top of page

POLARITY AND UNIT

[...] When man says I , he immediately isolates himself from all that he feels as not-me,  like you,  and in this way man becomes a prisoner of polarity. His ego is now linked to the world of opposites, which manifests itself not only in the ego and the you, but also good and bad, right and wrong, and so on. Man's ego prevents him from perceiving unity and completeness in forms, or even from imagining them. Consciousness divides and splits everything into pairs of opposites, which we experience in the form of conflict if they provoke us, force us to make distinctions and then to make decisions. [...] Our intelligence does nothing but constantly divide reality into ever smaller units (analysis) and distinguish between these units (capacity for distinction). We therefore say yes to one and at the same time no to its opposite, because opposites, as we know, are excluded. But with every no  we cement our malaise, because to feel good we should not lack anything. Perhaps we are already beginning to understand to what extent the sickness-healing theme is closely related to polarity, and we can experience it even more clearly: sickness is polarity, healing is overcoming polarity.

Behind the polarity is unity, that one that embraces everything and in which the opposites as yet not separated rest [...] In unity there is no change, no transformation or evolution, because unity does not undergo time and to space. Unity is in eternal peace; it is pure being, without form and without activity. It should be striking that all the definitions of this unity are expressed in the negative, that is, they merely deny something: timeless, without space, without change, without borders.  

Any positive definition comes from our split world and is therefore not applicable to unity. From the point of view of our polar consciousness, unity therefore appears as nothing.  

[...] We can talk about this unity, but we cannot imagine it. However, the polarity can be experienced and acquired up to a certain level, if the man with certain meditation techniques or exercises develops the ability to unify the polarity of his consciousness at least for a short time. However, it always evades any verbal description or analysis of thought, because the premise of our thought is precisely polarity. Knowledge is impossible without polarity, without the division into subject and object, of the one who knows and what is known. In unity there is no knowledge, there is only being. In unity, nostalgia ceases, every will and every tension, every movement ends, because there is no longer something external towards which one can strive. It is an old paradox that only in nothingness can fullness be found. [...]

It is important to realize that it is not the world that is polar, but our consciousness, the one through which we experience the world. Let us consider the laws of polarity through a concrete example such as breath, which transmits the basic experience of polarity to man. Inhalation and exhalation alternate constantly and thus form a rhythm. The rhythm, however, is nothing more than the continuous alternation of two poles. Rhythm is the basic model of all that lives. This is what physics means when it states that all manifestations can be reduced to vibrations. If rhythm is destroyed, life is destroyed, because life is rhythm. Whoever refuses to exhale will not be able to inhale either. [...]

The aim and desire of a polar consciousness is to overcome the condition of time-conditioned malaise and become healthy again, that is, whole . Each path of healing or initiation leads from polarity to unity. [...]  

This way, however, always arouses fear, because it passes through pain and fear.

Torwald Dethlefsen - Rudiger Dalkhe, Disease and Destiny , Mediterranean Editions, 1986

bottom of page