Duality

When people see things as beautiful,
ugliness is created.
When people see things as good,
evil is created.

Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficult and easy complement each other.
Long and short define each other.
High and low oppose each other.
Fore and aft follow each other.
...

~ Tao Te Ching (tr. by John H. McDonald)

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Notions of heat and cold, of pain and pleasure, are born, O son of Kunti, only of the contact of the senses with their objects. They have a beginning and an end. They are impermanent in their nature. Bear them patiently, O descendant of Bharata.

That calm man who is the same in pain and pleasure, whom these cannot disturb, alone is able, O great amongst men, to attain to immortality.

~ Bhagavad Gita 2.14,15

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It is our own mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds. Learn to see things in the proper light.

~ Swami Vivekananda

'Belief' in immortality

... if you are a religious person and have a strong belief that there is immortality, this belief acts as a resistance to life and hinders the very understanding of immortality.

— J. Krishnamurti, Ojai, 3rd May 1936.