Dear friend, there is an essential give and take, push and pull, up and down, to life that is both simple and yet a core mystery of existence. Through this opposition, we develop character, form virtues, and gain integrity. In fact, the symmetrical nature of opposing forces helps us remember our wholeness.

This inherent opposition of life is designed to bring about growth, change, transformation, and evolution in life; ultimately, to shift our focus from the familiar to the mysterious, from the physical to the spiritual, and from time to eternity.

Here we have a fundamental principle of life that, in presenting us with endless pairs of opposites, creates contradictions, conflicts, and problems, or disorders, to be resolved not to confuse us. Each pair of opposites, as complementarities, adds up to a whole. Problems only arise when the whole is broken down into parts. In some traditions, the central problem of the human condition is precisely how to bring the two contraries into equilibrium yet maintaining them as complementary forces to each other. Knowing how to balance the creative and negative energies is a guiding principle of our human development in life.

My friend, if we look back, we may identify a time, or an experience, when we were fully aware of a conflict of opposites going on in our life, a push and a pull between two forces that seemed to have equal power over us.

What were the forces we were conscious of, what kind of shift in focus or contradiction did this create for us? Did these opposing forces help us to understand any better our core values or virtues that we possess? How did we recreate a balance between these opposing forces for ourselves?

Duality is a blessing, a place for those who experience life and always evolving beyond the opposites. Transcending duality is to see this mysterious existence, to feel it in the deepest core of our heart for what it really is. When we do immediately prayers arise in the heart that has no words to them, they do not belong to any culture, prayers that are silent, they don’t say much but they are tremendously fragrant. This state of balance creates music in our being, and it is created out of the opposites, it is the harmony of the stars and the melody of the whole.

Much Love,

Ziad