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DR JOHN DEMARTINI - Updated 1 month ago
When I was 18 years old, I had a desire to master my life. I also had a desire to study universal laws, sometimes called the natural laws of the universe.
I wanted to know what these laws were. So, I began to make a list, beginning with universal laws. This search uncovered all kinds of eponymous laws (laws named after a particular person) such as Newton's law of gravitation, Maxwell’s equations, Coulomb’s law, Wundt’s law of contrast, and so on.
The result of this initial search inspired me to find out what the most universal of universal laws were and how to apply them to human behavior.
So, I began researching the most important universal laws of human behavior. This led me to study many, many disciplines – around 300, in fact – I was trying to find a common thread to all of them. And I did find three common threads or laws that were referenced by various researchers, thinkers, and writers through the ages.
These three common laws are something I speak about in my signature 2-day Breakthrough Experience program that I teach most every week because I am certain that knowing these laws will help give you a competitive and comparative advantage in your life.
Here is an overview to provide you with some context.
Law #1: Pairs of Opposites
At the very “beginning” of the universe, most cosmologists believed there was perfect symmetry. For every particle, there was an antiparticle; for every positive charge, there was a negative charge. In other words, they were balanced. Everything had perfect symmetry.
Perfect Symmetry in the context of cosmology refers to the idea that the fundamental laws governing the universe exhibit symmetry. Today, you still have that same symmetry expressed in your outer physical and inner mental world.
The Greek, pre-Socratic philosopher, Heraclitus, wrote about the unity of opposites in the sixth and fifth century BC, meaning there are two complementary opposite poles or sides to each event. I found this very powerful when I first read it. I went through the Oxford English Dictionary four decades ago and identified 4,628 individual traits that a human being can display. I found them as pairs of opposites, like antonyms. Sometimes they were not exact opposite words, but they basically demonstrated opposite meanings: nice, mean; kind, cruel; generous, stingy; considerate, inconsiderate, peaceful; wrathful, ….
For every position you take, there is an opposition. There's even a law in sociology called the law of eristic escalation: when an ideologue promotes an ideal, an equally opinionated complementary opposite ideologue promotes the opposite ideal – like pro-gun and anti-gun laws. If you take all the values (what people find most important) on the planet and put them in a blender, they cancel each other out. Relative situational morality has demonstrated this symmetry.
One of the ancient laws of physics, psychology, and philosophy is the law of similarities and differences, another name for these opposites.
For example, when you see someone that you infatuate with, you tend to notice and concentrate on traits that are similar. When you see someone that you resent, you tend to notice and concentrate on traits that are different.
When you're infatuated with someone, you tend to want to move towards them. When you're resentful of someone, you tend to want to move away from them. These pairs of opposites are present.
You’ll also find that when something is promoted, someone promotes the opposite: pro-life, pro-choice; pro-abortion, anti-abortion. Inside your body, you have mitosis (cell growth and development) and apoptosis (cell death). You have birth and death, anabolic and catabolic processes, reduction and oxidation, alkalinity and acidity, and agonist and antagonist….
There is constant building and destroying even in the universe. Every time a star is born, another star dies. The galaxies are basically being recycled. In your body, the same thing happens. Cells are born and die. The same number of cells that are being mitotically generated are also being apoptotically annihilated in your body to maintain homeostasis. Homeostasis in your body is maintained by thousands of different feedback systems to bring things into balance - the pairs of complementary opposites.
Empedocles in the fifth century BC talked about fire, air, water, and earth: fire and water cancelling each other, and air and earth cancelling each other as opposites - rarity and density, radiation and gravitation. Gravity takes parts and brings them into oneness, and radiation takes oneness and disperses it into parts and radii. These are pairs of opposites.
The universal laws of pairs of opposites can also be seen inside your psychology. When you infatuate with a trait, you resent its opposite. When you resent a trait; you infatuate with its opposite. If you seek and are infatuated with someone, you fear their loss. If you avoid and resent someone, you seek their loss. These are pairs of opposites that run and permeate all human behavior.
If you understand the laws of these pairs of opposites, as I explain in the Breakthrough Experience and in the process I teach called the Demartini Method, you can see how profound they are and how useful they are in understanding human behavior. This knowledge and understanding gives you a comparative advantage because now you can predict with greater probability behaviors that you wouldn't normally perceive if you didn't know the laws that govern them.
When you are conscious of one side and unconscious of the other side, you tend to experience what Wilhelm Wundt called a sequential contrast, which creates a social bias. If you meet someone and only see their positive side, and are blind to their negative side, or vice versa you are biased. Seeing both sides simultaneously allows you to symmetrically feel love for them, but if you see one side without the other side, you tend to feel judgmental toward them. Judgment is essentially a separation of these opposites and assuming one exists without the other, which tends to make you blind and fractionated or fragmented instead of integrated and empowered.
If you take the time to look, you'll see that there are perceptually pairs of opposites (memories and their complementary anti-memories, excitations and inhibitions). In fact, you can't perceive without contrast. If you go into a room that's totally black, you can't see (blackout). Similarly, in a completely white, snowy environment where everything is white, you can't see (whiteout). But if you add contrast, you can see. All your senses to function require contrasts, which are essentially pairs of opposites. If you understand that these pairs of opposites are actually synchronous and paired together, you can better understand that all judgments are incomplete awarenesses.
Here's why. When you love someone and embrace both sides, you are most likely to simultaneously perceive both sides. Therefore, when you truly love someone, you perceive their pairs of opposites: nice and mean, kind and cruel, positive and negative, considerate and inconsiderate, generous and stingy. These traits may appear to manifest at different times but you are fully aware of them synchronously.
I often say that if someone supports me, I can be as nice as a pussycat. If they challenge me, I can be as mean as a tiger. I have both sides, both opposites. This law of opposites exists in every human being. Embracing both sides simultaneously is love, while seeing only one side without the other leads to judgment and strife.
To sum up the first law: Pairs of Opposites - Every position creates an opposition, and true awareness involves perceiving and embracing both sides simultaneously.
Law #2: The One and The Many
The second law is a byproduct of that, because the law of similarities and differences is the same as the law of the one and the many. From the one comes the many, and from the many comes the one.
For example, from one point source, light radiates out into many directions, while gravity from these multiple directions converges back to a single point (center of mass). So, electromagnetism and gravity, two universal laws described by Newton, Faraday, Maxwell and Einstein follow these principles.
In your own psyche, the same principle applies. When you're dating many people, you tend to search for that special one. Once you've found the one, your mind may start to wander back to the many. That's the oscillation between the one and the many. And that’s based on hedonic adaptation, mood swings, and polarities of perception, which again reflect the oppositions and the law of the one and the many. Interestingly, you're often attracted to people who have more people around them and repelled by those who have less people around them, based on this law.
When you're elated and infatuated with someone, you tend to notice similarities and feel as if you are all the same. For example, you might think, "We have the same number of eyes, the same number of ribs, the same number of arms and legs; we're soulmates." On the other hand, when you resent someone, you’re more likely to feel that you are heading in two different directions and don't see eye to eye. In other words, you’re focusing on differences.
So, the concepts of one and many, integration and disintegration, build and destroy, and unify and diversify all interrelate. The laws of the one and the many and the laws of pairs of opposites overlap and can almost be seen as the same thing, because they’re really expressions of each other.
To sum up the second law: The One and The Many - within the one is the potential for the many, and within the many there is inherently the one.
Law #3: Reflection
Another important universal law is the law of reflection: whatever you perceive in others, you have within yourself.
Now, at first, I admit that I questioned this law, but after examining 4,628 individual traits in the Oxford English Dictionary, I found that I possessed all the traits I saw in others.
The New Testament, Romans 2:1, says, "What you see in others and what you judge in others, beware, because you do the same thing." I found that extremely truthful. In my Breakthrough Experience program, I’ve proven this to about 125,000 people. What you see in others, you have – there is a reflection. The world is a reflection. So, whatever you see in others, you have within yourself, and there is a reflection. The world is a reflection of your evaluative projection.
Aristotle, during his peripatetic walks, observed that whatever he saw in nature was a reflection of his own projection. This is true. I find that when people judge others, they are usually revealing something about themselves. For example, when I was in professional school, there was a teacher who was extremely cautious about people cheating on tests. I thought he was fanatical about cheating and ended up suspecting everyone. We later found out found out that when he owned his own practice some years later, he was caught cheating insurance companies. So, he was essentially projecting his own behaviors, fears and anxieties onto others.
What's interesting is that whatever you resent in others is a reflection of what you're ashamed of in yourself. Whatever you admire in others is a reflection of what you actually look up to and are proud of in yourself. When you realize that your judgments of other people are revealing to you what you’re actually holding inside, but are too proud or too humble to admit, you gain reflective awareness.
Reflective awareness is a great law. Even in physics, waves are reflective. Similarly, in your behavior, whatever you project out to others (like radiation) reflectively returns to you (like gravitation).
You can see the same laws of the pairs of opposites because what you see in others, you also have and its opposite. You infatuate with people and resent their opposites, but both sides exist within you. So, the law of the pairs of opposites and the law of one and many also apply because when you seek, it's one; when you avoid, you tend to fragment into many. You unify and divide. The law of reflection ties into these concepts.
To sum up the third law: The Law of Reflection makes you realize that you have whatever qualities you see in others. They are just manifested uniquely within you according to your own unique hierarchy of values. Learning how to be reflective in awareness and find in yourself what you see around you will open the door to your heart and allow more love into your heart.
To Sum Up
These three powerful universal laws - the law of pairs of opposites, the law of one and many, and the law of reflection - are powerful laws on how to more gratefully understand life and human behavior.
In the Breakthrough Experience program, I teach the Demartini Method, which helps you see these laws being applied in your own life. When you have completed the method, you’ll know how to integrate your perceptions and empower yourself instead of judging and weighing yourself down with emotional baggage. You’ll move in the direction of self-actualization or toward what inspires you, and give yourself permission to shine not shrink, and radiate instead of gravitate.
By learning these universal laws, you can align yourself with principles that stand the test of time, giving you a comparative advantage in life.
In summary, the three universal laws include:
Pairs of Opposites: Every position creates an opposition, and true awareness involves seeing both sides simultaneously.
One and Many: within the one is the potential for the many, and within the many there is inherently the one.
Reflection: You have whatever qualities you see in others.
Join the Breakthrough Experience to explore these insights further and harness the power of universal laws in your life.
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