The Truth Beneath the Contradiction

"How wonderful that we've met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making some progress." - Niels Bohr, quantum physicist

The spiritually centered life is rife with paradox. To uncover the greatest of truths we must be able to sit in the disquieting milieu of uncertainty and contradictions. We must question our basic assumptions about the way it is, until we discover a context in which the contradictory makes sense. As Carl Jung put it, "Only the paradox comes anywhere near to comprehending the fullness of life."

Jesus was a master of life, and a master of paradoxical teachings. Perhaps he used paradox to disrupt the ordinary thinking mind of his students; to upset the equilibrium of the world's logic, so a new way of seeing life might break through the crack of confusion. When we hear a declaration such as the last will be first or those who save their lives will lose it, while those who lose their lives will save it, our common sense of truth rejects the seeming contradiction, and we're left to seek a deeper reality where these assertions could be true. This gets us moving in the right direction. In order for us to uncover our true nature we must look beyond the surface of our bodies, circumstances and thoughts into the deeper realm of our being.

I personally love the paradoxical truth teachings because they act like a splash of cold water against my tendency toward drowsiness that allows me to nap on the surface of life. Though I am a believer in the wisdom of Jesus' teachings I am apt to fall asleep and return to believing only in my senses to appraise life. This slumber transports me down a rabbit hole of fear into a world of scarcity with its myriad iterations of not enough.

When I contemplate the paradox in a truth teaching I cannot stay on the surface for long. In order to find the truth in the seeming contradiction I must allow my mind and heart to rise into a realm of spiritual understanding, where the contradiction dissolves, and the deeper truth is laid bare and made plain.

We are in our third week of the Go Giver series, which essentially says that it is in giving that we receive. In this paradoxical, seeming contradictory assertion, lies the power to move us out of scarcity into abundance and true success. We must be willing to dwell upon and act upon this principle until its deeper truth is made real for us. That is the inner and outer practice. Ask yourself, how is it true that when I give, I receive? The answers will become the guidance you truly seek to live the uncommon life where generosity and abundance happily coexist.