motorcycle down the freeway, my intentions steady, my focus clear. In a breath of time, another vehicle may brush against mine, or the weather may turn suddenly against me. Two energies, moving in space, converge without warning. Whether or not such a collision happens, the very awareness that it could is part of our navigation. To recognize the possibility of harm is to glimpse the intelligence of life: a vast choreography of forces, both visible and invisible, intersecting moment by moment.
This is not reason for fear, but for reverence. The vulnerability of the body teaches us maturity: the recognition that life is not ours to control, only ours to navigate. Awareness does not guarantee safety, but it grants clarity. With clarity, fragility itself becomes a teacher, reminding us to live alert, grateful, and attuned.
Awake and Asleep: Nature’s Own Duality
Each day we are carried through another rhythm of duality, the balance between waking and sleeping. Awake, we move, act, create, and respond; asleep, we surrender to stillness, to restoration, to mystery. One state cannot exist without the other. Without sleep, our waking becomes chaos; without waking, our sleep has no meaning.
This duality is a reminder that even within our own bodies, energy expresses itself in opposite forms: exertion and rest, consciousness and unconsciousness. In wakefulness, we exercise awareness outward into the world; in sleep, awareness returns inward, hidden from us, yet vital for our survival. Both are essential. Both are nature’s way of teaching us that life is not a single note, but a harmony of opposites.
It is also a metaphor for life itself: to live asleep is to drift unaware, but to awaken is to navigate consciously. In both, energy flows, but only in awareness does it guide.
Human Constructs and Tools
Beyond the body, we extend energy into constructs, friendships, marriages, communities, technologies. Every human relationship is an energetic contract, a shaping of invisible resonance into tangible form. To become friends is to recognize trust and resonance between energies. To marry is to bind two flows into one path through a social and spiritual agreement. These contracts are not inventions against nature but extensions of it, ways of aligning what is unseen with what can be lived.
The same is true of our tools. What we call “invention” is often nothing more than rediscovery, uncovering forces that already exist in nature and bending them toward service. X-rays, radiation treatments, sound waves, mobility aids, entertainment, communication, even the machines that carry us across continents, all are extensions of natural energy, shaped by human curiosity and need. We have learned to see through flesh with light, to move beyond the limits of our muscles with machines, to extend our voices across oceans with airwaves. None of these forces are new; what is new is our ability to recognize and apply them.
And what of fossil fuels, coal, oil, gas, the compressed remnants of ancient forests and seas? They are energy of the Earth itself, stored for millions of years, now extracted and burned to power our lives. Here too, duality reveals itself. These fuels give us mobility, warmth, industry, and yet, their misuse depletes the planet, alters the climate, and threatens the very balance that sustains us. Once again, energy itself is neutral; it is our use of it that determines whether it nourishes or destroys.
This is both our genius and our burden. For every tool that heals, another can harm. For every contract that binds in love, another can suffocate. For every invention that extends freedom, another can diminish it. Once again, awareness is the compass. To know that we are blessed with such tools, and to guide them toward harmony rather than collision, is the work of wisdom.
The Gift and the Question
The greatest marvel is that all of this, duality, fragility, invention, exists within the same flow of life. We are given energy not as a guarantee but as a question: What will you do with it? At every moment, the answer lies in our awareness.
If we can tune ourselves, to see, to feel, to understand, then energy becomes not a force of chaos but a path of navigation. We can build contracts that nurture rather than oppress. We can create tools that liberate rather than enslave. We can guide our own lives not toward collision, but toward harmony.
This is the essence of living: not perfection, not certainty, but navigation. To carry both light and shadow, fragility and strength, vulnerability and genius, and to choose, moment by moment, the path of clarity.
And still, the question remains:
Why has this universe, in all its vastness, created everything in duality, one against the other, light against dark, creation against destruction, wakefulness against sleep, energy that heals against energy that harms?
I do not need an answer.
I only need to be aware.
Closing Note
This reflection opens the series by exploring the dual currents of energy that shape life. In the next part, The Human Weave, we turn from the outer flow to the inner — to see how thought carries joy, sorrow, kindness, arrogance, and every condition across past, present, and future.
About the Author
Roshan Jayasinghe writes about consciousness, nature, and the unfolding of human experience. His reflections invite readers to pause, question, and return to the quiet clarity within. He contributes regularly to Morning Telegraph.
