Tuesday, May 31, 2022
6:15 a.m. I’m awake if you are, guys, but I’m sort of blank, so I hope you have something in mind.
Let’s talk about I Ching, then.
All right. F, R. C, P. As you know, I have started reading the Wilhelm/Baynes version that my brother gave me 40 years ago. Reading it, rather than merely using it for divination. I can see that most of what I am reading would have been only theory, to me, years ago, and perhaps irrelevant theory at that. But that would have been before your years of active tutelage.
Or let’s say, life’s active tutelage. All your life – anyone’s life – is tutelage, but it helps if you know how to decipher it.
Well, that’s what the I Ching sets out to do. They say it is the oldest book in the world. I suppose that means the oldest book of this cycle of civilization. Where are the books of Atlantis, or Gobekli Tepi? But presumably that isn’t what you want to use as springboard to discuss.
It’s probably a good time to spell out a couple of relationships that you and we have mentioned in passing over the years, but haven’t set out as central themes.
I think I know where you’re going. It has been one of my ideas for so long, I don’t remember any more whether it first came from you – and yes, before you say it, I’m aware that ideas have no ownership. I’m just saying, I have believed this for a long time, at least the part of what you’re going to say that is already clear to me.
Let’s specifically discuss I Ching, because each of the mantic arts is different. (And that, we have often mentioned in passing.)
I Ching is often used for divination,
I’m feeling a little unfocused. Let’s start again.
What you are feeling is less that you are unfocused than that, in a sense, we are. It feels that way to you because we are hesitating at the beginning, sniffing out the best angle of approach. Just as there is a saying, “Well begun is half done,” so there should be a saying to the effect that something begun without sufficient focus will involve much waste motion.
“Look before you leap”?
In any case, there are several possible approaches. Let’s look at free will and fate, or free will and predestination, or freedom and circumscription, however you choose to look at it. We have often said, where you start from in any present moment is fixed, and where you go from there is a field of possibilities. Not an unlimited field, but not a strait-jacket either. Within the context of any given timeline, your past is set, and defines your possibilities. But since you may jump timelines by the proper application of intent, in effect you are also free.
The trend is fixed, but we can choose to jump to another groove.
You could put it that way. Using the I Ching can tell you which way would be profitable to jump.
I may have to go back to drinking coffee. This is still so vague.
Are your ears not ringing?
They are, now that you mention it. So we’re doing all right, you’re saying. Then go on.
Just as free will and predestination are both true despite the appearance of contradiction, so chance and nothing-by-chance are both true, if you look slowly and carefully.
Richard Bach wrote a book he titled Nothing By Chance.
He understood. It is another instance of seeing things clearly by seeing what is rather than what your culture believes and teaches you to believe. The ancient Chinese society had its plusses and minuses, but one thing it did see clearly was the interdependence of 3D and non-3D. What one culture may depict in terms of gods and goddesses, another may portray as spirits, or as the inscrutable nature of things. A third culture such as yours may pass them by entirely, ascribing their manifestation as “meaningless coincidence” or “chance.”
The 3D world is not primary, but secondary. If you can realize this, you will straighten out many misperceptions and misconceptions. “Life is but a dream” is closer to the truth than anything that assumes that what appears solid is solid. Life in 3D is somewhat real; it is not the absolute, and it is not nearly as solid and immovable as it appears.
Still not getting it said. Is it so difficult?
“Righteous persistence brings reward.”
Smiling. Go on.
The I Ching concentrates on the laws of change, the rules of the road for 3D life. The laws are simple in concept, complex of course in manifestation, as your life shows you every day. But because there is order within the apparent chaos, there is the possibility of perceiving the order. And, this once perceived, you attain the possibility of “going with the flow” more intelligently, more easily, more effectively.
Carl Jung’s introduction, or perhaps Wilhelm’s or Baynes’s, says as much.
Yes, but just because something is said doesn’t mean it will be understood. How many years, off and on, did you consult the I Ching without noticing that it says only those with a calm mind will profit by it?
I don’t think that’s quite what they said.
Close enough. The point is that you are inevitably part of the equation. You, the times, and the oracle. Any two alone are not enough. Nothing moves, in the absence of a reconciling principle.
That’s an interesting thought. I wouldn’t have thought of the oracle as the reconciling principle between the individual and the times.
You could equally see the individual as the reconciling principle between the times and the oracle. It will be clearer if you think of the reconciling principle not as a referee, but as a necessary element for completion. Life is not static, but what is it that allows movement, but a change into imbalance, or a change from imbalance into a new balance? And, looking more deeply, you see that “imbalance” and “balance” are judgments rather than descriptions. It is better to say that life changes from one tentative state of balance to another, continuously.
So, this 3D life that is but a solid-appearing dream proceeds along the unseen laws of creation, just as day becomes night and night becomes day, in endless succession, or as water flows downhill, or magnets attract particles.
And so the 64 hexagrams both show us the processes and, used in divination, show us the moment.
You become receptive, you throw the coins or sort the stalks, and the quality of the moment reveals itself. What you do with the moment remains your choice, but at least you have a clue as to what is going on.
The oracle is the road map, the GPS, the compass, but it cannot take your steps for you.
Nor would you want it to. The goal is not a smooth ride, nor a safe journey, but your choices, put into effect.
We have gone an hour, but I don’t feel like we’ve really made anything plain.
What is plain to someone at one stage of development will be mysterious or promising or irritating to others at other stages. Remember how many years you have used that book, and only now noticed the comment to the effect that it isn’t for everybody. Things sink in when the receptors are ready, and not before.
Today’s topic “The I Ching”?
Perhaps “Spotting opportunities” would be more orienting. Or even “The rules of change.”
Neither seems quite right. We’ll see. Our thanks as always.