Duality Versus Unity

In sacred scriptures and in much ancient mythologies a theme runs through everything. And that theme is the integration of opposites.

In the I Ching we see it in various ways. primarily we see it in the interaction between hexagrams one and two. These two themes express the duality that we see all around us, yet, in their own way, reveal the path toward unity. A very wise man once said, "The putting together of opposites leads to the fortunate finding of things not looked for." But that only happens when one can integrate the two equal but opposite sides. We do see this in another way too though it is not so obvious. There are two canons to the I Ching, the first being hexagrams one through thirty, and the second being thirty one through sixty four. We also see it in the integration of each odd numbered hexagram with the following even numbered hexagram. (See Steven Karcher's work on this.) We could go on and on about this.

In Biblical terms we can see the same integration of opposites by comparing the Old Testament with the new. In the Old Testament God is an angry and jealous God who goes around killing all his enemies and pursuing justice. In the New Testament, God is a God of love who never judges anybody and is only love. (This is an oversimplification but suits us well enough for our purposes here.) The key is to integrate the opposites. And that is what we have to do.

So we have to recognize the need to put opposites together to create a unified whole. One Gospel was not included in the official Canon of the Church because it is very esoteric and very, very mystical. This does not sit well with a literal oriented Church which wants a straight forward doctrine. So it was thrown out. That Gospel is the Gospel of Thomas. It is a collection of sayings and does not talk at all about whether Jesus is God, or doctrine, about the birth and life of Jesus, nor his death or resurrection. It probably predates the orthodox Gospels. So why is it important? It speaks over and over again, in almost every verse, about the need to integrate the opposites into a single, united whole. But how do you do that? That is the key to everything.

In putting together the opposites into an integrated whole, one becomes a fully realized person, and one thing that happens is that the conscious mind and the subconscious are united and work together as a whole. This is the esoteric meaning of the story of the Marriage at Cana.

The Gospel of Thomas starts out with an interesting and provocative statement. "Whoever discovers the meaning of these sayings, (the sayings of Jesus as recorded in this Gospel) will not taste death."  Well, we all know that everybody dies. So what can this possibly mean? There is a curious verse in the Book of Revelations that says, "...will not be hurt of the second death." So what is the second death? The second death, I would submit, is the death after death when soul and spirit are separated. As Jesus said, "For what shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The second death is the separation of soul and spirit. Much could be said about this, books have been written. But here, just a little bit about this concept. Because it is found in all major religions, including Daoism, as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Christianity.

This is extremely significant, and well worth our attention.