Category Archives: Lao Tze

Aha, AHA, AHA!!!

Often, when I open my eyes first thing in the morning, I reach for my handheld recorder. As I speak. ideas flow from one to the next.

Recently, they came together. I clicked the recorder on and started. “Aha! AHA! AHA!!!!”

Please stay with me. For those seeking illusive world peace, starting with political unity at home, it’s worth the ride.

“How many different ways can I say this?!!! First things first. Fix the paradigm. Only then does all else follow.” 

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, that center of the quantum Life Wheel which the current paradigm rules out. Human survival depends upon returning to the essence of the perennial philosophy which allows direct, immediate personal access to inner authority.

For the curse of the obsolete, materialistic empirical science paradigm which rules out everything which can’t be measured and quantified is to be stuck on the surface with a pervasive sense of lack. Of not-enoughness.

Of the m=mass level of the quantum Life Wheel, it has been written:

Paradoxically, out of balance, abundance on the material plane seems to foster an insatiable sense of neediness. Lack of connection with the center breeds insecurities and greed. Infinite variations of the same eternal pattern are misconstrued as grounds for cultural conflict and competition for illusory supremacy.

As it is now, institutionalized human authorities, secular and sacred, manipulate to enslave and disempower the masses with the ultimate “malinformation:” a paralyzing worldview. So long as we’re locked into the straitjacket of a limiting paradigm, efforts to bring about positive change, however well-meaning, remain tragically futile.

Change the first things first. 

The courage and inspiration needed to overcome the globalist agenda reside within the deeper levels of the quantum Life Wheel which “science” rules out. We sometimes, by accident, get an occasional glimpse. But without a complete and accurate map, we don’t know how and where to consistently access what’s needed.

Even Einstein’s access was sporadic at best. 

Aha. AHA. AHA!!!!

The hollowed-out, materialist paradigm rules out awareness of the inner levels of energy and light. For this reason, we confuse, mistake and inappropriately express the inner energetic, poetic and spiritual meanings of the “hero’s journey.”

We act out on the surface level, in a literal way, that which is actually an inner urge for self-actualization. We seek to control others, rather than focusing on self-mastery.

The patriarchal, control and dominance paradigm doesn’t allow us to recognize the true nature of the archetypal impulse. Perhaps by design, it’s been rendered unconscious, inaccessible, and inexpressible in appropriate, inner ways.  

We venture forth to explore ever more distant new frontiers, capturing and conquering other peoples, as if this could satisfy spiritual longings. When in fact, that’s not the real, urgent need.

To reclaim the dynamics of the universal, internal impulse to growth, we first need to restore the complete and accurate Quantum Paradigm to collective consciousness – one that allows for the dynamic levels where the true hero journey actually takes place. One that would truly restore “power to the people.” 

Religious institutions too often enforce stagnant dogmas that put a lid on inner energies, preventing access to the inner authority we spontaneously crave and seek. They impose stale rituals as a substitute for genuine, real direct, spontaneous and immediate personal experience — connecting with Source.

Self-awareness and self-mastery are the appropriate satisfactions of inner urges which are too often misdirected outwardly as the impulse to aggression. That’s the real issue which must be recognized and addressed. Humanity urgently needs to reclaim and redirect inner urges historically expressed as invasions — warlike conquest.

To repeat: To correct and redirect this energetic dynamic, we first need to expand the paradigm. Align it with quantum reality.

First things first.  

Aha. AHA. AHA!!!!

It’s the inner, meditative journey imaged in the quantum Life Wheel to which we’re called, of which the outer, literal hero’s journey is only symbolic. It’s time to finally figure out what we really want and go after the real experience: the inward journey. Symbolic external conquest neither satisfies nor completes. 

Just maybe, one can hope and pray, we’ll get it right this time around. We’ll come to understand what we really want. What our basic value is. It’s the same freedom of worship which pilgrims on the Mayflower sought. They didn’t intend to exchange one religious persecution for another.

They quested for the freedom to experience directly for themselves the essence, the deepest truth which religions express. Not just the outer shell, a puritanical dogma. But consciousness itself. The awareness that we are each one with God. That we are made in the image of God. That each and every one of us are co-creators of reality, potentially powerful beyond measure.  

My pilgrim ancestor, William Kirby Brewster, left his homeland, braving the perils of an ocean voyage on the Mayflower to reach a “new world.”

It’s the same impulse that drives most illegal immigrants today. Why would anyone otherwise leave the familiar, risking the unknowns of the unfamiliar? Again, at the deepest, subconscious level, they’re impelled by the timeless call of the hero’s journey.  

They’re expressing literally, on the material level, something for which they have no map or model to articulate. They’re really trying to get back to wholeness, completion – to access and align with their own true selves — with the core center of unconditional love, from which all mental/emotional and material abundance flows.

What I now recognize is that the Phoenix Response described in Chapter Five of The Quantum Solution is a variation of the archetypal hero’s journey.

The tragic mistake of the narrow-minded, materialist thinker is to take symbols literally, as if what in quantum reality an inward soul journey of self-mastery were merely an outward adventure of exploration, conflict, domination and victory over others.

Only with the complete and accurate life map of the Quantum Paradigm does the intriguing, enticing wisdom of Lao Tze make sense, becoming truly achievable in our own daily experience.

Only in the context of the quantum Life Wheel does the Christian poetic imagery of being reborn make sense: Humans have the potential to die to the old by repeatedly returning to the quantum center and then extending outwards again, renewed and empowered, during the same lifetime.

Most often, this renewal is achieved through the intentional discipline of meditation.

In this context, repeated allusions to the timeless creative process envisioned in the world-loved Tao Te Ching make sense. References to the process of traversing the levels of quantum Life Wheel are found from the very first passage — which is why I called my version Two Sides of a Coin:

In a recent revisit, I was struck by how many passages repeat the quantum Life Wheel pattern of return to Source followed by extension back to the surface. Balanced moderation — integrating both sides of the process — is compared with the dangers of adhering to one extreme or the other — withdrawal OR attachment to manifested experience. Here’s one example:

Hence also the repeated references to youthful vitality and the sage’s likeness to a newborn. For example:

Here’s the contrast between the worldly rewards of focusing upon others versus the inner reward of self-knowledge:

The expanded version of the same passage contrasts the dangers inherent in the extreme, exclusively external, materialistic version of the hero’s journey, compared to the value of the quantum, inward trek towards self-mastery.

This wisdom applies on every scale of magnitude. Just as the advice to “mind your own business” as a top priority holds true inside families, communities on up to national affairs, it applies to international relations as well.

It was a well-known strategy in Maoist China, for example, for the tyrant to distract from dissatisfaction on the home front by redirecting attention, venting valid frustrations against an outside enemy.

It’s time for that repeating dynamic to stop.

Put the other way around, unless and until we see the universal impulse towards personal self-improvement through a clear, quantum lens, and harness it in appropriate ways, efforts on the large scale towards peacemaking, reconciliation and unity cannot succeed.

This natural dynamic cannot be suppressed. Nor should it be exploited, harnessed and misdirected by cynical warlords to serve destructive, unnatural ends.

From now on, let it be better, more wisely expressed.

At stake is human survival.

The Tao Is Indifferent, But I Am Not — 010621

Early this morning, on the day historians are calling the Warterloo moment of the United States, I queried the I Ching three times.

I asked, “What should we know about Biden, radical dems and the CCP?” Next, “What should we know about President Trump?” Finally, I asked for myself, “What should I be aware of NOW?”

In sum, from its universal perspective, the Book of Change doesn’t seem to care which leader prevails. It endures, either way. Its ends will be accomplished, no matter how far humans stray from the law. The Tao is all-inclusive. It encompasses and (in the end) brings us all home.

HOWEVER, from my mortal perspective, I care deeply. I woke up today feeling heartsick and afraid, overwhelmed by the magnitude of events. To me, the gravity of immanent danger in combination with the corruption and/or cowardice of entrenched upper classes is beyond appalling.

The danger is very real to me. During WW II, my maternal grandmother’s Viennese relatives were exterminated in German death camps. As relatives who died in Stalin’s concentration camps or Mao’s equivalent all know: fated to fail as they always are, in the short-term, lustful fantasies of world domination come at a tragically high price.

First I’ll share relevant passages from the Tao Te Ching which express a sage-like overview on today’s events. Then, in the reading section, thinking it may resonate with you as well, I’ll share the answer to my personal question.

In poetic versions of Lao Tze’s Tao Te Ching, the fifth passage begins, “Heaven and Earth are heartless / treating creatures like straw dogs”.

Here, heartless doesn’t necessarily mean cruel so much as detached or indifferent. “Straw dogs” were ceremonial dolls usually discarded after their use.

Here’s how the meaning came through for me:

The first two verses of the following Passage are also to the point:

Yet, though the Tao is impartial, you can take heart from this (and have a caution):

FAMILY is the original answer to today’s personal question, “What should I be aware of NOW?” it reads”

Inside the FAMILY one learns to play out given roles. This makes later success in roles on the job and in the larger community possible. Clearly defined relationships make communication easy. Respectful cooperation with others earns trust and acceptance from the human family. Avoid roles not suited to your nature.

In my case, within the human family, I don’t have a lot to contribute to today’s DC confrontation. As much as I wish participants well, I dread crowds. I’m not suited by nature to be either an event organizer, a politician, attorney or news commentator.

So I contribute as I can, doing what I love to do . . . writing. In the long-term, there’s an underlying false paradigm driving today’s event. My eventual contribution – when folks calm down enough to wean themselves off of stimulating conflicts – may be to advocate adoption and dissemination of the correct, compete and accurate Quantum Paradigm which will correct the mistakes driving today’s chaos and eventually create a better future.

What are you suited by nature and skills to contribute? Are you actually doing it? If not, why?

* * *

Advice of the 4th Line reads, “Any attempt to serve will benefit leaders and followers equally.”

This line confirms not only that my efforts will benefit others, but that in the long-term, it’s a blessing, not a drain, for me to keep writing.

Advice heeded, the line changes to Community:

Commitment to COMMUNITY is a necessary part of individual growth. Choose leaders who can express common goals with clarity. They will know how to assign work according to ability so that all prosper. In the harmonious community, Creative Power expresses through the skillful work of individuals. Avoid all selfishness.

Community is built on the foundation of Family. Again, the issue of roles arises. And, again, I invoke Creative Power to suffuse my work with wisdom in a way others will find beneficial.

* * *

Advice of the 6th, Top Line reads: “Rise above worldly concerns. Create good work of lasting value.” This gets my personal YES!! Financial compensation would be nice, but it doesn’t motivate me. God always, miraculously, if not a moment too soon, provides. I will somehow continue to get by.

What really floats my boat is the hope that the creative work which flows through me will be found valuable in the long-term. Ever since 1977, when a School Board Association mentor made the comment, I’ve been told I’m ahead of the times. So be it. In the meantime, it’s my job to be sure what’s needed is ready and available for when the times are finally ready for me.

Advice heeded, the line changes to Completion:

Perfected actions reach COMPLETION. From this balance, however, new elements spring forth which create future imbalance. In this way, the cycles of nature are continued. This is not cause for sadness. Perfection lies in the whole life process, not in the beauty of a single peak moment. Avoid rigid attachment.

Who knows? Cycles large and small are nested, wheels-within-wheels. Certainly 2020 saw the end of a major cycle. The year 2021 marks the beginning of a new one. Will I survive to see its completion? So long as the work endures, it doesn’t matter.

Do you plan on surviving? If so, how and why?

* * *

Advice heeded, the composite of changing lines results in the final outcome of Change.

Day and night replace each other in endless cycles of CHANGE. The same natural law generates flux in human events. The unprepared see change as a threat, but the well-prepared face the unknown calmly. They know that after degeneration reaches critical mass, regeneration follows. Welcome the new. Avoid short-sighted fear.

This hexagram is the outcome of the first post, We’re At Critical Mass, in The Lessons of 2020. The year 2020 saw a culture building to a constitutional crisis. The Waterloo moment of January 6, 2021 marks its culmination.

Whatever the outcome of the election controversy, it is best to Avoid short-sighted fear.

Welcoming Change doesn’t necessarily mean liking it. It’s enough to remain open, rather than resisting whatever may come. Accepting the future brings, giving it space to evolve, leaves me open to recognize and make the best of new opportunities.

I hope you choose to remain courageously, confidently open to the opportunities in your future. May 2021 be kind to you all.

Look for The Lessons of 2020: Using the Wisdom of CHANGE to Build a Better Future later in January of 2021.

If you’d like a copy of the Common Sense Book of Change, or extras to give others, click here.

To order Two Sides of a Coin: Lao Tze’s Common Sense Way of Change, click here.

Okay, then. That’s all for now. Talk with you again soon. Take care, all.