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.’
What this principle explains is that in everything there are two poles, or opposite aspects, and that 'opposites' are really only the two extremes of the same thing, with many varying degrees between them.
If we think about this, then we find many examples in our day-to-day lives. The first being hot and cold. When we look at a thermometer, we cannot discover where hot begins and ends, and when it gets ‘officially’ cold. It is entirely our own perspective. There is no ‘absolute’ cold or ‘absolute’ hot. The differences between them are merely degrees along the same thing.
We can also say the same for light and dark, which again are the same thing. It is only in the absence of light that we get dark, but where does darkness begin? Again, there is no absolute, simply only our perspective. This carries on with so many things. How do we define something large or small? High and low, etc.
Where does light end and darkness begin?
Where it gets quite interesting is when we look at the principle in the realm of human emotion. An interesting one to look at is Love and Hate. Whilst there is the argument of unconditional love being on a different scale, if we are to look at the falling in love stage of a new relationship, how often in our youth did that turn to hate? Or severe dislike? Or noticing that we fell out of love? We might scoff and see that was when we were young, but if we were to turn back the clock and feel have those sensations and thoughts again, we might understand that our logic does not help if we are experiencing such potent emotions.
Another example might be liking and disliking? It does not seem to take much in current society for someone to dislike someone based on their actions and what their own perception of right and wrong is (another polarity!). For another person though, someone might continue to like someone whilst many have turned to dislike them. That is because it’s still all perception. This principle teaches us there cannot be an ‘absolute’ right or wrong, it is just simply our perception of it.
We can take this further when looking at the idea of suffering and emotional pain. How would we be able to perceive what happiness and joy is in life without the polarity of the opposite? How would we be able to experience the relief and good feeling when we had recovered from an illness without being ill in the first place? Does the pain and suffering you have inevitably gone through in your life make you more grateful for the good times in life or less?
Are both happiness and sadness simply perceptions on the same pole? Do both take place within a deeper level of awareness?
However, I think one of the most profound aspects of this principle and one that can transform our day-to-day life is when we apply the thinking that when things are in polarity they are the same; we then use this understanding to look at our emotional state. We understand that both so called ‘good’ and ‘bad’ emotions are ultimately the same, it is just our interpretations of them that decided just how ‘bad’ or how ‘good’ they are.
This links in to the first principle that speaks all is One and all is from God. We therefore must understand that the emotions and thoughts we like come from God, but that all the difficult emotions and thoughts we have also come from God. This means that everything that you perceive bad about yourself came from God. Every. Single. Thing. To God they are all the same, all part of the Creator.
Now your mind may have a hard time grasping this, but the next time you have a sensation in the body that you dislike or perceive as ‘bad’, see what happens if you can ignore or move your attention away from those types of thoughts, and instead move into and understanding that this is also part of God and so learn to accept and surrender them instead. You may experience something interesting begin to unfold.
Hopefully, you are seeing now that all the Hermetic principles are linked, and you cannot have one without the other, but with understanding and application then can change how you perceive not only the world but also yourself.