The moment I say “binary”, you may just remember 0011010111000 from your computer science classes or the “base 2 system” in the maths classes.
Instead of getting so technical, let me take you back in time to the 15th century when the glorious Vijayanagara Empire flourished in the Deccan Plateau. In the court of the emperor Shri Krishna Devaraya, there was a witty poet, scholar and advisor to the king – Tenali Ramakrishna. Many of his stories are a part of the folklore and literature. One such story is about Tenali Rama’s encounter with Goddess Kali. Now don’t ask me if this incident really happened. I was not present those days to verify. Consider it as a story.
The Story
Once, Tenali Rama meditated upon Kali and she manifested in front of him. Pleased by his devotion, she offered him to choose between wisdom and wealth. She held in one hand a cup of curd and said if he chose to drink the curd, he would get wealth. On the other hand, she held a cup of milk and if he chose to drink it, he would get wisdom. She asked him to choose one of them. Tenali being the smart guy drove her attention elsewhere and consumed a bit of milk and a bit of curd from both her hands. Kali was angry at him that he violated her direction of having only one of them.
When asked by Kali, why he had violated her instructions, he clarified, “dear mother, if I get wealth and have no wisdom; I may lose all the wealth. If I get wisdom, but have no wealth; how would I survive in this world? Both wealth and wisdom are needed to survive in this world. So I chose both. Please excuse me.”
I am not sure from where I heard this story for the first time. When I started reading about the concept of “binary thinking”, this is the story I could relate to! Think of wealth and wisdom as the two options available and we can choose only one of them. Some would choose wealth, some would choose wisdom. Most of us will simply follow the directions and choose one of them. This is what is known as “binary thinking”. It is either “this or that” and not both.
Examples
There are many examples for this. The switch can be either on or off. It cannot be on and off at the same time. It is either day or night. It cannot be day and night together. Dualism is one concept that we can see everywhere. Day and night is the best example. We believe that a person is good or bad. Some of us believe in heaven and hell. We believe in left or right.
Binary system is true for many situations. Since the binary system of “this or that” is true in most situations, we tend to be stuck in the binary method of thinking for every other situation in our lives! And this limits our chances of breakthrough, success and advancement in life. It is also true that the society we live in has conditioned and imposed upon us this binary thinking. So we are habituated to thinking in this limited way.
We are told things like:
- You can either be wealthy in life or happy in life. If you are rich, you cannot be happy. If you are happy, you cannot be rich.
- You can either get a well paying job that is hard or you can get an easy job with low pay! You cannot get a good pay with easy work.
- You can either get a person who is physically attractive or a person who has a good heart. A person who is physically attractive isn’t good at heart. A person who is good at heart is not physically attractive.
The list goes on. If you have met any astrologers, they would have also given many options of binary thinking. They would predict: you can either get a breakthrough in your finances, but at the cost of losing your loved one! If you ask they’ll say, you can get one of them. Not both. This is how binary thinking makes you feel terrible and miserable, especially when you believe these astrologers.
Is it really possible to come out of binary thinking? Binary thinking is not only about ideas. It’s also about coming out of the limitations in our every day life. It is about having a breakthrough in our finances. For example, if you invest in mutual funds that have high returns, you’ll notice that the risk is also high. If you notice mutual funds that have low risk, they have lower returns. How do we come out of this?
Coming out of binaries
There are of course many areas where there is something beyond the binary system. I said, we have day and night. But isn’t there a time of the day when it is neither day, nor night? Yes that time exists. Haven’t you all tried stopping the switch between on and off and failed or sometimes succeeded? It shows our urge to think beyond the binary system.
We think people are either good or bad. Most of our cinema shows the protagonist being so good, that we end up liking that character fully. The same movie shows the villain being extremely bad and not having even one good quality. So it’s easy for us to hate that villain completely. But if you examine the real life situations, people aren’t fully good or fully bad. Most of the people are a combination of so many good and so many bad characteristics. Sometimes, we can’t even say a characteristic is good or bad. This also shows how duality or binary can be challenged.
In fact, Buddha preached a middle way pay. He says that following extremes in any aspect leads to problems. He says, too much of indulgence creates suffering. And extreme ascetic life weakens the body. So we should follow a balanced approach in life. In politics also, there is a political path that is neither left, nor right. It’s called “centrism”.
Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis
Philosophy develops and evolves due to the process of “thesis, antithesis and synthesis”. So there’s a thesis first – an idea is put forward. An opposing idea is posited against the main thesis. This is called antithesis. Finally, after a few years, both thesis and antithesis are combined to come out with synthesis. Synthesis is a higher truth. Even here, we can see breaking binaries is at work!
Many of the scientific and business breakthroughs have happened when the binary system was broken. For example, more electric charge could be saved in bigger batteries. Smaller batteries meant, less capacity. But scientists are now able to make smaller batteries that can hold more charge! There have been businesses that were able to break the limitations of cost and quality through innovation.
So my conclusion is that binary exists in this universe. However, it’s important to come out of the binary thinking. You can come out of binary thinking through innovation and reflection.
