This culture is familiar with the phrase, “hitting bottom,” referring to addicts who have sunken into the depths of their destructive habits, becoming ready to rise up to wholeness. But we need to recognize that there is also something called “hitting the top,” the addict who has achieved so much success and wholeness that he is ready to fall apart.
Both are necessary for spiritual growth. The Tao Te Ching says it like this:
Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky. (Poem 13)
Real life has a curious pattern: We enter into a crisis of loss and focus our attention on the calamity. There is always a conscious or unconscious thought in the midst of such times, “When this is resolved, I will never complain again!” We really believe it.
When the catastrophe is resolved, there is a sigh of relief and serenity revives. What then? Eventually we encounter another crisis of some kind. Until we see that these two poles are normal, necessary and endemic to the human condition, we will labor under the delusion that someday we will be crisis-free and happy.
Does this mean we can have no lasting peace of mind? If peace means no more crises, then we will never experience peace. But if by peace we mean that we can gradually learn that positive and negative events work in tandem for psycho-spiritual development, it is possible to learn to resort to joy and peace in any situation. But it is not easy.
It will take many experiences as well as faith in a universe comprised of spiritual isometrics, which means building soul-muscle through the normal experiences of daily resistances brought to us by people, thoughts, feelings and circumstances – ranging from irritating freeway traffic to death and disease.
Jesus put it like this: “In this world you will have disasters. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” Jesus does not sugarcoat it. We live in a world of catastrophes. They are not overcome by going to a seminar, reading a book or by watching Oprah. Like Jesus, we must overcome, which means going through them.
The Tao Te Ching verse I just quoted ends like this:
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance. (Poem 13)
We must keep one foot on the positive pole and the other on the negative pole; one foot resting in success, the other in failure; one foot recognizing that we are on this planet to experience wholeness, the other foot recognizing that we are here to fall apart.
Most people are spiritually myopic, viewing life as completely positive or totally negative. We call these people optimists or pessimists. Both are immersed in delusional thinking. The balanced person learns, through trial and error; successes and failures, insanities and healings; that life is a daily interplay of dualities on the stage of this human existence. The aim of life is to make souls.
Another section of the Tao Te Ching says it like this:
As it acts in the world, the Tao
is like the bending of a bow.
The top is bent downward;
the bottom is bent up.
It adjusts excess and deficiency
so that there is perfect balance.
It takes from what is too much
and gives to what isn’t enough. (Poem 77)
Michael Bogar is the director and teacher at the Spiritual Enrichment Center of West Sound on Bainbridge Island, which meets every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at the Island Music Center in Rolling Bay. http://www.spiritualenrichmentcenter.org.
