The sixth part of the 36 Cosmic Laws series covers the Law of Paradox:

“Opposites can be simultaneously true from different planes.”

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This Law is not only philosophy but practice. It matches the reality of the world—layered, multi-planed, never flat.

It embodies the knowing that truth shifts depending on the plane. What seems contradictory from one vantage is harmonious when one steps higher.

What to Know About this Law

Two things can appear to cancel each other out on one level—yet both remain true when viewed from different planes.

This law frees you from false binaries. You no longer have to force “either/or” when the truth is “both/and.”

In Plato’s Apology, when examining a politician to determine if the politician was wiser than himself, Socrates concluded the following:

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Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is, for he knows nothing [of wisdom], and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.

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Thus, Socrates here exemplified paradox: He knew that he was wiser because he knew that he did not know. It is true that he was wiser because in this knowing of his limitations, he knew more than the politician who thought he knew but did not, in fact, know much. To be wise, in this sense, was to know that one does not know and still has much to learn. One can be wise in knowing they are not wise. The wisdom is in knowing one’s limitations instead of arrogantly thinking that one knows all. In this knowing, that one can then learn to understand more thereby transcending these limitations.

The paradox is this: One can know by knowing something and know by knowing that one knows nothing. Although these may appear contradictory, they are nevertheless true. This is because from the lower plane, knowing something is sufficient to qualify as knowledge. But from the higher plane, knowing that one does not know is wisdom. One can exist without cancelling the other out when viewed from a lower level versus higher level perspective.

Every paradox is an invitation to rise in perception. If two truths clash, you are being called to shift the plane from which you see.

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Examples of the Law of Paradox

Life and death—on the physical plane, they are opposites; on the soul’s plane, they are phases of one continuum.

Freedom and fate—on the human plane, choices feel bound; on the cosmic plane, both free will and destiny weave the same tapestry.

Light and dark—on one plane, they struggle; on another, they are partners in balance.

This is reflected in the Principle of Polarity from The Kybalion:

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This Principle embodies the truth that “everything is dual”; “everything has two poles”; “everything has its pair of opposites,” all of which were old Hermetic axioms. It explains the old paradoxes, that have perplexed so many, which have been stated as follows: “Thesis and antithesis are identical in nature, but different in degree”; “opposites are the same, differing only in degree”; “the pairs of opposites may be reconciled”; “extremes meet”; “everything is and isn’t, at the same time”; “all truths are but half-truths”; “every truth is half-false”; “there are two sides to everything”, etc., etc., etc. It explains that in everything there are two poles, or opposite aspects, and that “opposites” are really only the two extremes of the same thing, with many varying degrees between them.

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How to Work with the Law

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When confronted with contradiction, pause and ask: “Which plane am I standing on?”

Then lift your view. See the wider frame where both truths can live together without cancelling one another out.

This expanded perception echoes in the Principle of Correspondence from The Kybalion:

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This Principle embodies the truth that there is always a Correspondence between the laws and phenomena of the various planes of Being and Life. The old Hermetic axiom ran in these words: “As above, so below; as below, so above.” And the grasping of this Principle gives one the means of solving many a dark paradox, and hidden secret of Nature. There are planes beyond our knowing, but when we apply the Principle of Correspondence to them we are able to understand much that would otherwise be unknowable to us.

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To see the forest for the trees instead of looking at individual trees as the whole forest helps in reconciling the many paradoxes in life. Such an enlargement of one’s perspective brings about an appreciation for these paradoxes—and freedom from limited thinking.

Thus, the seeming “contradiction” of truths is in reality a catalyst for growth. The Law of Paradox, then, is a path to divine wisdom. For without it, we would remain captured by the illusion of duality, severed from unity with the One. With it, the seeker can work towards reconciling the opposites by seeing them as one and the same thing differing only in degree.

The ancients referred to this reconciliation of opposites as “entering the Kingdom.” In the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus spoke to his disciples on what they must for this:

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Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom]."

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Adjusting perspective after encountering a paradox further refines the self in the ongoing work of personal alchemy. Avoiding such transformative change only delays growth.

Remember this: Paradox is not confusion, but the doorway to wisdom.

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