The Presence of Two Equally Balanced Things

The interplay of light and darkness is the interplay of active presences, not of presence and absence.

It is important to remember that a true vacuum cannot exist.  Keeping this in mind, we begin to understand that darkness is not the absence of light, but rather the presence of darkness.  Nature does not permit absences.  When we look at the world around us and it seems empty, it is important to remember that what appears to be void and empty is full of air.  Beyond that, there is space, and space is not an absence, but a substance.  When light advances, darkness retreats.  When darkness advances, light retreats.  There are two surfaces interacting at a point of intersection.  When we move further away from the source of light, we move closer to a source of darkness.  

Evil is not the absence of good, but is the presence of evil.  When we move away from a source of good, we move closer to a source of evil.  These are not opposites.  Both things are positive presences.  

Space is not the absence of matter, but the presence of space. 

As water interacts with air, that is how space reacts with matter, and light with dark, and evil with good. 

It is not the difference of content that creates the tension between them, rather it is the similarity of density.  Light and darkness are substances of similar density, and therefore when they come in contact, their surfaces balance each other.  Likewise matter and space, good and evil, etcetera.  

When we assume warring entities, Gods and demons, perhaps the fault lies in seeing them, not as similar things, but as opposites.  God is not the opposite of Satan - they are similar entities who strive against one another. 

According to screed and scripture, Satan, as the creation of God, is the lesser of the two.  

Screed and scripture were written by humans.  It is claimed that scripture is written at the inspiration of God, and therefore it is bound to espouse God's point of view.  

If one learns that darkness is a presence and not an absence, then one can begin to work with the world in different ways.  

When one learns that darkness is merely the absence of light, one loses the sense of the reality of darkness.  In this way, we become blind to what surrounds us much of the time.  

One can find out as much through examining darkness as one can from studying light. 

Light and Darkness co-exist.

Since they are not opposites, and since one is not the absence of the other, we can also extrapolate that if we were to find the right substances, both light and darkness can be contained independent of each other.  We can have a bottle of light, we can also have a bottle of darkness.  

In denying the existence of each as an independent quantity, we deny whole realms of understanding. 

The universe does not permit absences.  There is no such thing as nothing.  Nothing cannot exist.  Everywhere within the universe there is something.  Even space is not empty.  If we learn to examine space, we will find that it is not an absence, but a substance, just as matter is a substance.  It is a failing of our senses, or perhaps more precisely, it is a failing of our education, that we are unable to see this.  

If god is good and satan evil, then we are beset not by one force and its absence, but by two forces, each striving for the vanquishment of the other (if we take scripture at its face value)

I suspect that there is something different going on there which our limited knowledge has hidden from us.  

If we learn to read the absences as presences, whole vistas of understanding will open up to us, and the world we have come to know will be revealed for what it is, an illusion based on incomplete understanding.

In actuality, because we spend so much thought on the notion of opposites and polarities, that we fail to see the precise fact that all things are a part of one single thing.  The universe is singular.  Time is not a sequence of moments, but is a single and eternal moment. 

When I draw in black and white, the surface of the paper is a positive presence.  When I intersect this presence with a different presence, i.e. the addition of a black mark (line, dot, blob, etcetera) the energy of the paper changes.  In this instance, as, I suspect, in reality, the black mark is not an absence of white, but is a presence of black.  The white is still there under the black.  The white surface is not gone, it is merely hidden behind another surface.  At a particular level, if we look closely enough, the black will appear as it is - in front of the white. 

A multitude of black lines intersecting the white will build up into something resembling matter.  When I am working with crosshatched lines, I can create a multitude of illusions that require both black and white in order to function.  Into this, if I so desire, I can add additional presences - colors, greens blues, yellows, reds...each existing by and of itself, but also existing in layers.  If we take these things and we view them, not as patches of pigment on a page, but rather as substances existing in space, then we can understand, from a simple drawing, something of the nature of the construction of the universe. 

We must not become trapped in the way of seeing which shows the world as the interaction of opposites.  Light can exist without darkness.  But darkness, is not merely an absence of light, and so there is a way to locate darkness which exists without light entirely.  Pure darkness.  Pure light.