Nature symbols: Whole and parts, Unity and polarity

Unity and polarity

All the driving forces of external and human nature have their roots in an intermediate tension between opposites. There would be no light without darkness, no courage without fear, no joy without sorrow, no greatness without weakness and no man without woman.

Just as man and woman can be reconciled at the exoteric (outer or temporal) level, our own male and female components can be merged at the esoteric (inner or metaphysical) level. Indeed, tensions between opposites are not doomed to last, they may commute into complements and complements become One. Then, the opposites are unified into the primeval Unity. Conversely, the Unity polarization gives rise to the emergence of opposites which, in reality, are one.

Unity within multiplicity and multiplicity within Unity can be better understood through the example of a simple circle. Although, we consider concepts such as “beginning” and “end” as opposites, each point on the circumference of the circle may be regard both as a beginning and an end. Moreover, if we draw two concentric circles and a common radius, we see that any point of the “smaller” corresponds to a point of the “bigger” and conversely. So, both circles have the “same” indefinite number of points and, in reality, are one. Only our illusory dualist mind, which favours the quantitative measure (“smaller” or “bigger”) over the qualitative nature (the “same” in principle), let us think of them as distinct. In fact, all the concentric circles have the same centre, which represents the “Unity” spreading equally in all directions as the vibrations pulsed by a unique source.

Similarly, the Hindu tradition says that “life and death are the same”. It means that these two opposites are mutually interdependent states and two facets of the same reality, which is one. Indeed, death and life are the end of a cycle and the beginning of a new one.

The fundamental polarity: Heaven and Earth

From time immemorial, human beings have scrutinized the sky to get answers to questions raised on earth. Therefore, the first polarization of the Unity refers to, notably in the Chinese tradition, the couple Heaven symbolizing the “Essence” and Earth representing the “Substance”.

As a solid and stable symbol, Earth is often represented by a square surrounded by a concentric circle depicting Heaven as in old Chinese coins. Within this representation, the interior of the circle (Heaven) contains the exterior of the square (Earth). Inside the intermediary region, where the “inner” Heaven joins the “outer” Earth, the celestial and terrestrial influences meet and balance to produce the “ten thousands beings”, i.e. all manifested beings.

Through its circular shape, Heaven spreads equally in all directions without favouring any of them. On the contrary, the squared Earth privileges the four directions related to the compass points from a spatial point of view or to various cycles from a timed perspective (seasons of the year, humanity ages, lunar month etc.).

In architecture, Earth is naturally represented by a cube topped by a hemispheric dome symbolizing Heaven, the basis of which may be circular or octagonal. The concise traditional expression: “Heaven is covering, Earth supporting” describes the roles of the two complimentary principles. They are respectively superior and inferior to the whole manifestation characterized by the circular or octagonal border line. The octagon refers to the four and intermediate directions of the compass points and symbolizes the full development of the manifestation.

The vertical joining the dome summit to the centre of the cube basis represents the “World Axis” alongside which celestial and terrestrial influences are meeting. The keystone topping the dome, also called “Heaven apex”, symbolizes the Unity, the Principle from which the Heaven/Earth polarity and the whole manifestation radiate. During the construction, the keystone appears to be the crowning of the building and its ultimate achievement.

While turning around the building, you see the whole construction apparently moving the other way round relatively to its fixed axis. The motionless axis vertex symbolizes, in the Chinese tradition, the “non-acting” (Wu-wei) Principle, the “Great Unity”, the Whole, source of the active, masculine, positive, light or yang principle (Heaven) and passive, feminine, negative, dark or yin principle (Earth).

All these characteristics (active and passive, positive and negative etc.) must be understood as polarities of the Whole. The Iching says that there is no yin without yang or yang without yin as depicted by the entangled white and black areas of the famous yin-yang symbol. The “Great Unity” keeps the balance between celestial and terrestrial influences, active and passive, positive and negative, masculine and feminine etc. Therefore, Unity polarities should never be considered separately, otherwise they risk losing their close interdependence and ability to play their complementary role.

What can we learn from this in relation to the environment ?

As Heaven and Earth, all opposites complement each other within the Unity or the Whole ¹. Conversely, the Whole is manifested through polarities of opposites, which can only find their deep meaning within It.

Such a vision is based on the “paradigm of world unity” where dualisms are no more opposed, but supporting each other within a whole ². A view resulting from an acute reason: the whole contains something more than its parts. For instance, regarding living beings, the capacity to adapt and develop or the ability to create more diverse and dynamic states.

Let us consider some examples related to environment and health:

• The authorized levels of pesticides, in foodstuffs, are defined separately for each of them. However, the norms do not reflect the reality. Indeed, most foodstuffs contain a cocktail of chemical substances and their global effects can be greater than the sum of the impacts of the components considered separately. Now, toxicology studies rarely take these synergetic effects on living and ecosystems into account. Their use took a heavy toll among bees.
• Insects have developed the production of many sexual hormones called pheromones. Adding to pheromones, similar synthesized composers, which are inactive in themselves, may increase sexual activity. Conversely, substituting synthesized composers to pheromones leads to a quick drop in this activity. There must be, within pheromones, something more than the chemical substance properties to explain this phenomenon.
• In the silkworm, a mix of substances has an activity even if each of them has not. This goes against the common view consisting in isolating an active principle within one of the components.
• Similarly, an extract of artichoke leaf revealed several properties (diuretic on kidneys and various ones on the hepatic sphere). The search for the substances responsible of these effects led to the isolation of six main constituents. However, none of their partial combinations was completely effective. Only their full association had the same properties as the extract.
• The aromatic compounds of plants have bactericidal properties that make them more efficient than antibiotics. In fact, they are composed of a wide spectrum of effective molecules working in synergy, which prevent bacteria from developing resistances to successively adapt themselves to each of them.

New properties, which do not rise from constituent parts, are appearing from their association. To recall the well known words of the French scientist and philosopher Blaise Pascal: “The whole is more than the sum of the parts” or “Any thing being caused and causing, helped and helping, mediate and immediate and all (things) being maintaining each other through a natural and insensitive link, which binds the most faraway and the most different, I take for impossible to know the parts without knowing the whole as to know the whole without knowing the parts”. Life is a whole where parts, instead of following separated directions, are working together. Parts are the result of disintegration of the whole; the whole constitutes the crowning of part integration. A set of parts becomes a whole through their mutual interactions and their relationships with their common environment. Taking into account these inter relations means shifting from a fragmented to a holistic vision.

Moreover, regarding science and research, this would imply moving from an “analytical” approach studying separated elements in “controlled conditions” to a more “holistic” approach investigating living systems overall in “natural conditions”. This is the only way to really understand the impacts of our living modes on the health of the biosphere and people composing our societies.

Bibliography

René Guénon:

“The Great Triad”, South Asia Books Publisher;

Mostly, chapter 3 related to “Heaven and Earth”.

Jean-Marie Pelt:

“The secret languages of nature”, Fayard Publisher, 1996;

Particularly, chapter 6 “Love each other!”.

“The future is looking at you”, Fayard Publisher, 2003;

Notably, chapter 5 entitled “The green Joker”.

“The precious gifts of nature”, Fayard Publisher, 2010;

In collaboration with Denis Cheissoux and Franck Steffan

In particular, chapter 5 entitled “Earth, mother of healing plants”.

^{1 back} Note that the Being beyond any differentiation, the Whole can be, grammatically speaking, neither masculine nor feminine, only neuter. “It” could be a source of misunderstanding in languages like French where neuter does not exist. Even in languages, such as English, using neuter, “it” refers only to a gender covering a separate non-human sphere. In Eastern traditions, “It” goes beyond that and encompasses the masculine-feminine duality. For example, the Hindu tradition makes a difference between:

• Brahma, the “Supreme Principle” beyond any distinction and neuter;
• Brahmâ, the “Non-Supreme” aspect with Vishnu and Shiva of the triple manifestation (“Trimurti”), who is masculine.

^{2 back} In contemporary physics, this approach was already applied within, for instance, Albert Einstein's special relativity theory. The abandon of the space/time and mass/energy dualisms is resulting from the equivalence principle of all (inertial, i.e. moving at a constant relative velocity) referential systems with the following consequences:

• The light velocity (in vacuum) is the same in all inertial referential systems.
• The physical laws have the same form in any inertial referential system.