Sri Ramakrishna would pray to the Divine Mother by offering to Her the various pairs of opposites in exchange for pure love for her. "Mother, here is thy knowledge, here is thy lack. Take them both, and give me pure love for thee." He did this with virtue and vice, good deeds and bad deeds, etc.
But one offering he could not make. He could not offer "untruth" to Mother, even though it would have been HER "untruth" as well as her Truth.
The pairs of opposites only exist within this realm of existence, which is also the realm of ignorance. Everything in our world is made up of, for example, good and bad. It's simply not possible to isolate either, according to Hindu cosmology and religion.
What we do -- if we wish to do a good action is try to choose the best action. When the "mix" is about equal, we become aware that we are chosing the better option, often called "the lesser of two 'evils'". When the mix is imbalanced, we are less aware that our choices still cantain both elements along a continuum. If we place "good" at one end and "bad" at the other, everthing falls at some point in between.
It is this Hindu understanding of existence, I think, that gives rise to the wise practice of detachment. No matter what we do, we cannot guarantee our actions will produce the ideal results. So, better we concentrate on our own motives, purifing our intentions and leaving the results to God.
Why purify our intention and leave the outcomes to God? Because, (a) we have it is our control to do so and (2) the practice, though excedingly difficult, helps to free us froms the chains of ignorance and attachment. Within this realm there can be the continuum of truth and untruth, as there is heat and cold, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, good and evil, etc. We seek freediom from all of these.
I've gotten off track it seems. Yet the Truth we seek is beyond this experience of the world of made from the pairs of opposites. It is Absolute Existence, Consciousness, and Bliss, which have no "opposites".
As a note, the wisdom of Hindu understanding of the nature of creation also gives us reason not to beat ourselves up for the "negative" qualities we find in ourselves. They are there by nature. When we discover a negative qualty we can instead work on changing ourselves, purifying our intentions, and making our way towards Truth.
Thank you again, Jayanti. Your understanding overwhelms me. The point about Sri Ramakrishna not being able to offer the Divine Mother "untruth" stays with me. This is a point I will ponder on.
