Convergence

Watching the inauguration of Barak Hussein Obama yesterday reminded me over and over again that we, in fact, may be experiencing a living laboratory of “convergence.” Polarities and dualities (left and right, black and white, conservative and liberal, East and West) are being transcended not by syncretism that destroys difference, but by convergence that recognizes their completion. Opposites are understood and accepted, but they need not become barriers to something else, something new, something higher in form.

What we see happening all around us is the capacity of people to joyously transcend old divisions for something new that recognizes “higher ground.” When we remain rooted to our old perceptions, it seems impossible, but when we move vertically, we see from a whole new perspective—we see the connections and the possibility that the divisions caused by being stuck in “flatland” are overcome by a new position and perspective that allows a new way of being to emerge.

Something like this may be occurring not only politically, but spiritually. Religious viewpoints that once seemed to be completely opposed, may now be seen as completions of a larger whole. This is the meaning of convergence. There are the opposites of black and white in the description of yin and yang, and then there is the single image of the whole circle which contains them both as a kind of harmonic convergence.