Unity of Opposites

Truth is what the opposites have in common




“All beauty is the making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves,” – Eli Siegel


In the Hegelian system, truth is seen as a process of progressive synthesis of opposites to a "higher" truth (Hegel, Phenomenology of the Mind)


[Ghandi] was a very great reconciler of opposites and he was that without strain or artificiality. He loved greatly and accepted unreservedly that truth can reside in opposites.  (The Essence Of Gandhi, G. Ramachandran)



Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Heraclitus
Heraclitus: It is impossible to step twice into the same river…it scatters and regathers, comes together and dissolves, approaches, and departs.
Some scholars theorize that Heraclitus was illustrating his concept of the “unity of opposites” that the river is the same and yet different river (Cohen 4 -- Cohen, S. Marc. “Heraclitus.” 2002. U of Washington. 29 Nov. 2004 <http://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/heracli.htm>)



From “Lessons in Jewish Wisdom”:
The deepest truth of any matter must be expressed as a paradox -- as two mutually exclusive and equally true statements. The real truth then appears as the elusive product of their tension and interaction. Unless one is grappling with paradox, one is not at the heart of the subject. . .
Source:  http://www.amyisrael.co.il/smallvoice/prayeranddestiny_excerpts2.html




doctrine of ha-achdut hasvaah (the unity of opposites) as it appears in the Kabbalah and Hasidism  …  The key to rational mysticism in the Kabbalah is the notion of ha-achdut hashvaah, the “coincidence of opposites,” an idea which not only “deconstructs” the poles of the various oppositions through which the world is ordinarily comprehended, but also shows that each term of an opposition (e.g. God/man, word/thing, freedom/necessity, good/evil, etc.) is completely (and logically) dependent upon its opposite, i.e. dependent upon the very ideas and things that the term was meant to oppose or exclude. (http://www.newkabbalah.com/Coinc.htm)