One special feature of the sex opposites is that while remaining in counterbalancing opposition to each other, they are more patently and firmly tethered to each other than many other opposites. A man who is conscious of himself as a male is at the same time conscious of woman as a female;
and the tension of the felt duality is on him a constant burden, which he often invisibly passes on to a member of the opposite sex. The same is true of a woman who is particularly conscious of herself as a female. The opposites create and sustain a burdensome illusion which is transferred to each other. And if this illusion is shared by both, it goes on increasing in geometrical proportion instead of being mitigated in any way. On the other hand, the dis-burdening of the illusory and oppositional duality of sex is also a self-communicative understanding. Then love is gradually freed from the tinge of differentiative sex consciousness, and understanding is lifted out of the obsessiveness of one of the most oppressive forms of duality.
If one experience is an exact antithetic of another, they counterbalance each other. But very often an exact antithesis is not necessary for such counterbalancing. Suppose “B” is directly the reverse of “A” in every detail. Here “B” can counterbalance “A.” But the onward unfolding of the purpose
of life is equally served if something similar to “A” counterbalances “B”, or something similar to “B” counterbalances “A”, or something similar to “A” counterbalances something similar to “B” and vice versa. In other words, the law of opposites is not a mechanical law of action and reaction but is a significant search through complementary fractional experiences.
The complicated manner in which one opposite invites and attracts its supplementary opposite may be illustrated through another example. Suppose a person finds himself forced to kill others, as often happens in wars. Here his destructive disposition is being accentuated and released without the approval of his innermost being. One day this person inwardly revolts against such a type of action and tries to repress his destructive disposition to kill. However, the destructive disposition cannot be so easily halted, since it has been too much accentuated through repeated practice. So his disposition recoils on himself and he commits suicide. He has invited upon himself this opposite — consisting of being killed. This is partly due to his wanting to escape from having to kill others against his will; and partly due to his wanting to expiate for having killed others against his will but mostly it is due to his being hopelessly caught up in the momentum of a destructive disposition which demands expression on some object, whether it be some one else or himself. The working out of the law of opposites is beyond the limited intellect.
-Beams, p63