The “two-twos” play a central role in the Bhagavad Gita, a text that masterfully takes us from our own confused and indecisive minds to a place of peace, tranquility, and understanding. This is accomplished on a battlefield through the storyline of Arjuna (the student) and Krishna (the teacher).
As battlelines are drawn, Arjuna is suffering. He is conflicted, confused, and tormented by indecision. (Sound familiar? It does to me.) But in the end, he is a different person.
What are the “two-twos?”
The Sanskrit word, which is literally translated as “two-twos” is dvandvas, and it refers to the pairs of opposites. We are caught, Krishna teaches, in the senses, which rate everything we experience as pleasurable or unpleasurable. We thrill to warm summer days; we complain bitterly about the cold. We vibrate with excitement when people like us or recognize us for our achievements; we sink in despair when we are ignored. We fortress our belief system with certainty; we chide other beliefs with accusations. We ride our pleasures and pains like a wild roller coaster, drawn deeper and deeper into an emotional whirlwind and mental scorekeeping.
On a collective level, our world is caught in this kind of conflicted living. From the grotesque inequality of wealth to closed-minded political opinions, our world is suffering from a vast imbalance of, and entanglement in, the “two-twos.” We are so engrossed in the senses and reacting to our experience, that, as Krishna teaches, there is no room for clarity, creativity, new ideas, or a lasting joy. There is no room for peace, only conflict. (A few centuries later Patanjali will echo these teachings in the Yoga Sutras when he talks about the kleshas.)
What can we do?
We will always have opinions and preferences. We will always enjoy parts of our lives and not other parts. We will always think things should be done a certain way and not another. We will always agree with some and disagree with others. To think we are capable of moving past this way of being is ludicrous. To try and change ourselves or suppress our experience is not feasible and only adds to the imbalance in ourselves and in our world.
The question is, knowing all of this, how do we shift from our entanglement in the sensory pull and its commentary to a more awakened way of being? The simple, but not easy, answer is to find balance as life brings us things we like and things we don’t like, or, as Krishna puts it, to be “the same” in pleasure and pain.
As I watch my involvement in clinging to “ups” and complaining about “downs” both personally and collectively, I notice the mental and emotional drain on my energy. This is not where I want my life force to go. Weaning myself off from investing in the “two twos” and finding the stability and equanimity that become available when the drama is gone, seems like a much better way to spend my life.
Krishna teaches that yoga is equanimity, a view that sees underneath the ups and downs of life, so that we find ourselves as bystanders watching the roller coaster of life go up and down. But we are not on the ride.
My gratitude to Rolf Sovik who introduced me to the importance of the dvandvas.