Order and Chaos

Crescent Phase of the Moon
I recently listened to a short interview of John Demartini. He said something to the effect that the greatest growth takes place at the borders of chaos and order.

That’s a fascinating theory. It takes you back to Hegel, the German philosopher, and his concept of dialectical reasoning (thesis, antithesis, and synthesis), where the transition of thought moves from an initial conviction to its opposite and then to a new, higher conception that involves but transcends both of them.

Order might be likened to the thesis aspect of Hegelian philosophy, chaos to antithesis, and the new, higher order, i.e. the place where growth has taken place, and is now both assimilated and visible in its manifestation of the personality, is the synthesis, which then in turn becomes the new thesis.

You might say the when chaos is the determining factor, when there is no longer any order, there is no homeostasis in the personality, and until it again finds an equilibrium – but at a higher level – chaos reigns. When, however, balance is achieved, a new synthesis takes place, and homeostasis is once again in evidence.

What all of this boils down to is similar to my post on Crossing Thresholds and article on Comfort Zones: inner growth needs some type of friction, chaos, antithesis, lack of balance for the personality to seek a new order, a new balance, a new synthesis on higher levels. I’ve even heard of people talking about it from the point of view of the actual brain re-structuring itself on new levels after the initial scrambling about in chaos to search for a new balance.

So looking at it from that point of view, I suggest that you welcome situations that appear in your life that you might have regarded as difficulties or hardships, stress-filled times, and moments saturated with problem after problem, as times when your greatest inner growth can take place. Observe yourself as you deal with the situation, observe how you look for, and eventually find solutions, observe how you apply them, and how they then begin to form part of your normal life, and ultimately, observe how your parameters have expanded, how your comfort zone has grown, and how you yourself have become a much richer personality, a human being with a new order and equilibrium that must in the future, if further growth is to take place, again give way to chaos.