Just because something seems true does not always mean its opposite is false. The darkness of contradiction is the cave from which the gold of understanding and light is mined. Jesus said the “light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehends it not.”[1]John 1:5 Consider that for a moment.
Just because I don’t see (understand) something, does not mean it is not there. All it means is that my mind is too dark to reflect it. A problem occurs when we label something false, wrong, immoral, or unimportant not because it is these things but because we simply do not understand it. We often judge something as dark or wrong not because it is, but because we simply do not comprehend it. Our own darkness “comprehends it not.” But it may be quite luminous.
We fear what we do not understand or know. Because fear is unbearable, we seek ways to avoid, limit, and contain it. We do this for our protection but ultimately at our peril. It is why we judge instead of seeking to understand. The problem is even worse when we do this because we are told to judge by those we perceive as holding authority over us. We become their pawns. This is how totalitarianism works. It is rooted in the need to avoid fear of the unknown. A genius once wrote that institutional leaders “divide mankind into two classes: tools and enemies.”[2]Friedrich Nietzsche Which are you? While not perfect at it, I strive to be an enemy of any ideology (defined as a fixed belief that one’s perspective or idea is the only correct one). The truth cuts its own way. Your ideas (and mine) will almost certainly fall victim to truth’s sword whether we accept this fact or not.
We fear the dark because we don’t know what is inside it. Darkness is simply ignorance; not knowing. Ignorance and fear are a dynamic duo in this way. Most people fear being scared. We have three options: (1) live in the fear; (2) dispel our own ignorance by walking into the dark and groping around or lighting a fire and confronting whatever is there (hint: usually it’s gold); or (3) rely on the self-proclaimed authority of others to tell us what is there (hint: they, like dragons, usually find and then hoard the gold themselves). The easiest option—by far—is the last. But to become a tool looking for enemies is also extremely dangerous. And it is far more fraught with risk than simply doing the work for ourselves.
But doing the independent work for ourselves requires a willingness to face our fear by looking into the dark and then willfully stepping into it. This has been taught in sacred metaphor for millennia: primeval humans were banished from paradise into a dark world as a result of their conscious decision to reach for independence. The question arises: are we doing the work of independence, or are we reaching back toward Eden for warm, dependent security? The great Barbara Hannah wrote: “There are many people who never really succeed in leaving the vicinity of Eden at all. They are driven out like everyone else of course, but they camp around its walls unable to tear themselves away.”
Massive and complex power systems (creeds) are developed to engender and encourage our propensity to camp around the walls of Eden. These power structures are devised to act as a proffered mediator—gardeners between us and the supposed wrathful God who banished us in the first place; gardeners claiming to teach the secret recipe that will finally grant us reentry. So, we campout in hopes of getting a chance to chat with the elusive gardener instead of cultivating and sowing seeds in our own land. But again, finding your own land and seeds through the dark forest is terribly risky and therefore terrifying.
Desperately grasping at a former paradise lost, many of us create a living hell for ourselves and all around us by believing certain acts will grant us absolution and reentry to a place we were never destined to remain. In such distracted and neurotic busywork (frantically trying—like human-doings instead of human beings—to memorize and apply that secret recipe as tools searching for enemies), many of us never discover our true calling, the very reason we were driven out in the first place: to move into the wild and dark unknown, learn by experience to tame and then illuminate it with our own gifts within, and thereby create infinite and expansive new “Edens.”
It seems to me life is meant to expand out and beyond in the same way the universe is constantly expanding into seemingly dark nothingness. It seems to move and expand whether we do our part or not. This is fate! We can interact with it or simply be a tool for others and resist the life within. The aforementioned genius also wrote, “If you want an easy life run with the herd.”[3]Nietzsche
So why then cling to gates and garden walls of a paradise lost even though flaming swords forever bar that kind of regression? Fear! Fear of taking risks. Fear of dissolution. Fear of not making it. Fear of failure. Fear of loss. Fear that what we think we know might not be all there is to discover (even though many devouring dragons tell us they have all the answers and all we have to do is just keep following them). The fear of the pain required to explore. Fear of stepping into the dark. And the fear of threatened reprisals for eating fruit we were told not to. So, we just sit here at the old walls, stagnant in our fears. Then, as time goes by, what we intended to avoid all along (what we feared) becomes our reality. As the fable goes, “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”[4]Jean de La Fontaine We find our way to earthly graves without ever having taken the risks necessary to find and leave our gifts that would have created those Edens for future generations to explore, enjoy, and then transcend themselves. Our souls sit dormant instead of doing the divine work. The “kingdom of God within” us is never found, cultivated, sown, or harvested for fear the way back to paradise would be lost if we struck out on our own. The fear of loss brings into our lives the very thing we feared. “The harvest has passed, the summer has ended, but we have not been saved.” (Jeremiah 8:20)
I was raised in a culture that literally teaches this brand of fear and loss to the extent that they speak of being separated eternally from loved ones; they actually believe in a “sad heaven” filled with “empty chairs” because they are taught to be afraid of not measuring up as a proper tool in the quiver of a wrathful god who employs special middlemen serving as gatekeepers searching for enemies—self-appointed “watchmen” who claim special access to a thing Jesus said was already within every human soul. I have received powerful personal spiritual manifestations (through dreams and related experiences) that such dogma is pure deception and that humanity’s divine source is far grander than most could ever imagine.
Fear is the worst four-letter word. Ancient wisdom teaches that “fear hath torment.” [5]1 John 4:18 A wise man once wrote that “only boldness can deliver from fear. And if the risk is not taken, the meaning of life is somehow violated.”[6]C. G. Jung As such, fear is our ultimate enemy!
All of us should ask: “What, then, is the meaning of my life?” “When will I pull up stakes and move out into life—far away from these garden walls?” Only then will we discover our true self and realize the heaven we long to return to is already staring us in the face. It is our face. We brought it with us. It is in our very nature. It is not something we earn by giving obeisance to other men’s dogma who claim to hold the power of our salvation. It is to be discovered within, for “the kingdom of God is within you.” [7]Luke 17:21 This discovery occurs by uncovering the very ground of our individual being. The depths are where the heights of our lives are hiding–like light in the darkness which comprehendeth it not. This must be at least one interpretation of what Jesus meant by that phrase given his other teachings concerning the Kingdom of God.
Jesus warned of people who claim to have the answers for your life. The truth is that only your soul knows how to access the heaven within. He said everyone will be tempted by many people who claim they can tell you how to get to heaven, a place they define and then tell you what you need to do to get there. He predicted such people will say, “See here; or, see there.” In other words, many will claim they have the keys and authority over your salvation. Then he said, “go not after them, nor follow them.” Why? Because, he said, “the kingdom of God cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”
Okay, great. But how to go about this excavation of the kingdom within?
A revered teacher once said it is “by proving contraries, truth is made manifest.”[8]Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 6:428 Unfortunately, many of us live in a culture of dualistic fundamentalism where it is considered dangerous to engage with what opposes the thoughts you’ve been told to believe. Our puppet masters (the power brokers) warn of the danger in considering any views that oppose theirs. In our modern world, only one of two narrow ways of seeing, thinking, or believing is acceptable. In this culture of binary ideologies, paradox is anathema and authoritarian absolutism is all the rage. Just turn on the news (any source you like) and you’ll see all that is pedaled (on both sides) is fear-mongering authoritarian absolutism. And this is killing virtue by preventing the discovery of soul as the kingdom of God within.
How? Because people seek safety in the authoritative declarations of those they believe hold power over them (the expert garden gatekeepers warning of danger in any ideology different than their brand). The fear of reprisal from one’s own tribe (family, church, or party) is real. Such fear is even instilled through pantomiming cutthroat penalties. And if someone they should otherwise love crosses their absolutist dogma by “proving” it contrary, they are labeled as bad, evil, a heretic, or simply lazy—any judgmental label will work as long as it provides psychological rest for the masses. In this way, the whole system of pursuing truth crumbles and devolves into personal judgments as ideological factions fight while the truth lies undiscovered in the dark ditch.
An old proverb teaches that whoever is narrow of vision cannot be big of heart. Similar wisdom teaches this is why those who judge will never understand, while those who understand will never judge.[9]Kahlil Gibran
I’m sure others may have a different interpretation, but I would suggest that “proving contraries” means developing the ability to patiently hold the tension of opposing sides without blindly giving in to either dogmatic pole. Proving suggests a process of experience, not an automatic blind judgment. If one undergoes this work of holding tension, a transcendent third—truth—will arise. But don’t expect immediate, unified answers. It seems truth often arises like the distillation of dew upon the fields of your soul, or like the slow dawning of the morning sun upon the eastern shoals of your mind. It comes in the form of experiential understanding rather than some dictated flash upon a storyboard. Just as physical muscles build through the long-term patient holding of progressive tension over time, the soul emerges in like manner.
But what does this look like in real life? Wrestling with paradox. The metaphor of a river comes to mind. [10]Such a metaphor comes to my mind perhaps because I am attempting—in my “spare time”–to write a story surrounding the image of a river.
Is the shape or form of a river determined by the features of land and terrain the water flows through, or does the flowing water determine the features of the land?
Rapids, waterfalls, and riverbends are all caused by water flowing over, around, and through rocks, debris, and landmass. The exact opposite is also true. Rocks, debris, and landmass (including massive canyons) are all formed and changed in time by the water itself. So, the answer to the question is simply yes to both. It is a both/and proposition, not an either/or. Which came first? Both. This is why it is never wise to dogmatically disregard the opposites.
The riverbed is not the river. Neither is the water. The understanding of truth is like a river: it requires the combination of opposites operating through a continuous, everchanging process. The truth may not change, but understanding it is only obtained through the process of seemingly constant change or movement between “contraries.” Proving is a verb. Truth is manifest through it.
The more a thing changes the more alive it is—just like a roaring river ripping with tides. You cannot step in the same river twice because it is always in flux. It is always alive and on the move. Yet we see that same river from a distance and it appears to never change at all from such a view.
The human condition is also a paradox. On the one hand, we are not born as Tabula Rasa (blank slates) because of genetics and epigenetics. These sciences prove that the lives and experiences of our ancestors have influence over our lives, feelings, experiences, and proclivities. As such, the essence of our beings (at least in part) precedes our bodily existence as babies born into this world. And yet, it is also true that our existence precedes our ultimate essence. This seems obvious. If it were not true, we would not be able to choose or change (bargain with) our future. We are self-determining, changeable, beings with the ability to self-actualize our state of future existence through work of the will. We can guide and determine our own destiny regardless of (or often in spite of) our genetics (i.e., hardwiring) or epigenetics (soft-wiring that is malleable through our own biology). At the same time, it is our parents (genetics), not us, who determine how, when, where, and what kind of life we are brought into. It is a paradox. Confusion and misunderstanding arise only when we demand just one side of truth is true.
Learning to hold paradox seems to me to be the way toward meaning and purpose
Like water running its course through a bed of rocks, dirt, and debris, it requires all these elements to bring forth a river. Standing alone, none of these features is a river. Movement of the primary source feature (water) through a channel of other deterministic features is the key. And it lives (i.e., moves and shapes over time) because of this.
William Blake wrote, “Expect poison from the standing water.” Poison indeed. Strike out from the old gates. Find your living water. It is not for the faint of heart, but it is the only way to truly be alive. “The doors of hell are locked from the inside.”[11]C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain Incidentally, this is the same place Jesus described as “the Kingdom of God.” Only fear and the paradox of pain prevents our present arrival.
References
↑1 | John 1:5 |
---|---|
↑2 | Friedrich Nietzsche |
↑3 | Nietzsche |
↑4 | Jean de La Fontaine |
↑5 | 1 John 4:18 |
↑6 | C. G. Jung |
↑7 | Luke 17:21 |
↑8 | Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 6:428 |
↑9 | Kahlil Gibran |
↑10 | Such a metaphor comes to my mind perhaps because I am attempting—in my “spare time”–to write a story surrounding the image of a river. |
↑11 | C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain |
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