Yin and Yang of life's harmony

The yin-yang symbol shown above holds its roots in Taoism, a Chinese religion and philosophy. The yin, 'the dark swirl', is associated with shadows, femininity, and the trough of a wave; the 'yang', the light swirl, represents brightness, passion and growth. In simple terms yang represents the light of life, energy, movement, activity, Sun, masculinity and being awake, on the other hand Yin represents shadow, rest, sleep, femininity, cold, winter darkness.

The Yin personality represents all those activities engaged in nurturing, being intuitive, relaxed, imaginative, quiet, introverted, night, earth, moon, water, softness, moisture, sadness, contemplative, downward seeking, slow, consuming, and calmness which shows that personality wise the Yin persons tend to be more passive, shy, timid, caring, sensitive, and quiet, while Yang types tend to be more aggressive, active, outgoing, ambitious and goal-oriented.

It is said that Yin is what makes you want to receive sexual energy from another person and yang is what makes you want to initiate sex with your partner. People with too little yin often don't feel sexy or have a poor self-image, they are not active in sex life too and the sex lives of Yang personalities are more dominant and positive. It is also observed that twin soul form of a twin flame is a 'split energetic' form that separates into yin and yang versions of itself. That yin/yang version spends many lifetimes looking for and discovering aspects of itself through connections with countless soulmates, their movements are mysterious and not fully understood by us.

Like in life we have seen some women are more of Yang types with dominant nature of getting things done aggressively and effecting the decision making process strongly in their favour with their own strong personalities whereas there are some Yin men who are meek and timid in their approach, they attitudes are more quiet, calm and passive and they tend to be balanced by nature by matching their lives with strong women both physically and mentally and that is how the harmony in lives is achieved with Yin Yang companions.

Classical Chinese thought process has evolved into Yin - Yang when divided into their respective Yin - Yang aspects, yielding four combinations: Yin of the Yin, and Yang of the Yin, and Yin of the Yang, and Yang of the Yang. This permutation and combination then allows an almost endless scale of universally defined qualities, thereby making various alternatives possible in the energy conservation and dissipation mechanisms of the universe.

If you observe there are two distinct dots in the centre of both Yin and Yang represent Yin within Yang and Yang within Yin. Those shown around the circumference are the eight trigrams (bagua), which in this case represent different stages in the cycles of increase and decrease of Yin and Yang (clockwise from the lower left corner: zhen, li, dui, qian, sun, kan, gen, and kun as per the theories proposed by ancient Chinese philosophers.

According to Chinese Mythology, 'The Pangu' legend says that in the beginning there was nothing in the universe except a formless chaos. The chaos began to coalesce into a cosmic egg for eighteen thousand years. Within it, the perfectly opposed principles of yin and yang became balanced and Pangu, emerged from the egg. Pangu set about the task of creating the world: he separated Yin from Yang with a swing of his giant axe, creating the Earth (dark Yin) and the Sky (bright Yang). To keep them separated, Pangu stood between them and pushed up the Sky. This took him eighteen thousand years as well, each day the sky grew ten feet higher, the Earth ten feet wider, and Pangu ten feet taller. In this task Pangu was aided by the four most prominent beasts, namely the Turtle, the Qilin, the Phoenix, and the Dragon.

The Ancient Chinese Mythologists believe that after the eighteen thousand years had elapsed, Pangu was laid to rest. His breath became the wind; his voice the thunder; his left eye the sun and his right eye the moon; his body became the mountains and extremes of the world; his blood formed rivers; his muscles the fertile lands; his facial hair the stars and milky way; his fur the bushes and forests; his bones the valuable minerals; his bone marrow sacred diamonds; his sweat fell as rain; and the fleas on his fur carried by the wind became human beings all over the world. The distance from Earth and Sky at the end of the 18,000 years would have been 12,443 miles, or over 20,025 km.

When we study Chinese style of medicine, you understand yin and yang have great significance, essentially, Chinese medicine is based on health and disease as a balance of yin and yang and therefore basic concept is that you need to balance your Yin with Yang and this is how the body's health and mind's health is achieved to optimum levels.

This is indeed a vast subject and I have only tried to introduce to the readers simple concepts of Yin and Yang and readers are encouraged those interested may like to go deeper into the subject, as there are many references and books available on the subject.