Understanding
Is born of comparison and confrontation
October 24th 2011
Virtue and vice, strength and weakness, beauty and ugliness are different aspects of the good and evil we see expressed all around us. But instead of learning how to behave in relation to these two poles of the one whole, humans constantly ask themselves why God allows evil to exist. They must no longer ask this kind of question but understand instead that good and evil are intimately connected, because as complementary poles they have matters they must deal with together.
Our life on earth is wholly conditioned by the alternation of day and night, and this alternation, which governs the life of all of nature, also governs our physical and psychic life. We would not know what light is if darkness did not exist, nor what wisdom, justice, beauty and joy are if we were not forced to come up against stupidity, injustice, ugliness and sadness. Understanding is born of comparison and confrontation. If opposites did not exist, we would live in an undifferentiated state.