"Harmony" from Jim Wanless VoyagerBut there is another type of harmony that comes to mind and that is the harmony between opposites. This would be the idea of harmony between the masculine and feminine, the light and the dark, good and evil, consonance and dissonance, etc. In order for there to be a harmony between opposites, they must be balanced. In other words, one must not be stronger than the other. When they are in balance there is harmony.
Take the human brain, for example. The right side of the brain is usually considered the creative, intuitive, feminine side of the brain. The left side of the brain is the logical, mathematical, and masculine side of the brain. We ideally are using both sides of our brain! When we can use them both effectively and efficiently, we create harmony within ourselves.
This balancing act is not as simple as it sounds. It would be interesting to consider that perhaps much of the disharmony we create in our lives is from being out of balance in the way that we think and use our brains. Our educational system is a good example of this. We currently use a very left-brained approach to education. Although there are some trends to also use creative, kinesthetic methods of instruction, we still, by far, favor the linear, didactic approach to instruction.
The shortfalls in this can be seen in the number of students that fail to thrive in our current educational system. If a child cannot learn to read according to our statistical charts and normative data, we label them as learning disabled and literally sentence them to a life of academic challenges. If, on the other hand, we would utilize a balance of creative and logical approaches in education, we would see the giftedness in every student.
Our religious system is yet another example. Currently, most of the world’s religions favor a patriarchal system that favors the masculine, left-brained approach to knowing God. As a result, we have a very strong bias towards doing and achieving versus the more feminine approach of receptivity and creativity. We could create much more harmony in religion by opening to the right-brained, intuitive, feminine side of knowing God.
On a personal level, we struggle to maintain a balancing of the masculine and feminine sides of the brain. The right side is our listening ability or lunar side. The left side is our acting, doing or solar side. To be in balanced relationship with others we must be able to switch back and forth with ease from one side of the brain to the other. To ascertain how well your brain is balanced you can ask yourself how well you actually listen to others. Too often we are busy formulating a response instead of listening. This creates a disharmony in relationships!
To bring it to a spiritual level, we must be able to listen to our higher self, our soul and spirit to receive direction from Source. If we are unable to listen and be receptive we will be acting from the level of our personality and ego. To be in harmony means that we can remain open and receptive to the prompting of the Spirit and at the same time act in accordance to what the Spirit guides us to do
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This could also be spoken of as putting more emphasis on the contemplative aspects of our faith traditions. For many years I've felt that religion would benefit if this kind of prayer/meditation weren't confined so much to monasteries and was made more accessible to laypersons.
Yes, I think you have this just right. It is through meditation that we are able to hear the guidance from Spirit. Meditation should be a part of our daily spiritual practice. This helps us to create the needed balance in our lives.
Thanks for your thoughts here. Many blessings! Julie