Transformation is the nature of life. The nature of transformation is destruction (breaking down) followed by construction (building up), or disintegration followed by integration. Change and transformation on the physical plane is ongoing, built in to our make-up, and inherent to life on both the personal and collective levels.

Transformation is how we access the higher levels of human consciousness, and the hidden mysteries of life. It is the way we satisfy the insatiable hunger in our souls that draws us ever closer to an eternal realm. Change is usually slow and gradual. The key to true transformation is a quantum-leap shift in consciousness where things aren’t simply recombined but something new appears for the first time.

Endless pairs of opposites create contradictions and conflicts between each part, yet they are at the same time complementary. Opposites are both contradictory and complementary. This establishes a principle that seems to be a fundamental law of nature.

This understanding goes way back. From the 15th century B.C., the Bhagavad-Gita says, “In this world, Being is twofold: the Divided, the Undivided. All things that live are “the Divided.” That which sits apart, “the Undivided.” And, from the 5th century B.C., Heraclitus, said, “The way up and the way down are one and the same.”

From a holistic perspective, the opposites are not divided at all. Heraclitus said, “It is sickness that makes health pleasant…weariness precedes rest, hunger brings on plenty and evil leads to good.” He is noting, as did Swinburne, the contradictions that are at the same time complementary. Recognizing the pattern here, and that there must be a principle to account for the paradoxes in life, is partly a matter of vantage point but more so a matter of consciousness.