When All Else Fails

Life is so full of contradiction and paradox it is small wonder many find it very confusing. It sometimes appears that almost everything on earth has been designed with the underlying objective of creating conflict. Our philosophy and even our languages incorporate this idea by pointing to the contrasts which seem inescapable. To know white you must know black; to know happiness, it is necessary to know misery; to understand light, you have to experience darkness; and so on.

Is it true? Is this world full of opposites? Is it really necessary to experience the bad in order to know what is good? Is it not possible to arrange things so as to live in the light all the time and not have to suffer the shade? Perhaps ours is not a world of opposites at all but we just imagine it to be so? Some of our greatest writers have perceived this to be the case and have urged us to change our views and thus avoid being swept along in the maelstrom of conflict which drives us to yet more conflict. For instance, most people persist in accepting and promoting the idea of chance. They say, “Such and such happened to me because I am unlucky,” or “He always seems to land on his feet – he is just born lucky.” The idea that much of life is outside our control and we are therefore subject to the vagaries of chance is an idea as old as humanity itself. It is as though life is a kind of lottery in which there must be more losers than winners.

How we look upon ourselves; how willing we are to think for ourselves; how prepared we are to follow evidence even when it brings us to conclusions that makes us uncomfortable; these are among many things that determine our outlook on life and how we interpret its mysteries. They all tend to make us examine life superficially for it seems more comfortable that way; it is easier to go along with what is familiar, with what most others accept, than to step outside the mould and reach our own, very different conclusions about life, its purposes and its design. If we do so, there is likely to be conflict! Those whose comfort zone is challenged by our conclusions will resent it and us. Mostly, we opt for the quiet life and prefer not to raise the hackles of others by saying. “I cannot accept that and here is why.”

I believe we only perceive Earth to be a world of opposites because we have become mentally lazy. If we look at the world clearly, using our inner sight or our deeper feelings, we will see that all is a matter of relativity, not of conflict. I make no apology for the number of times I use Alexander Pope’s “Essay on Man” to illustrate such things for it is truly a work of genius in my opinion. He describes with great beauty and economy that conflict is merely our own limited perception. Everything to Pope is relative to everything else:

“All nature is but art unknown to thee;
All chance, direction which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT.”


Because we so often think of life and our lives in terms of conflict and of opposites, by refusing to recognise or use our inner senses, we sometimes plunge ourselves into despair. Everything and everyone it seems is opposed to us; no-one is prepared to stop and listen; much that we consider important in our lives has been lost; this is especially so when we lose a loved one and it is almost entirely due to wrong or misguided thinking. We have been “persuaded” that life consists merely of that relatively short period between being born on Earth to the time when we die. Death is the end, we are told. Even those who purport to know better, the leaders of the world’s great religions, offer no real comfort. Their words are empty promises, backed by a call to “have faith”. There is no evidence offered to support their claims. Small wonder therefore that the fear of death is the greatest of the many unnecessary fears that haunt humanity.


When we are brought up against the hopeless negativity that is at the root of what we imagine to be our world of opposites; when we despair of ever being able to ‘square the circle’ or make any sense of a life that has become a misery; when all else fails; that is when the spirit which is the real you, is able to assert itself. Through its vision you slowly begin to see the world through Pope’s eyes; you suddenly KNOW that death is not the end but the beginning of a new and exciting phase of your eternal life. You know you will meet again those you have loved and thought you had lost. You come to understand from within that whatever exists really is right. You begin to view everything as part of everything else and the pall of misery and despair is lifted. Because you are part of everything that exists and it is part of you, there can be no separation, no conflict, no opposites, for

“All are part of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is and God the soul”