The illusion of perfect balance.

Like all human beings, I too strive towards perfect balance. It's the evolutionary process, so it's inevitable.

One way or the other, we all try to return to the perfect state of presence where everything is, and is not, at the same time.

A void of unmanifested potential where the entire universe comes from, and where everything is in perfect balance.

Whatever is in the void has its counterpart, and the two always cancel each other out, so essentially nothing is there. It's a null point. A zero of absolute consciousness.

Returning

When going through the process of evolution, we work on developing awareness enough to go back there.

We call it things like spiritual practice with the purpose of being enlightened, science with the purpose of knowing, or personal development to be who we truly are.

It's really nothing but a return to where we came from. A way of dissolving the illusion of physical life and uniting with the supreme consciousness that is the source of all being.

The pain of physical life

Before we get there, though, we have to go through the pain of life. It's part of the process of understanding that we are not actually physical.

Nothing physical is real, but merely an illusion of the mind, and it arises from our mind's interference with the void.

In other words, our physical lives are a result of imbalance. Without that imbalance, we wouldn't perceive the illusion of the physical universe. We would just be void.

We experience this imbalance as different kinds of resistance in life, and there is an infinite amount of them. The process never stops, but goes on for eternity.

Unless, of course, we use our mind to cancel the interference. The moment we do, we stop being physical. We break the illusion of life.

Accumulating resistance

Personal development as we know it rarely aims at going this far. On the contrary, it usually seeks to strengthen our presence in physical life by making us feel it and identify with it even more.

For example, by wanting us to be happy, making a difference, and building a legacy.

In doing so, we make it harder to break the illusion, because we accumulate the natural resistance of life in our mind. We become more imbalanced than we already are.

It's like hiking to the top of the mountain with a backpack full of stones, and then throw in more halfway. Why do that?

Dismantling identification

True personal development is a process of dismantling our identification with physical life. It's taking it apart piece by piece and making us perceive the idea of not needing it.

In that process, however, we require an increasing amount of resistance in life to understand what to let go of.

This is where personal development gives us true value. It helps us empty our backpack of stones and get to the top of the mountain a little easier.

Seen in that perspective, it's fine to want to be happy, make a difference, or build a legacy. As long as we understand that we only need it, to realize we don't need it at all.

Dynamic balance

According to the philosophy of the five elements, perfect balance is not possible in physical life.

Instead, it's a continuous process of dynamic balance.

It means you have to constantly move between the elements to pursue balance, but you never actually get there.

You might get close, but then a new interference happens, and imbalance is your reality yet again.

Unique individual is key

You might ask yourself, then why do it in the first place?

Because it's the process of evolution, and you are part of it. There is no escaping it, unless you complete the process and unite with the void.

To get there, you have to set yourself free from any standard version of a human being out there. You have to be a unique individual.

You see, your imbalances in life are different from mine, and any other person. There is just no way a standard solution will ever be able to take you to a state of perfect balance.

Therefore, the right question to ask is, how are you going to do it?

Universal method

For me, the training of your mind according to the five elements is the most universal method.

It's completely individual and as close to limitless we can get, before we dissolve the illusion called life. I am yet to find a context where it cannot be used.

Essentially, none of us are anything but the five elements of nature in constant interaction with each other – and the next stop is void.