Spiritual concepts
Contrast
One of the principle concepts used in the creation is the notion of ‘contrast’. This is represented symbolically in the yin and yang symbol – black and white, dark and light.
In the Bible, you will find as part of Genesis the creation of Night and Day. This does not mean, the literal creation of day and night. It means that very early on in creation contrast and balance were defined and created.
There are thus contrasts, balancing properties, but these are neither 'good' nor 'bad' they just are.
It is also abundantly clear that contrast was part of the objective of creation. Why?
In order for us to operate within the world, what was created was a world of contrast, contrasting colours, contrasting sizes, contrasting sensations, contrasting tastes and so on. Any living being cannot appreciate, for example, what ‘no pain’ is unless it has experienced ‘pain’. It cannot know ‘happiness’ unless it has known ‘sadness’. It will not know ‘cold’ unless it has experienced ‘hot’.
Contrast provides the mechanism of perception, the means by which we and all our fellow living creatures can better understand what has been created and also survive and flourish within the creation. Furthermore, contrast is needed in order for us as human beings to progress, move forward and learn.
William Blake –from The Complete Poems
Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary for Human existence.
Thus contrast was provided in order that all living beings could operate within the creation – work, live, enjoy, co-create and appreciate the world.
Observations
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- Al-Ghazzali - The Alchemy of Happiness - 02 Knowledge of the Self
- Aristotle - Metaphysics B5 - Change as the reason for life
- Attar, Fariduddin - God Speaks to David
- Bailey, Philip James - from Festus I - Good and evil
- Bhagavad Gita - Strung like pearls on a thread
- Black and White
- Blake, William - And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength
- Boehme, Jacob - Aurora - All the powers which are in nature proceed from God
- Boehme, Jacob - Aurora - Contrast
- Boehme, Jacob - Aurora - The nature of God
- Browning, Robert - Reverie - Head praises, but heart refrains
- Bruno, Giordano – Cause, principle and unity - 01 The Second Dialogue
- Bruno, Giordano – Cause, principle and unity - 06 The Third Dialogue
- Bruno, Giordano – Cause, principle and unity - 14 The Fifth Dialogue
- Charles Fort - 0 Concepts - Contrast and Free will
- Chuang Tzu - The Pivot
- Crosse, Andrew – Poems – Science
- Crowley, Aleister - Book of Lies - The Battle of the Ants
- Custance, John - Adventure into the Unconscious - The need for Contrast
- Dawkins, Professor Richard - On contrast
- Dionysius the Areopagite - De Mystica Theologia - Attribute and function
- Empedocles - On Nature - 233-364
- Escher - The Four Elements
- Freddie Mercury - The March Of The Black Queen
- Frost, Robert - Never have I been sad or glad
- Gardner, Ingrid - On hell
- Genesis 04 - Cain and Abel
- Genesis 08 - the Flood
- George Harrison - Circles
- Gnostic Gospels - Thunder
- Guru Granth - Bilaval 01
- Hawkes, Jacquetta – A Land – On Contrast
- Hesiod - Works and Days - The story of Pandora
- Hindu Saivism - 'A brief introduction'
- Hobson, Dr Allan - The effects of a stroke 03 - A monkey mama is floating in the air in front of him
- Hymn from the Stele in Memphis in front of the Temple of Hephaistos
- James, William - Gary Lachman - Inhaling Nitrous Oxide
- Jili, Abd al-Karim - Al-Insan al-kamil - In parable, the creation is like ice
- Jili, Abd al-Karim - Al-Kahf wa al-raqim - 011 Introduction [Extract]
- Jones, Sir William - Caissa
- Khan, Hazrat Inayat - The Mysticism of Sound and Music - On 'vibrations'
- Lethbridge, T C - A Step in the Dark – Black magic
- Lethbridge, T C - ESP Beyond Time and Distance – On contrast, interrupters and conductors
- Malevich, Kazimir - Girls in the Fields
- Mary, Mary quite contrary
- Mascaro, Juan - For Anandam, pure joy
- Merlin - The Archetype of the Magician – John Granrose
- Monroe, Robert - Nature as teacher
- Morrells, Luce and Pied crows, mum and aunty
- Munch, Edvard - Dance of Life and Vampire
- Mutwa, Vusamazulu Credo - And the underworld
- Naglowska, Maria de - The Light of Sex - On Justice and Contrast
- Neiye - Verse 12
- O'Reilly, John Boyle - The Day and Night are symbols of creation
- Ogotemmeli - On bad seed
- Ovid - Metamorphoses - The Creation of the World
- Paramahansa Yogananda - Why God permits evil - The Great Work
- Parmenides - On Nature - 08
- Parmenides - On Nature - 09 to 11
- Picts – Type of experience - Z rod or Zigzag line [general]
- Plotinus - The Enneads - It is certain that we shrink from the unpleasant
- Pythagoras - Iamblichus's Life - The Elements and Contrast
- Pythagoras - Misc. Quote - On contrast
- Ravidas – from the Adi Granth 13
- Rig veda - In the Beginning [Muller transl]
- Romano, Jacques - The Law of Compensation
- Rumi - Love poems - The whirling heaven, Ever seeking and searching
- Schelling, F W J - Clara or On Nature’s Connection to the Spirit World – The existence of creation and destruction
- Schelling, F W J - Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom – Contrast, including attraction and repulsion, and the passions
- Schopenhauer, Arthur - The World as Will and Idea - Opposite to sublime
- Sefer ha-bahir – Para 109 - North as the source of evil
- Shaikh Muhammad Karim Khan Kirmani - Irshad al-‘awamm - Darkness and Light
- Shaikh Muhammad Karim Khan Kirmani - Irshad al-‘awamm - Star of David
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - Coalescing and Separating , expansion and contraction
- Shaivism - Concepts and symbols - Contrast
- Socrates - Plato Phaedo - Reincarnation
- Symbolism - Korean mystic shamanism - Taegeuk and taegeukgi
- Symbols – Picts – Sacred site - V Rod
- TED talk - Shekhar Kapur: 07 Transcript extract
- The Ceasing of Notions – 05 The limiting effect of the 5 senses
- The Kybalion - The Principle of Polarity
- The Sutra of Hui-Neng - There is neither motion nor stillness
- The wisdom of an old man
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 02 - 2 The enormous game of chess
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 02 - 4 Marking out the route
- Through the Looking Glass - Ch 04 - 1 Tweedledum and Tweedledee
- Tzu, Lao - A Way you can call Way isn’t the perennial Way
- Tzu, Lao - The wise men of old have truly said
- Tzu, Lao - Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know
- Watts, Alan - To strive for pleasure to the exclusion of pain is to strive for the loss of consciousness
- Wesley, John - Sermon 72 - On Evil Angels
- Whiteman, J H M
- William Law - Your own self is your own Cain that murders your own Abel
- Wirth, Oswald – 02 High Priestess
- Wirth, Oswald – 08 Justice
- Wordsworth, William - On the Power of Sound
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book IV - 06. Desire carries bondage in its womb
- Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Book IV - 07. All desires set on the Eternal
- Zoroastrian - Means of achieving spiritual experience - 06 Reducing threats
- Zosimos of Panopolis - The Letter Omega - 11 and 12