Hope, Duty, Redemption, Enlightenment

Good endures evil out of hope.
Evil brings evil out of duty.
Evil turns to good through redemption.
Good brings good out of enlightenment.

The themes of hope, duty, redemption and enlightenment coincide with the metaphors of light, fire, water and dark. Out of darkness, no-thing-ness, comes a point of light. The point of light is just pure being within chaos. So begins the sense of hope and wonder that infuses all experience. Yet there is embodiment, pain, a sense of frustration, unfulfilled needs and loss of connection. Through the accumulating repetitions of living there are little deaths, the corrupting and decay of awareness of pure being. Distinctions are made, differences directly experienced, history made, the relative world comes full upon us.
The badness and evil burns in the body and mind. Shame, guilt, grief and self-betrayal become known. Devices, fixations and passions become the masters and always the overlord of them all, the insistent, inpatient, greedy, selfish ego dominates the focus of being. In a world of fear and uncertainty, conflict and resistance, life objectives become concrete, serviceable and practical. Duty and obligation subsume the individual ego under a more powerful group ego or solipsistic self-serving becomes the reason for being. The world of power and competition becomes the only veritable reality. The school of hard knocks becomes the initiation into “the way it is.”

Yet out of the duality flows the third way. Polarity, the dynamics of the union of opposites, is expressed through the constant shifting and figure/ground reversals of the phenomenal world. Through the passage of time, the call to adventure, destiny is set before us. The meaning of our efforts comes to redemption. There is an offer of greater meaning for our suffering, striving, conflict and corruption. To see oneself through the eyes of the other is to make the empathic connection. To be fearless and searching is to turn from evil to the goodness of the world. Goodness is in the living force of others, other lights, the hope and wonder all around.
Yet the reflective mind is limited for the truth is transcendent of memory and history, ego and objects, personalities and enterprises. Into the dark, the chaotic abyss, the enlightened are one with it, for only through darkness comes the light.