It says: the opposite of every truth is just as true! That is to say, any truth can only be expressed and put into words when it is one-sided. Everything that can be thought with the mind and said with words is one-sided, it's all just the half of it, lacking completeness, roundness, or unity
. When the exalted Gotama spoke his teachings about the world, he had to divide it into Samsara and Nirvana, deception and truth, suffering and salvation.
It can't be done any differently, and there is no other way for the person who wants to teach. But the world itself that exists around us and inside of us is never one-sided. A person or an action is never entirely Samsara or Nirvana, and a person is never completely holy or sinful. It really seems like this, of course, because we are subject to the deception that time is something real. Time is not real, Govinda; I have experienced this many times over. And if time is not real, then the divide which seems to separate the world from eternity, suffering from bliss, and evil from good, is also a deception. "How is that?" asked Govinda timidly. "Listen well, my friend; listen well! The sinner-as I am and you are-is a sinner, but in time he will come to be Brahman again. In time, he will reach Nirvana and will be Buddha, and these "times to come" are only a deception and a parable! The sinner is not on his way to becoming a Buddha and is not in the process of developing, even though our capacity for thought does not know how else to envision these things. No, the future Buddha is within the sinner now; his future is already completely there today. One has to worship within oneself, in you, and in everyone else the Buddha that is coming into being, that is possible: the hidden Buddha. The world, my friend Govinda, is not imperfect or on a slow path towards perfection; no, it is perfect every moment. All sin already carries divine forgiveness within itself, all small children already have the old person within themselves, all infants have death, all the dying have eternal life. It isn't possible for any one person to see how far another one already progressed on his path, because the Buddha is waiting inside the robber and the gambler, and the robber is waiting within the Brahmin.
It is also possible through deep meditation to put time out of existence and to see all the life that was and is and ever will be as if they were all simultaneous; in that simultaneity is everything that is good, perfect, and Brahman. I therefore see whatever exists as good. Death is like life to me, sin is like holiness, wisdom is like foolishness; everything has to be just as it is, and everything requires only my consent, willingness, and loving agreement to become good to me and work for my benefit, unable to ever harm me. I have experienced a great deal of sin in my body and soul that I needed; I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and the most shameful despair in order to learn how to surrender all resistance, love the world, and stop comparing it to some kind of world that I imagined or wished for- a perfection that I had dreamed up. I had to learn how to leave the world as it is, to love it, and to enjoy being a part of it. These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts that have come into my mind.
Siddhartha bent down, picked a stone up from the ground, and weighed it in his hand. "This here," he said playfully "is a stone. It will, after a certain time, perhaps turn into soil, and from soil it will turn into a plant, animal, or human being. In the past, I would have said: 'This stone is just a stone; it is worthless and it belongs to the world of the Maya. And yet, because it might be able to become a human being and a spirit in the cycle of transformation, I also grant that it is important.' This is how I might have thought in the past. But today, I think that this stone is a stone, and it is also an animal, a god, and Buddha; I do not venerate it because it could turn into this or that, but rather it already is and always will be everything. The very fact that it is a stone and appears to me today and now as a stone is the reason why I love it and see worth and purpose in each of its veins and cavities, in the yellow and grey, in the hardness, in the sound it makes when I knock at it, or in the dryness or wetness of its surface. There are stones which feel like oil or soap, and others that feel like leaves or sand. Every one is special and prays to the "Om" in its own way, and each one is Brahman, but at the same time they are just as much a stone, and are oily or juicy, and it is this very fact that I like and regard as wondrous or worthy of worship. But I won't speak any more of this. These words are not sufficient for this secret meaning. Everything always comes out a little differently as soon as it is put into words. It gets distorted slightly and seems a bit silly-yes, this is also very good and I like it quite a bit, and I agree with the idea that what is one man's treasure and wisdom always sounds like foolishness to someone else."