We typically use the word “chaos” to refer to disorder or confusion in the world or in our lives. In different mythologies, chaos means a shapeless, unlimited void from where the universe was created. In the platonic tradition, it is a state of disharmony that precedes a new order. I Ching teaches that chaos brings the storm that makes life blossom. In physics, this expression explains a dynamic system that evolves according to the law of determinism, sensitive only to small early changes. In a way, all definitions fit together.
Chaos levers evolution, individual and of all humanity.
Evolution is relentless. We move forward out of free will or imposition, and that will determine how hard and how long the process will be. The grade of understanding and the choices determine the pains and pleasures of each one for the crossing.
Life moves forward in cycles. In fact, it is a big cycle composed by numberless smaller cycles, like learning stages in the infinite crossing towards Light. If we look back and think things over, it is not difficult to identify the cycles we have lived. The parental home, education, professional life, emotional bonds, fatherhood/motherhood, different places we have lived, these are all easy to identify, and each of these cycles may be further divided in many others. There is an essential lesson for the new part of the road on which you must be better and different to face new challenges. When we refuse to learn the lessons the cycle repeats itself, endlessly, as a train on a circular railway, returning to the same station. At times, you may have the feeling of experiencing the same situation again and again, like a book you are reading for the second or third time. And you ask yourself why that is? That is a sign you are stuck in that cycle. Life goes against any sort of prison – yes, life is like a craftsman that molds you to freedom. In order to turn that page once and for all, you must realize what you must learn and change. Thus, one cycle will come to an end, and another will begin.
It so happens that, sometimes, we remain stuck in a cycle, due to accommodation or bad habit. Consciously or not, we know what must be changed, but we lack power, will or dignity. Then comes the wonderful character of chaos, as if holding a mighty hammer to demolish old forms and ideas. The old world is destroyed and a new one takes its place, pushing us towards evolution.
At first, the unknown fosters fear and instills disharmony in childish minds with the false and naive feeling that the world is coming to an end, when, in fact, it is the cleaning lady tidying up the mess, throwing the trash away and reorganizing the house in a different, better way. A new universe unfolds. As chaos has long fingers, at that time we don’t fully grasp exactly what it means, and we are insecure in our actions. Often people despair.
We know, however, that thanks to the destruction chaos causes, relationships based on rotten roots are undone, giving new ties the chance to be formed, developed according to the most noble feelings and ideas; jobs disappear to make slumbering gifts and talents emerge, as if awoken by the noise of demolition, and put bitterness away by presenting new and previously unknown paint that will color the road of the traveler; the invitation made by death brings forth the sense of life in distracted minds; the horror of the war shows the value of peace. If you pay attention, you will see lessons spread everywhere.
Understanding and accepting that everything, absolutely everything that happens in our life is for our own good is an idea present in almost all traditions, and is a lesson innate to chaos. Only the distance of time and the clarity of sight, the fruit of a free and expanded consciousness, allow us to understand and thank the fire of chaos for that which it incinerated from our lives.
The universe will never condone stagnation.