God Beyond Religion: Polarity, Duality and Non-Duality

 4. THE PRINCIPLE OF POLARITY. "Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled." — The Kybalion.

~The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 8). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

There is a debate that ensues over duality and non-duality, the right-hand path and the left-hand path. Are we one or are we separate? For me, the Hermetic principle of polarity solves the issue. If you believe as I do that William Walker Atkinson wrote the Kybalion as the three initiates, then his work the Arcane Formulas sheds some light on this subject. In the Arcane Formulas, he writes of the importance of Egohood in the process of mental alchemy. He sees egohood as something more than ego as it is looked at by psychologists. He sees egohood as a specific individual point of consciousness that he calls the will. It is a point of will within the will of the all and is individual to each conscious agent. It is achievable by establishing in the mind the I AM. The I AM is different than the self in Atkinson’s mind. It comes from meditation on the individual aspect of the cosmic will. This suggests that there is a duality.

The Jungian psychologist and philosopher, Bernardo Kastrup suggests that our individual consciousness is similar to a disassociated personality within an individual person. His idea is that we are a split personality of the All. I find that concept fascinating and if in fact, the material world is a construct of conscious observation, it could very well explain our individuality. So, for existence in the material plane, duality is important, and in the existence of cosmic consciousness non-duality is important. In looking at the principle of polarity duality and non-duality are polar opposites of the same thing. It is in this paradigm that the paradox is solved. In our conscious experience on the material plain duality is important and with our consciousness within the all non-duality is important, each with its own distinct purpose.

This transfers nicely to the higher self and the lower self. If one uses the words of the Apostle Paul, it is the heavenly man and the earthly man. It is the celestial and the terrestrial. So then, when considering the awakening and the advancement of our material self, this duality is important in developing our being in a path that accepts and cherishes dualism. And, in the awakening and advancement of our spiritual self it is the awareness of oneness that is important.

The amalgamation of the two can be understood within the hermetic principle of rhythm:

5. THE PRINCIPLE OF RHYTHM. "Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall; the pendulum-swing manifests in everything; the measure of the swing to the right is the measure of the swing to the left; rhythm compensates." — The Kybalion.

The Three Initiates. The Kybalion: A Study of The Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece (Illustrated) (p. 10). The Kybalion Resource Page. Kindle Edition.

In the natural swing of the pendulum there is a range from pole to pole. However, in the Arcane Formulas, Atkinson writes about the excluded middle. It is a way through meditation that one can stop the pendulum effect and find what he calls the excluded middle. It is the art of mastering opposites and neutralizing rhythm. Once a person establishes egohood they have the capability to use laws against laws thereby neutralizing the polarity.

To go back to a Judeo-Christian concept, I think of Jacob’s ladder. In Jacob’s ladder dream there was a ladder between heaven and earth. This is symbolic of the heavenly human and the earthly human uniting. It is bringing heaven to earth and earth to heaven and giving practicality to “as above so below and as below so above,” the Hermetic principle of correspondence. This in my view speaks to integrating and accepting both the heavenly and earthly as both having equal value. It is like acknowledging and working with the shadow self. It is melding the higher self with the natural or lower self. It is creating a whole from the dual and solving the paradox.