Because many alchemical principles are pointing to Absolute Truth and/or extremely vast relative truths, they can not be readily defined nor can they be understood simply through reading descriptions. No amount of description can convey their vastness or their subtlety. Descriptions point to meaning beyond words like, as a traditional axiom states “a finger pointing to the moon. If you fixate on the finger you will not see the moon in all its glory.”
To gain insight into the functionality of many of the Alchemical Principles you must allow the understanding to arise, by letting the descriptions educe the deeper meaning from within yourself. This is facilitated by being repeatedly exposed to the principles from multiple points of focus. Also the principles are mutually informing of each other so exposure to one principle will facilitate the emergence of the deeper meaning of another. This is much like those paintings that, if examined closely, look like a bunch of dots but when viewed from a distance a picture comes into focus. It is impossible to get the meaning of any individual dot until you see it in the context of the whole.
An even more apt simile is that the process is like those “magic eye” paintings that require you to shift into a different kind of focus before the picture comes forth. Simply seeing all the individual dots is not enough; you must have all the dots and then shift focus. Many of the Alchemies (specific alchemical techniques) have this “shift of focus” as their primary intent. In fact one o f the many ways the principle “goal” of alchemy is the transformation in consciousness that makes the meaning and function of the principles self evident. This simile is not exact of course. The Magic eye is an all or nothing deal while understanding and realization of the alchemical principles, more often the not, unfolds gradually with some principles becoming clearer sooner then others.
So far I have made several posts about the Principle of Two Truths and I will make several more follow this one. I am giving so much attention to this principle because it is a central key to understanding how all the principles function. It is mother of all the rest of the principles. While none of these posts can convey the full meaning and function of the Principle of Two Truths, even an intellectual familiarity with it can prevent many errors in understanding and, hopefully they will serve to build an adequate launch pad from which to venture into its vast meaning and function.