How differently people evaluate these complementary positions can be seen from the fact that when studying the different capabilities of one and the other hemispheres, the abilities of the left hemisphere were quickly identified and described, while the properties of the right hemisphere remained a mystery for a long time. It didn’t seem to be capable of anything useful. But in fact, nature has a much higher estimate of the capabilities of the right, irrational part of the brain, because in dangerous situations involving a threat to life, the right hemisphere automatically switches to the dominant state, and not the left hemisphere. A stressful situation cannot be adequately and quickly assessed at the analytical level, decomposing it into its components. If the right hemisphere is dominant, then it is possible to perceive the situation as a whole and, consequently, a calm reaction focused on the existing situation. It is with this switch that the phenomenon known since ancient times, which can be called “the frame of a lifetime”, is also associated. Before death, a person seems to scroll through his life, reliving everything that has ever happened to him. This is a very good example of what we have called the lack of time frames characteristic of the right hemisphere.
It seems to us that the theory of hemispheres brilliantly illustrates how one-sided and imperfect the picture of the world proposed by science and which has existed up to now is. Thanks to it, science can recognize the need for a second way of considering the overall picture of the world. It can realize that the law of polarity is the basic law of the universe.
On the example of the functioning of the hemispheres of the brain, the same law is once again manifested: in the human consciousness, the one disintegrates into polarities. The poles complement (compensate) each other, for the existence of each of them, the opposite is necessary. It is impossible to consider them at the same time, you have to use the order. At the same time, there are such phenomena as “rhythm”, “time” and “space”. If the polar consciousness tries to describe unity with words, it is forced to use paradoxes. Polarity has a great advantage: it is only through it that we have the ability to know. The goal of the polar consciousness is to overcome the ill health caused by time and recover, that is, to regain its integrity.
Any path to recovery is a path from polarity to unity, a radical, qualitative change that ordinary consciousness cannot imagine. All philosophical concepts, religions and esoteric schools teach to overcome the duality on the way to unity and put the focus not on improving the world, but on “leaving” it.
Jesus spoke about the path from duality to unity – but even the apostles (with the exception of John) did not fully understand it. Jesus called duality “this world,” and oneness “the kingdom of heaven, “”My Father’s House,” and simply ” Father.” He emphasized that His kingdom was not in this world, and taught how to find the way to it. But all the words of Christ were perceived too concretely, only on a material level. Chapter after chapter of the Gospel of John describes examples of such misunderstandings. Jesus speaks of a Temple that he wants to build in three days – the apostles think of a temple in Jerusalem, but he means his Body. Jesus talks to Nicodemus about the rebirth of the Spirit, and Nicodemus implies the birth of a child.
To the woman at the well, Jesus is talking about the Water of Life, and she is referring to simple drinking water. You can continue for a long time: after all, Jesus and the apostles have different points of reference. He tries to draw people’s attention to the important role of the One, and his listeners cling convulsively and fearfully to the polar world. We are not aware of any of Jesus ‘ suggestions for improving this world, but in any of his statements there is a call to dare and take the first step on the path to recovery.
This path always causes fear at first, because it goes through suffering. Peace can only be overcome by taking it upon oneself, and peace is always suffering.
Esoteric sciences teach not to curse the world, but to overcome it. To overcome the world means to overcome its polarity, that is, to give up your “I”, your Ego. Wholeness is achieved only by those who do not separate themselves from being their own “I”. His motivation should not be in the hope of “a better life in another world” or that “all suffering will be rewarded in the next world”, but in the confidence that the particular world in which we live will make sense if a new point of reference outside of it appears.
When a person attends an educational institution without a goal and without a specific deadline for its completion, and studies only in order to learn, the study itself becomes meaningless. An educational institution and training in it acquire meaning only if there is a point of reference that lies outside. In the same way, life and this world get a meaningful dimension if our goal is to overcome them. The meaning of the ladder is not in the possibility of staying on it, but in its use to overcome the height.
With the loss of such an external reference point, life in our time has become largely meaningless. The only ideal left to us is progress. But the meaning of progress lies in more progress. Thus, the path turned into a vicious circle.
To understand the nature of illness and recovery, it is important to understand that we mean by the word “recovery” the maximum approximation to the state of health, that is, unity. Attempts to search for it within the polarity are doomed to failure in advance. Once again, if we transfer our understanding of unity as a connection of opposites to the hemispheres of the brain, we will understand that overcoming their polarity consists in ending the alternating dominance of one of them. The opposition of “either-or” must become “both-and”, “alternation” must become “simultaneity”.
The corpus callosum between the hemispheres should become so permeable that the “two brains” will turn out to be one. The simultaneous use of the potentials of both hemispheres of the brain would be a physical form of enlightenment. This process is depicted in our horizontal model of consciousness, which shows that unity will be achieved when the subjective supra-consciousness merges with the objective unconscious into a single whole.
We constantly encounter various forms of manifestation of the universal knowledge of the movement from polarity to unity. We have already mentioned the Chinese philosophical doctrine of Taoism, in which the two world forces were called Yang and yin. Hermeticism spoke of the Sun and the Moon, or of the marriage of Fire and Water. They described the mystery of the merging of opposites with the following paradox: “The solid must be turned into a liquid, and the liquid into a solid.” The ancient symbol of hermeticism, the caduceus, expresses the same law: two serpents denote the polar forces that coiled around a single pillar. The same image is found in Indian philosophy in the form of two polar energy flows present in the human body – Ida and Pingala. If the yogi manages to awaken and bring up the serpent power (Kundalini) through the Middle Channel (Sushumna), then he attains a state of unity in his consciousness. Kabbalistics depicts this relationship in the form of three columns of the Tree of Life, which dialectics, in turn, call “teza”, “antithesis”and ” synthesis”.
These teachings arose and developed independently of each other, but they all try to describe the same phenomenon at different levels.
The polarity of consciousness constantly offers us two possibilities of action and forces us – if we do not want to remain in apathy-to make a choice each time, because we can only implement one of them. The opposite possibility always remains unfulfilled. You can’t stay at home and go for a walk at the same time, work and lie on the couch, save money and spend it recklessly, shoot the enemy and leave him alive, have children and protect yourself…
The difficulties associated with the need to make a choice are found at every step. Refusing to act is also a solution. And since we have to make decisions, we want them to be correct and reasonable. This requires evaluation criteria. If there are such criteria, the choice is quite simple: we have children because they serve to procreate; we shoot our enemies because they pose a threat to our children; we eat a lot of vegetables because it is good for our health; we give a starving man a piece of bread because we should show mercy.
This system works perfectly and makes it easier for us to make decisions: we should do what is good and right.
But, unfortunately, the ideas about the world, according to which we make decisions, do not always coincide with the ideas of other people. Some do not want to give birth to children, because there are already so many of them; some do not want to shoot their enemies, because they are also people; some eat a lot of meat, because it is good for their health; some consider beggars “lazy idlers” and never serve them.
Everyone considers views that do not coincide with their own to be erroneous and tries to convince others of their rightness. Many people believe that they know for sure “what is good and what is bad”, but everyone has their own truth. Who should I trust? From all this, you can simply fall into despair!
The only thing that can stop our throwing is the understanding that there can be no absolute (i.e. objective) categories of Good and Evil within the framework of polarity. So there is nothing absolutely right or absolutely wrong. Any assessment is subjective and depends on a particular point of view. The world cannot be divided into what has the right to exist, that is, is absolutely right and good, and what should not be, which must be defeated and wiped off the face of the earth. Attempts to build a system of irreconcilable opposites (right-wrong, good-evil, God-Devil) they do not take us beyond the boundaries of polarity, but make it even deeper.
The solution to the problem is at the third point, where all alternatives, possibilities, and opposites can be viewed as equally good and right, or equally bad and wrong. They are parts of a single whole and have the right to exist. Therefore, when we talk about polarity, we constantly emphasize that one pole exists only at the expense of the other, and there can be no single pole. The breath lives on the breath, the good lives on the Evil, the peace lives on the war, the health lives on the disease. The one who fights against one of the poles of the Universe, fights against the whole Cosmos, because in each part there is a common (part of the whole). This is exactly what Jesus meant when he said, “What you do against the youngest of my brothers, you do against me!” The transition to practice is very difficult. If our goal is unity that unites opposites, then a person cannot be healthy, that is, whole, as long as he excludes something from his consciousness or separates himself from something. By saying, ” I will never do this again, because it is bad!”, you are preventing the onset of perfection and enlightenment. In our Universe, there is nothing disenfranchised, but there are many things that an individual cannot appreciate the right to exist. All of a person’s efforts should really be directed towards a single goal: to learn to see relationships (we call this “becoming more conscious”), and not to try to correct or change anything other than their own ability to see the world.
People have long entertained the illusion that their active actions are able to change or correct the world. The belief in this is nothing but an optical illusion based on the projection of changes in oneself. If someone re-reads the same book at sufficiently long intervals, then each time he perceives its content in a new way. This perception is related to its own development. And if he wasn’t one hundred percent convinced that the content of the book can’t change, he would probably think that it is the book that is developing. The same illusion occurs in the discussion of ” evolution “or”development”. People believe that evolution grows out of a series of processes, without realizing that it is actually following an existing pattern. Evolution does not bring anything new, just people are becoming more aware of what has always been there.
The book is a very good example. The content and action are presented in it simultaneously, but are perceived by the reader in the process of reading step by step, step by step, although it itself has existed, perhaps, for more than a thousand years. Reading as such does not create content, the reader integrates an already existing sample over time.
It is not the world that changes – a person comprehends its different aspects and levels in turn. Wisdom, perfection, and awareness mean the ability to know everything that exists in its relevance and balance. “To be aware of order” is a synonym for “to be in order”. The illusion of change arises from the polarity, which decomposes simultaneity into alternation and forces us to choose “either – or” again.
Eastern philosophers call the world of polarity “maya” (deception). They demand that a person who strives for knowledge and liberation learn to perceive the material world as an illusion that does not really exist. But the path to knowledge (“awakening”) lies through this polar world.
If the polarity contradicts the unity in its instantaneity, it will be restored bypassing time. In this case, each pole will be balanced at the expense of the other. We call this law the principle of complementarity. Just as inhaling leads to exhaling, and waking leads to sleep, so the realization of one pole leads to the manifestation of the second. This law ensures their balance regardless of what a person does or does anything at all. We firmly believe that time changes many things, and this belief prevents us from seeing that it only leads to the repetition of the same patterns. Only the forms change, the content remains the same.
If you learn to abstract from the formal, you can consider some historical events or elements of your own biography, excluding the concept of time from them. It will then become apparent that all the seemingly diverse events follow the same pattern.
In order for us to move on, it is important to feel the inseparability of both poles. Most human actions do not take this into account: we want to be healthy and fight disease, we want to preserve peace by eliminating wars, we want to live by overcoming death. Surprisingly, the unsuccessful efforts, which have lasted for several thousand years, did not make a person doubt his competence. As we approach one of the poles, the intensity of the opposite one increases. There is a remarkable example in medicine: the active struggle for health has led to an increase in diseases.