Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reconciliation Is an Inside Job

From my heart to yours.

This will be a mosaic of puzzle pieces. I’ll place them here, one at a time. Trust me, they will come together in the end.

* * *

For starters, the reconciliation which philosophers (wisdom lovers) seek isn’t to be found in duality, on the surface of the Life Wheel, where illusory options alternate without cease. I Ching sages put it this way: It is futile to hunt for deer in a forest where none dwell.

To the point, why call the pending econ shift a Rawlsian moment if the collapse and reset is not what Rawles foresaw or which social justice Marxists intend? Extending an olive branch as if to appease them couldn’t possibly prevent the destructive civil war upon which communists are hell-bent.

Calling a donkey’s tail a leg doesn’t make it one. (Remember?) Not only does applying incorrect labels to band-aid over differences fool no one. But current problems are way deeper than labels. Solutions are deeper still.

But not to worry. The reconciliation you sense and strive for IS to be found, IF you know where and HOW to look.

What’s coming doesn’t fit within the box of old thinking – Rawles, Buffet or Munger. Only thinking outside the box, expanding the parameters of reality correctly can encompass what may come.

The synthesis must be more organic, more metaphysical than 3-D, linear thinking allows. It’s outside the narrow, tidy either/or paradigm familiar to logic-choppers. Genuine synthesis isn’t possible within the limited confines of rational thinking. It requires a shift to a broader, more inclusive reality map. One inclusive of not only the rational but also the super- and sub-rational.

Genuine synthesis requires linking the levels of the quantum Life Wheel, placing opposites face-to-face and then transcending them. Unifying them into something new and qualitatively different.

* * *

Shifting gears, let me tell you about a round table discussion held by OA associates a few years back. About six months before his passing, he put out a question. What would each of us most like to have? Before he left, each of our wishes was granted.

One asked for money to repair the house and paint the inside walls. Another wanted a greenhouse for her garden. Yet another asked for a new truck and trailer.

What I asked for was the software of The Bible Code. Though we didn’t purchase the computer version, I was provided with what I really needed. I’d already been given it, though at the time didn’t recognize it as such.

In Kabbalah, the 72 Names of God are encoded in three consecutive verses of Exodus. During the years working the overnight shift at the Relay Center for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, in order to become familiar with the 72 Names, I retaught myself the basic Hebrew to work with this code.

It answered a long-standing question I’d had about the I Ching. The 72 Names filled in a gap left empty by the Laws of Nature codified in the 64 hexagrams of the Book of Change. Where the I Ching speaks to the fluctuations of energy that influence the material world, the 72 Names speaks to a higher dimension, one of values.

The I Ching is value-free, focusing primarily on the middle, e=energy level of the Life Wheel associated with Natural Law. In contrast, the 72 Names relates primarily to the deeper, c=light level associated with Divine Law.

For example, the I Ching speaks of Gain versus Decline, Promotion versus Adversity, etc. In contrast, the 72 Names speaks to the inner experience of Compassion, Gratitude, Humility, and Angelic Influence.

This isn’t the place to get more technical. And there are overlaps. But, in essence, these approaches to reality address qualitatively different facets of experience.

After my request, what I came across, “coincidentally,” was a whole new side of the 72 Names. The Relay Center work set the foundation that prepared me to now add on new levels of understanding. Each of the 72 Names is associated with specific archangels and angels, as well as their manifestations.

In retrospect, I was being prepared to survive after OA’s passing. Just as I was encompassed by his auric field and protections during his lifetime, I was being made aware that I was and would in the future continue to be supported and sustained not only by him but also the host of angels he referred to as his “drinking buddies.”

* * *

I mention this angelic support as introduction to a relevant experience with a recently purchased, extraordinarily powerful deck of Archangel Metatron messages. I know there are uses and abuses to working with such information sources. The same goes for working with the I Ching, or, for that matter, with various translations (sometimes printed in China) of the Bible. For the sake of this discussion, please give me the benefit of the doubt and stay with me.

I work with this particular deck as a way to make the unconscious conscious, to trigger inner knowing and expand awareness. When I’m really stuck and need help, I call on angelic input for answers. I find this spread particularly compatible. It uses the Star of David, placing messages at each of the six points and then a 7th in the center. It looks like this:

The top point is read as the overall message. The bottom, 6th point is read as action advice. The 2nd and 4th points are lower and higher octaves of overt experience. Their complimentary points in the 3rd and 5th positions correlate with unconscious/subliminal experience and blocks/obstacles. The seventh message is read as the sum effect of the six outer points as they combine to influence the center.

What’s fascinating to me and important here is that the healing effect of working with combined messages requires that what’s hidden must be brought forward and brought into balance with the overt experience in order for resolution and reconciliation to occur. What’s in darkness must be brought into the light, lest it undermine and undo conscious intention.

It’s relevant to the dynamic of Greek tragedy, where the hero’s strength, unbalanced and in extreme, becomes the source of his undoing. Just as Carl Jung regarded the I Ching as a tool for making the unconscious conscious, similarly, to prevent tragedy we must balance and harmonize extremes. This isn’t a Hegelian synthesis so much as Unifying the quantum field, resulting in transformation and transcendence. Shifting to a higher octave, if you will.

That’s where the flat, linear empirical science paradigm which rules out the inner levels of the Life Wheel, allowing only what can be rationally measured and quantified into awareness, betrays us. It prevents the dynamics by which the influences of Natural and Divine Law color and direct decisions affecting the outer material plane of physical existence.

Einstein, the physicist, called this culturally imposed blind spot “the fateful fear of metaphysics.” I’ve called it the fateful fear of self-awareness. This is the rock and hard place between which civilization is stuck right now. And Steering planet humanity safely past the twin dangers of tyranny and anarchy requires full-spectrum, quantum awareness.

* * *

Now, I’ve also been following the work of Dr. Joe Dispenza for quite awhile. He says much the same things, but in rational, science-based language which healthcare professionals and spiritual seekers alike can relate to.

By profession he started as a chiropractor and martial arts/yoga/meditation instructor. This background prepared him perfectly to survive an accident that shattered his spine. Four experts agreed that what remained of his spine had to be surgically altered and fused with metal rods, with the prognosis that he might never walk again.

As a leap of faith, he said NO.

Using powerful mind-intent combined with an exact knowledge of how the spine works, he visualized and – within a relatively short time — repaired himself completely from the inside out. Paying this blessing forward, fulfilling a promise to help heal others as he’d been healed, he’s made it his lifework to teach others what’s possible with the right quantum reality map along with practical information on how to use it.

P.S. Dr. Joe admits that angelic beings show keen interest in his healing workshops. He and other participants repeatedly report their presence, observing and overseeing this work.

For lack of time, I am simply quoting relevant sections transcribed from A MIRACLE Could Happen To YOU! — How Your THOUGHTS Create Your Reality. Applications to the current deconstruction and reconstruction of world governments, economies, etc. abound. Here goes:

. . . the more you understand WHAT you’re doing and WHY you’re doing it, the HOW gets easier.

. . . If you give them the proper instruction and you set up the conditions in the environment where they feel safe enough to create, a certain number of people will get their behaviors to match their intentions and their actions equal to their thoughts. When they do, there’s going to be some type of transformation. All you have to do is understand the formula.

The miraculous of biblical proportions is beginning to happen. This is a time in history when it’s not enough to know. It’s a time to know HOW.

. . .We’re reaching a point of critical mass. We’re living in a time of extreme polarities. Things have to be pulled apart. Polarity . . . if you look at studies in chaos theory . . . there always have to be extreme polarities before there’s a reorganization. And everything that is not consistent with a new level of energy or a new level of consciousness is going to spiral apart.

. . . That greater level of energy and consciousness is causing old systems and old paradigms to begin to spiral out. Whether you’re looking at the environment, politics, economics, religion, education, journalism, medicine . . . all of those paradigms are beginning to unravel because they’re no longer consistent with a greater level of energy.

. . . So, now then, the next question is, how do you change the world? Because if you’re seeing those non-local changes, then those people who are feeling heart coherence . . . every person they’re in a relationship with, that they are networked with, to some measure or degree will have an affect on their autonomic nervous system. They’ll feel more coherent, more loving in that moment. . . . Heartmath Institute has done research in Project Coherence on the effect which can happen on opposite sides of the world.

. . . So the question becomes, How do you become supernatural? Well, you have to first start doing what feels unnatural. When everybody else is in fear, that’s when you show courage. When everybody else is hostile and angry, that’s the time to show love and compassion. When everyone else is in lack and poverty, that’s the time to be generous . . . to give. That gives other people permission to do the same. . .

. . . So when a person is able to sustain or maintain that modified state of mind and being, then the fun starts to happen. Because you start seeing those synchronicities, coincidences, opportunities, unknowns. Things start falling out of nowhere because you are connected to that field of information. Not only are you connected to it but also you’re beginning to influence it.

. . . The Unified Field governs the laws of nature that brings everything into order. As you connect it to more and more, then you experience more wholeness and more oneness, less separation. If you experience less separation, there’s less separation between you and your dreams as well. As you progress deeper into that field you can produce greater effects on the nature of reality because you’re moving closer to its origin.

We experience separation when we feel fear. We experience separation when we feel anger and aggression, pain and suffering. The very chemicals cause us to perceive reality with our senses. But as we get closer and closer to it and experience more of it, then we produce greater effect on the nature of reality because we’re more and more connected to the very field of information that organizes matter into form. We’re climbing upstream to be able to produce an effect downstream.

. . . Only when you are pure consciousness can you begin to change your body. Only when you’re beyond your body can you heal your body. The body can’t heal the body. You have to get beyond your body to heal your body. In order to to create a new experience, you have to get beyond the problems in your life. In order to create a future event in some future time, you’ve got to get beyond predictable linear time.

If you’re going to heal your body by thought alone, create a new experience or event in your life by thought alone, then you have to become thought alone. When you become pure consciousness, that is the moment you are nobody, no one, no thing, nowhere in no time – that is the moment when you are no longer constrained by those [natural] laws.

That is the moment your consciousness, free will, subjective human consciousness merges with the quantum field, the objective universal consciousness. When they come together and you come back to awareness, you take a piece of it with you and you become more like it:

  • You become stronger willed. It is a powerful will.
  • You become more mindful. It is an infinite mind.
  • You more consciousness, more loving, a lover of life.
  • You become more giving. It’s the giver of life.
  • Its nature becomes your nature.

So teaching people how to do that is the art. There are ways to help people get there faster.

Advertisement

Two Way Street

My first response to a video suggesting possible ways out of current madness was that it reminds me of an earlier post, The Highway to Heaven is a Two-Way Street.

I’ll first give you my response to the madness solution and afterwards, in case you’d like to take a look, supply a link to that post.

Premise: Today’s economic/political crisis is reaching critical mass. The war is being fought on several levels at once, not unlike the three-tiered chess game familiar to Kung Fu movie fans. Younger initiates defend the monastery gates, battling enemies in hand-to-hand mortal combat. Behind the scenes, senior monks seated in meditation, apparently immobile, direct subtle forces through mental intent. Higher still, passed-on elders oversee this war between good and evil, guiding the entire process.

Application: This video describes a way to reconcile polar world views. It’s described as a Hegelian synthesis of humanitarian versus totalitarian positions now necessary because an economic reset has become inevitable, triggering an egalitarian “Rawlsian moment.”

As an alternative to civil war followed by tyranny rising from the ashes of our republic, we can make a currency change, along with a transitional, dual currency regime. To prevent economic collapse and another great depression, it is proposed that the U.S. introduce a “newer, wiser taxation system”and social safety net in the context of that new currency.

A la Milton Friedman, we could introduce a flat tax counterbalanced by Universal Basic Income (UBI). This combo offers an olive branch to each political extreme, respecting the claims/priorities of each. The flat tax would satisfy fiscal conservatives. Touted as the greatest anti-poverty program you could hope to come up with, the Universal Basic Income satisfies “social justice” demands.

* * *

Next. Another synthesis with similar potential for reconciliation happens when you plug the antithetical visions described in Thomas Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles into the Life Wheel.

Here’s a summary graph of opposing views.

The two apparently conflicting visions correlate with the in- and outward-moving energies which link the Life Wheel.

Outward-traveling yang energies extend from center to surface. Converting to its complimentary opposite, yang changes to yin, reversing polarity to return from surface to center. In this overview, the two are linked in an infinite loop. No conflict.

The apparent conflict between complimentary yin and yang energies resolves when plugged into this larger picture. Each has a place. The two sides are necessary and, in rhythmic fashion, in their pure form, are mutually reinforcing.

Only in the flat, false (linear) model of empirical science do they clash. All kinds of foolishness regarding authority, natural rights, and freedom follow from failing to work from a complete and accurate reality map.

Further, the war we’re in is not truly a clash of visions. Rather, it’s a clash of intentions. Some honor life and seek to fulfill it. Other want to destroy it.

In other words, what’s not okay is separating complimentary valences, setting them in conflict, creating the illusion that they’re an either/or choice. (Not to mention that those with evil intentions can coopt either “vision” and turn it to destructive ends.)

* * *

So, unfortunately, here’s where the reconciliation proposal, IMHO, breaks down.

Should we harmonize yin and yang, the outward energies of manifestation with the inward energies of aspiration? Yes. Always.

But that’s not the same thing as attempting to reconcile parties motivated by good intentions with those driven by evil forces. Impossible. They’re antithetical.

In How Bad People Become Leaders, I described the importance of acknowledging the existence of evil, and gave a picture to recognize its dynamics.

Basically, evil operates by fragmenting the three levels law: human, natural and divine. They operate out of synch and in conflict.

Evil is antithetical to the very life process, tearing the fundamental life pattern apart. So, NB: Good and evil cannot (!) be equated with yin and yang. Good is inclusive of the harmonious whole, both yin and yang, attainable by males and females of every race without limitation.

Those who love life, who seek truth and understanding and do their best to help others as they can, have more in common with each other than with evildoers within their own groups.

Here’s the picture of the evil:

Hitler is a familiar example of evil, meaning anti-life: intentionally shattering and fragmenting the creative pattern. In Quantum Paradigm context, the intentions and actions of any person (or group) that destroys its own and/or threatens to annihilate enemy groups, devoid of respect for the inherent sanctity of life, are defined as evil.

* * *

Finally, here is the promised link to the supportive post, The Highway to Heaven Is a Two-Way Street. Its reference to the hope of RENAISSANCE underscores the proposed reconciliation’s potential.

* * *

P.S. I regret the hasty, imperfect presentation of this piece. Given limiting circumstances, it is suggestive only. I publish it in hopes that it’s sufficient to prevent fatal flaws in the “reconciliation” approach from undermining a viable, urgently needed interim compromise.

Taboos

A recent round of comments opened up a Pandora’s box of messy issues. Since that site isn’t purposed to explore them, let’s do so here.

It started when, intending to give a site host a helpful heads up on the subject of timing, I commented:

FYI. From another point of view, the current astrological “weather report” shows all the outer planets in retrograde, auguring delays, setbacks and reversals. In rapid succession, they’ll all turn direct in the early weeks of October. That might be the best time to look for things to suddenly take off.

He responded simply:

ok

Which in turn drew this reproach:

eastern philosophies must have a strong hold on you to believe in the astrological report. (That was me before I was saved…Thank you Jesus!✝) [she challenged the host]: What are your beliefs?

Excuse me? Let’s count a few of the false assumptions wrapped around this condescending attitude.

  • I’m far superior to you.
  • I’m saved; you aren’t.
  • Astrology is a philosophy, and an eastern one at that.
  • Astrology is a belief system [a religion] that’s antithetical to Christianity.
  • My understandings back then were the same as those you hold now.
  • Case closed.

In retrospect, I should have ignored it. But, mistakenly thinking the challenge was directed towards me, I owned my beliefs:

I am of the persuasion that Jeshua ha’Mashia came before and will endure long after puny planet earth. His essence pervades all peoples through all times, influencing all cultures east and west, without prejudice. No either/ors. Since his presence pervades the entire world, how could it be otherwise?

Also . . . there are many approaches to astrology. Some focus on lunar cycles, others on cycles of the sun. Chinese seers followed the stars. Literally astro-logy. Each view represents a fragmented piece of a larger mosaic puzzle. Christ encompasses and surpasses them all.

Also, and this is important, astrology pertains to the e=energy middle level of the Life Wheel. Technically, it is an energy science, not a philosophy defined as “love of wisdom.” It’s just another tool in the decision-maker’s toolbox. Its usefulness depends upon the wisdom and intent of the user.

To make the point, I included this image:

On a side note, another member commented:

I heard 9/6 was a positive day

To which I responded:

Yes. Traditionally, Labor Day is a day of rest, and [as was] pointed out, a time used by many to reconnect with loved ones. He advises using the time to rethink where we’re at and where we’re headed. That accords with the spirit of a New Moon, seen as a fresh start and a time to set positive intentions for the future.

This particular New Moon is in Virgo, sign of service and agricultural abundance. It’s well aspected to Uranus, said to be the visionary planet of innovation and change. So Yes. It’s a good day for reaffirming our positive True North intentions.

What I didn’t add, but will here, is beautifully expressed by Brian Colter. He titles his New Moon video “Batten Down the Hatches.” He compares this auspicious day to the calm before an onslaught of horrific storms. From now to the end of the year, each month is charted to become increasingly more chaotic. As the host also warned, NOW is the time to stock up the pantry and prepare for rough sailing ahead.

* * *

But here’s the kicker. Apparently before my responses were posted, the host took up the challenger’s glove and responded like this:I did not take saying “OK“ has [sic] committing me to any spiritual assertions. Someone was sharing her worldview, and I could not tell if she was really using astrology, or speaking metaphorically through astrological terms. So I noncommittally said, “OK“.

Hope that clears things up for you.

This noncommittal sidetrack probably appeased his critic. Though I appreciate the need to keep members calm, I felt a flash of pain. Self-doubt. “Why bother? Good Will misplaced.” I fired back:

Alas. Spirituality & astrology are, IMHO, non-sequitors.

Your ok was a dismissive “whatever” ? Thanks for clarifying.

* * *

Now none of this would be worth reporting if it were simply a matter of misunderstandings or hurt feelings. But important ideas with serious consequences are at stake.

On the macro scale, this conversation is proof of how desperately we need to shift to the quantum paradigm. Education must support conscious awareness of the full spectrum of human experience.

For example, earlier, the host of same site put out a post calling for members to comment on corruption in government:

“When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Nope. Not taking that bait.” To successfully remove corruption, we would first have to pinpoint its driver. The cause of the corruption stems from educating generations of citizens into a fatally flawed (corrupted and corrupting) paradigm of empirical science which rules out both sub-rational and super-rational levels of experience. Garbage in. Garbage out.

To remedy political corruption, we must first prevent the mistakes which occur as a result of ruling out awareness of the inner levels the Life Wheel. Ignorance of their existence and operations put us at extreme disadvantage.

In particular, the e=energy level is where emotions reside. Intellectuals who operate exclusively from head, with closed heart and empty gut, are ineffectual in the world. The professors I worked with in University, for example, behaved like emotional four-year olds. “Emotional intelligence” wasn’t their speciality.

Second, sexual energy also resides in the inner e=energy level. When awareness of these energies is repressed and skillful harnessing of them is made taboo, they fester in the unconscious and manifest darkly. It’s no accident that behind the mask of celibacy, rape and pedophilia run rampant in monasteries, Catholic, Hindu and Buddhist alike.

Not to mention that foreign governments honey pot emotionally immature leaders in government and business to compromise them. Corruption in politics is often driven by fear of blackmail.

* * *

Now, as to astrology in particular. It’s also housed at the non-tangible but nevertheless very real e=energy level. Like any other science (defined as “with knowledge”), it has both uses and abuses. I’m reminded of being obliged to do a statistical study for my dissertation. The stats professor was amazed at the results I got. Most grad students got garbage. How did I explain 99% statistically significant findings?

“Easy,” I told him. I understood the limits of statistics and stayed within its parameters. I tracked demographics and behavior. I did NOT ask value questions.

It’s the same with astrology. Historically, shepherds in the fields and sailors on the high seas depended on their understandings of weather — the seasons, oceans and sky, for safety. Knowing and skillfully abiding by the laws of nature was a matter of survival. The operations of nature have no prejudice, no values. They simply are. Take it or leave it, the consequences are yours.

Although urban dwellers may be relatively disconnected from the elements of nature, the dynamics of human nature remain unchanged.

Now, a passionate, idealistic leader without the advantage of astrology is at serious disadvantage. Because, yes, “Timing is everything.” Promising followers that something will happen because you think it should, because you really really desperately want it to, because you know in your heart it is right, leads to mistakes. If the timing is off, there’s no way (no matter how “right”), you can deliver. So. Before making promises, check your astral watch. For best results, know what time it is and temper behavior accordingly.

As for abuses of astrology, while “good” guys sanctimoniously condemn and abstain, dark side folks take full advantage. For example, ups and downs of economic trends are easily calculated. Those well advised on financial matters can become fantastically rich, while others must depend on listening to gut and/or intuition for similar effect.

Also, astral charts for most public figures are easily obtained, even online. You can trust that leaders’ weaknesses are well known to dark side manipulators, who’ve chosen pawns accordingly and placed them in position in order to use them.

* * *

So. A few quick thoughts. Questions? Comments? You’re welcome to contact me at positiveactionpress@yahoo.com.

Rethinking Change

March 24th marks the launch of my YouTube Channel, RETHINKING CHANGE.

Here, I’m sharing with you the link to the Premier video, as well  as the script which appears below.

Rethinking Change Banner

Hello and Welcome to Rethinking Change. I’m Pat West.

So. Let’s start right in with a riddle. Here’s a list of thought leaders in fields like:

  • Finance – Napoleon Hill. Robert Kiyasaki.
  • Science – Gregg Braden.
  • Healing – Joe Dispenza.
  • Energy Work – Donna Eden, Jeffrey Allen.
  • Hypnosis – Marisa Peer.
  • Martial arts — Bruce Lee
  • . . . . the  list goes on

But here’s the question. What do they have in common? By the end of this video, you’ll have the answer to that question, as well as an appreciation for the value Rethinking Change has to offer you  and those you care for.

As a special bonus, at the end, I’ll share with you what the Book of Change has to say about the COVID-19 pandemic. As you’ll come to find out, the I Ching is the foundation of energy medicine and Tai Chi. It’s the missing link we need NOW to survive and thrive in this intense time of extremes. I think you’ll find its message . . very interesting.

You’re probably wondering by now, who I am to be saying all of this. Well, there’s a long version, because I have plenty of stranger-than-fiction stories to share with you in good time. But here’s the short version.

I was trained as a musician. I played piano and various string instruments — guitar, a bit of sitar, but primarily violin. I shared this life-saver in common with my man, Einstein, who was also a violinist. It led me to yoga and to the magical, marvelous I Ching, the Book of Change, which maps the laws of nature, the repeating cycles of change which everyone everywhere share in common. For more than 8,000 years, it’s been used as a decision-making tool by leaders in every walk of life, all over the world. It’s used to bypass danger, optimize opportunities and to maintain balance in the midst of change.

Psychologist Carl Jung wrote an introduction to the Wilhelm/Baynes translation. He taught us to use it as a tool for making the unconscious conscious.

In 1975, I wrote my own version. It still works for me. My idea was, it shouldn’t be so tough . . and it should be made available to everyone. You can find it on Amazon. It’s called The Common Sense Book of Change.

I’ve been growing with the book for over 40 years now, taking it with me through every imaginable situation to understand the dynamics that drive human behavior. It’s become a good friend and mentor. More than once, it’s saved my life. If you want to know more, you can check out my website, rethinking survival.com. You’ll find several related posts. One is “The I Ching and Me.” Another is “How the Common Sense Book of Change (CSBOC) Came To Be.”

In the late 1970s, I earned a Ph.D. in Educational Administration. From writing books to fill the shelves that weren’t there when I needed them, I went on to earn the credential to build schools to fill what I call the fatal knowledge gap in what we’re taught in schools.

Basically, though, what you need to know about me is summed up in my latest book, You Are Already Enough: How Would Your Life CHANGE if you really Believed It? There, I give you my personal Why, How and What.

Basically, though, what you need to know about me is summed up in my latest book, You Are Already Enough: How Would Your Life CHANGE if you really Believed It? There, I give you my personal Why, How and What.

My WHY is to pay forward the extraordinary blessings I’ve received over a lifetime. I experience it as a calling. My HOW has been to write books, blog, give an occasional class, and now, to create content for this YouTube channel. My WHAT, the end result I’m aiming for, is to restore sanity to a badly fractured world, one person at a time.

Okay then. The Book of Change is one self-awareness tool. The second is a spin-off. And here things get even more interesting.

I came to it by applying yoga sutras to Einstein. Take the archetypal Life Wheel that repeats through all cultures and all times, well known to meditators. Then take the variables of Einstein’s formula – M = mass, E = energy, C = light – and plug them into the increasingly deeper levels of the Life Wheel. The result is the Unified Field Theory – including the elusive “consciousness factor.” Einstein had already received it, but for lack of yoga training, he missed it.

02a. Unfied Field Theory

Now. . . . just like the Ching’s repetitive cycle of hexagrams, this quantum pattern of creation also repeats throughout nature, on every scale of magnitude . . . smallest to largest, from atoms to solar systems. It repeats in every cell of our bodies. In Already Enough, I give pictures of this pattern repeating throughout nature and world art.

But what’s important to emphasize here is that this isn’t just an interesting, abstract idea. The formula e=m2 has powerful applications, for destruction – the atomic bomb – as well as creation. We can personalize the Life Wheel to make it real in our own lives. We can use it to assess how we’re doing, to identify what’s missing, decide what we intend to change, and then to plan how to get from here to there. It’s a powerful tool. It can bring us back from an incomplete, fractured lifestyle into full alignment with our true complete nature, the original design of creation.

Here’s just one picture of what wheel-work looks like:

happy face

And here’s my Why, How and What prioritized inside the Life Wheel structure.

My Why, How & What

So. The answer to the riddle I asked at the beginning . . is this. What all those thought leaders share in common is an intuitive fidelity to this basic structure, the quantum reality embodied in the Life Wheel. It explains . . for example. . the effectiveness of Napoleon’s Hill Think and Grow Rich formula. And so on. . . In You Are Already Enough!, I show that, just as Einstein’s formula plugs into the Life Wheel, so do the ideas that get the powerful results each of these thought leaders has achieved.

Before moving on to the COVID-19 section, I briefly want to tell you this. When I was brainstorming for future video content, the list got huge . . . because the Life Wheel truly meets the Occam’s Razor standard of greatest simplicity with maximum inclusiveness.

Once you start rethinking change, seeing how the dynamics expand and contract from the inside out, and how the levels of the Life Wheel link up . . the possibilities become infinite. It’s like, anywhere you focus the laser beam, it illumines the field.

Here’s a short list of potential subjects:

  • The MPI standard – motive, purpose, and intent. (Being aware of what you’re doing and why.)
  • Abundance. Magic. Manifestation. Wealth.
  • Change. Change agents. Affirmative action. Positive Action.
  • Unity. The United States.
  • Conflict. Common sense. The law of Karma. Ethics.
  • Creativity. Intuition. Self-awareness. Self-actualization.
  • Relationships. Empaths and narcissists.
  • Interdependence. Cooperation.
  • Communication. Community. Intentional community.
  • Education. Higher Education. Paradigm shifts. And opportunity.
  • Authority. Inner authority. Conscience.
  • Medicine. Healing. Mindfulness. Meditation.
  • Codes. The Emotion Code. The Healing Code.
  • Stress. The suicide epidemic and its prevention.

So, if you have any preferences among those topics or other related questions you’d like me to address, please comment below and I’ll do my best to respond. And please do take the time to like, share and subscribe, so we can get this urgently needed information out to a badly fractured world that – for lack of it – is in SUCH deep trouble.

Now, here’s the COVID-19 bonus I promised you.

There are many ways to approach the Book of Change. It starts with finding a quiet place and settling down the noisy mind. After deciding on a question, there’s a process for arriving at an answer. I’m saving the technical side for later. Today, I’m going straight to the answer I got on March 14th to this written question: “What advice does the Book of Change have to offer the general public about the COVID-19 pandemic?”

The initial outcome was 14, SELF-POSSESSION. It looks like this:

14 Self-Possession

It seems to me that the general public expects leaders to demonstrate calmness, integrity, and fairness. We want them to give us a clear picture of what’s going on. Deep down, we really want leaders who inspire us.

However, the initial answer was dynamic. It had two changing lines that offer warnings or advice. These combined to result in a different outcome.

The advice from line four is “Do not compete with others. Use your skills to build.” It advises restraint and to avoid careless waste. So I would be concerned that precious time is being wasted, that this crisis is being used BY SOME as a political football, and that it’s possible resources being mobilized might to some extent be misdirected.

The advice from line five reads “When you prove yourself responsible, others will trust you.” The shadow side here is that unless leaders prove themselves trustworthy, people won’t trust them.

But even when there’s restraint and responsibility, the second outcome remains FRUSTRATION. This makes good sense. We have expectations that aren’t always being met. It’s related to the leadership issue, but just as importantly . . . we need to be aware that there’s a lot going on – hidden – behind the scenes. Things aren’t exactly what they seem.

Number 9 reads: External factors you may not even be aware of will cause FRUSTRATION. New projects will not work out now. This cannot be avoided. Arguing will not influence those who could help. Your choice is either to wait patiently or to leave the situation. “

So it seems to me that right now we’re in for a waiting game. Getting emotionally caught up in the upheavals that have been set in motion would be counter-productive. To the extent that worry is a waste of time, refocusing attention . . . rethinking the change going on all around us . . . is a better option.

So, the next question that arises is Where should we turn our attention? For one thing, I would look for the opportunities hidden within current dangers, because it’s a rule of Natural Law that in duality, there are two sides to every coin.

It’s quite possible we’ve been looking in the wrong places for IMPORTANT answers. And that the Book itself is welcoming the pandemic as an opportunity to reintroduce itself as an inspirational way to access the deeper energy and light levels of our Life Wheels for a better understanding what’s truly going on – within ourselves . . . as well as in the world around us.

NOW this opens WIDE the door to a whole new world. I will continue this thread in my next video, which I’m calling “Blessings in Disguise.”

So, here’s what you can expect from now on. In each Thursday video, I’ll balance discussion with a hands-on reading from different versions of the Book of Change. The plan is to illumine key issues in terms of the Life Wheel pattern, supported by readings to make the Book of Change increasingly more familiar.

Again. Please comment below. Like, share and subscribe. Hit the bell to be notified each time I publish a new video. And I’ll see you again next time. Until then, do take good care of yourselves.

Hope for the Future

My life quest started with a heart-felt question. A poem, actually.

Because in early teen years, I felt a growing, uneasy sense of danger. I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong.

But something sure wasn’t right.

So I put ink pen to paper and wrote:

Poem

Since then, bit by bit, the Universe has answered my soul call.

I’m moved to share my story because, as the world becomes increasingly more complicated and dangerous, more and more of us are feeling that angst.

The time is ripe and ready for the answers I was given.

This book is my way of paying forward what gave me help and peace of mind. If what I’ve been given to share does the same for you, my journey will be fulfilled.

Long story short, my searchings led to this answer. The world is suffering from a fatal knowledge deficit. The limited and limiting rules of empirical science cut us off from who we truly are. Public education alienates us from our inborn native power.

No matter how much we feed the illusion of lack with drug, alcohol, food, sex and violence addictions, we’re never satisfied. We can’t be.

Because we’re looking in the wrong place to fill the deepest, universal needs everyone everywhere shares in common.

We’re starving for lack of wholeness. Most of us suffer terribly from the illusion of being cut off from Source.

We’ve been misled into believing that we’re not enough. We’re not smart enough, good enough, rich enough, attractive or lovable enough.

Nothing on the surface of the Life Wheel can satisfy that gnawing sense of emptiness and loneliness. No amount of external input can help.

However, given new and better information, negative beliefs can be changed.

In truth, we’re already okay in a way that can’t be measured or quantified. It’s simply how we were made. We’re inherently whole and complete.

“God don’t make no junk.”

Know Where To Look - sized

When we become aware of who we truly are, always were and always will be, we reconnect with our original, true identity. We come to Really Believe we were born already enough. At our central, unalienable core, we are divinely perfect.

When we truly believe and act on that inner awareness, then no one can ever again sell us on the lie that we’re not okay, not enough. It’s simply not possible. And our lives change dramatically for the better.

* * *

This excerpt comes from the Introduction of You Are Already ENOUGH! How Would Your Life CHANGE If You Really Believed It?

It’s the perfect gift of hope for the new year and decade. Now available on amazon.com.

Time to Choose: Life or Death

Today I revisited a blog called Choose Life II.  Back then — January of 2016   — its resonance with biblical verses was in the back my mind. Today, I will put them up front. They add yet another layer of meaning to the original post:

In Deuteronomy, Moses said to Israel:

15 Today I am giving you a choice. You can choose life and success or death and disaster. 16-18 I am commanding you to be loyal to the Lord, to live the way he has told you, and to obey his laws and teachings. You are about to cross the Jordan River and take the land that he is giving you. If you obey him, you will live and become successful and powerful.

19 Right now I call the sky and the earth to be witnesses that I am offering you this choice. Will you choose for the Lord to make you prosperous and give you a long life?

Three years later, I found the substance republished here just as timely and helpful as before. I hope you find it helpful too.

body-mind-spirit

Last fall’s mystery illness became a strict teacher, a blessing in disguise. It dramatically reinforced my awareness of the mutually dependent relationship between brain and gut long recognized by Asian healing traditions.

As modern medical research documents, mental distress manifests as a myriad of gut-spawned diseases – Crone’s disease, fibromyalgia, rheumatoid arthritis, irritable bowel syndrome and eventually cancers, to name but a few.

Conversely, the broad spectrum of diseases arising in the gut spawn a host of mental illnesses – not only depression, memory loss, dementia and schizophrenia, but autism and A.D.H.D, for example.

The hopeful application is this. Correctly steered, interventions on either side of the gut-psychology continuum positively affects the other. The relationship spans an infinite loop. So wherever one starts, given time and effort, it’s possible to complete the cycle, eventually restoring balance and good health.

Follow along if you like and I’ll connect the dots that led to this conclusion.

It started with asking WHY. Medical people failed to correctly diagnosis what went wrong. The ER physician (nice lady) jumped to the convenient assumption that, given my demographics, a lower tract infection was the problem. Antibiotics would make symptoms go away.

When the first round of drugs didn’t help, instead of questioning the assumption, the local nurse practitioner prescribed a battery of (expensive!) different antibiotics over following months – in increasingly stronger doses – each with its “interesting” side effects.

The duration of this “illness” was cause for some serious introspection on my part. Certainly the WHY had a mental origin. Stern teacher that LIFE is, I came to accept that I wasn’t going to be let off the hook until I came clean with myself. Release demanded self-honesty.

What I unburied was a death wish of sorts. It wasn’t that I wanted to be gone, so much as that negative suggestions from false friends absorbed over the years had worn me down to the point of critical mass.

I was increasingly motivated by dread of facing a future based on past experience. Subconsciously, I had succumbed to a death sentence suggested by people far too “nice” to kill me outright, but all too capable of driving me to slow suicide.

LIFE had sounded a warning alarm to bring me back to my Self.

Something had to change. It started with a stark decision. A conscious commitment to LIFE, whatever it takes. I wrote a confirming article, Choose Life.

Once recognition and the decision were made, LIFE responded most generously. The help and information needed to support my choice appeared from several directions.

The next step was for me to ask HOW do I return to health? And how do I change my attitudes and behavior to make my personal future different and better from the past?

Critically important information was found in Susan Forward’s Emotional Blackmail: When the People in Your Life Use Fear, Obligation and Guilt to Manipulate You.

I was instantly inspired to borrow the book from the library after reading a top-ranked review of the book which starts:

This book does a very clear job of defining emotional blackmail so you can begin to easily spot emotional blackmailers in your life. It then concludes with telling you specifically how to deal with emotional blackmail, that is, how to keep your energy, resources, and sometimes your very soul, from being stolen by them.

WOW. I could relate to that!

She writes, At the heart of any kind of blackmail is one basic threat, which can be expressed in many different ways: If you don’t behave the way I want you to, you will suffer.

Forward explains:

Manipulators work hard to deny, obscure, camouflage, prettify, excuse, rationalize, disguise, HIDE what they are doing. They make it hard, if not impossible, to see HOW they’re manipulating us. They lay down a thick FOG that obscures their actions.

FOG is an acronym that stands for the psychological warfare tactics used against targets: Fear, Obligation and Guilt.

This information is reinforced by Harriet Braiker in Who’s Pulling Your Strings? How to Break the Cycle of Manipulation and Regain Control of Your Life:

People who manipulate are often so hard to spot. They become your friend and then find ways to have their way with you. . .

A reviewer summarizes:

You can’t reason with a manipulator because of their insecurities but you can reason with your own insecurities; and best of all are the practical ways you can change your behavior to take back the power.

This book teaches you to get up, learn what you did wrong and what you should have done, and even better how not to repeat the same mistakes.

There’s also a warning given from experience:

I’ve put an end to so much manipulation in my life. It takes the wind right out of the manipulator’s sails. The book is right…the manipulator will blow really hard, so prepare yourself; it’s going to get stormy.

choose life

Another fortunate form of help followed from my decision to seek medical advice elsewhere. An intern at the UW kindly saw me on short notice. Intrigued by my situation, she brought in her mentor. Together, after reviewing the history of lab results, they confirmed that the initial diagnosis wasn’t right. The medications hurt more than helped.

Although I knew enough to eat yogurt to offset the effect of antibiotics, to repair the damage done by antibiotics they recommended taking pharmaceutical probiotics as well. This opened the door to a whole new world of science and healing.

Probiotics for Dummies, for example, includes a useful section on the brain-gut connection.

Medical researchers have long known that stress depresses immune function, but only recently have they linked stress to changes in gut bacteria.

The medical community’s interest in probiotics was initially sparked by the seminal work on GAPS (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) published by researcher Natasha Campbell-McBride.

In Gut and Psychology Syndrome: Natural Treatment for Autism, Dyspraxia, A.D.D., Dyslexia, A.D.H.D., Depression and Schizophrenia, she notes that Western medicine has long acknowledged the brain-gut connection:

The father of modern psychiatry, French psychiatrist Phillipe Pinel (17-45-1828), after working with mental patients for many years, concluded in 1807: “The primary seat of insanity generally is in the region of the stomach and intestines.”

Interestingly, she uses the same word, FOG, when in describing the mental-emotional relief experienced as the intestines heal by using probiotics to restore balance. “It is as if the fog lifts.” Ahh!

But, like cutting through the psychological FOG, cleaning out the gut doesn’t happen over night, or without difficulties. Campbell-McBride warns things often seem to get worse before they get better. Detox is a necessary but challenging middle step along the road that leads from here and there. So, again, “prepare yourself; it’s going to get stormy.”

There are important parallels between the so-called Leaky Gut Syndrome and psychological distress. In the first case, weakened intestines become permeable. Toxins and undigested food leak out and are circulated by the blood stream throughout the entire body, poisoning other internal organs – including the brain.

Similarly, psychological defenses can also be worn down and compromised, sometimes due to “second-hand stress.” In this case, when protective borders between self and others break down, toxic influences from outside undermine mental-emotional balance. Others’ fears, rage and general unhappiness poison the unprotected mind. Toxic people preoccupied with their own wants and personal dramas, even when unintentionally, do great harm.

Interestingly, the GAPS/probiotics approach is highly compatible with the wisdom of Asian healers. Traditional Chinese Medicine, for example, carefully maps the gut-psychology connection. They describe the dynamics of what is called “the abdominal brain.” The following illustration captures thousands of years of wisdom in a single picture.

0 012316

According to Mantak Chia, when the intestine becomes congested, it cannot perform its physiological functions. Though you may eat well, you may be under nourished.

As he explains, each of the organs is correlated with one of the five elements. In turn, each is associated with specific positive or negative emotions:

All negative emotions are expressed in the small intestine by contraction and circumvolutions, Anger contracts the right side of the intestine near the liver. Worry affects the upper left side near the spleen. Impatience and anxiety affect the top. Sadness affects both lower lateral sides. Fear affects the deeper and lower abdominal areas.

As the I Ching instructs, the same dynamics repeat on every scale of magnitude, from cellular to universal. So many hints from sciences both ancient and modern could be taken in many directions. They apply to relationships on a personal level, to community dynamics, and governance. But those will be subject of posts yet to follow.

For starters, I’ll offer just one hint.

Campbell-McBride uses the image of a medieval fortress under attack to describe the breakdown of  defenses that result in auto-immune diseases. It parallels the Interleukin II research described earlier, where the grad students saw their research on pediatric leukemia in terms of a war between good and evil.

When confusions in gut mirror confusions of the mind – when the difference between friend and enemy is fogged — anabolic (building up) and catabolic (breaking down) functions are thrown off balance. The body  is fooled into turning against itself in self-destructive ways.

In conclusion, however, a key component overlooked in the popular gut-psychology formula must be noted. Spirit — that third, underlying, unifying and overriding component of the e = mc2 equation – plays a deciding role in the outcome of the LIFE versus death struggle to survive.

It is said, “The mind will play any tune you tell it to play.”

choose wisely

So – who is it that quietly instructs the mind which tune to choose?

LIFE itself, the soul’s advocate, is the tie-breaker that tips the balance.

Here, I allow Mantak Chia to have the final word. He describes the discipline of cultivating chi – the subtle energy that links mind and body — and the end goal of the path to which all endeavors ultimately lead: 

  • If one wishes to be a healer, success depends upon the ability to channel energy through the hands.
  • If one wishes to be an athlete, success depends upon the ability to convert energy into strength and endurance.
  • If one wishes to be free of negative influences, success depends upon the ability to transform negative energy into positive energy.
  • One who seeks enlightenment is searching for the highest source of all energy.

I write in hopes that you will find this saga helpful. If you relate, I invite you to apply your imagination and follow wherever the subject leads you.

To your health!

Use the CSBOC To Increase Self-Awareness

Did you know that Swiss analyst, Carl Jung, who gave us the concept of archetypes and influenced appreciation of dream analysis, also had great respect for the Chinese I Ching? He used it as as a tool for making the unconscious conscious.

In fact, Jung was instrumental in bringing the first usable English translation to the West. He wrote the introduction to the Wilhelm/Baynes version by giving an example of using it. He queried asking for a comment on the translation. The answer received was, in effect, that a vessel of great value which had fallen into disrepair was being restored.

My small yellow book follows Jung’s example. In the Introduction, I ask, “What does the Common Sense Book of Change (CSBOC)  have to offer its readers?”

Its answer: “Awareness.” A changing line yields the likely future outcome of following through. “Gain.” (I’ll show you how this works below.)

But even before starting, the book emphasizes the importance of practicing a thoughtful process of question- asking:

The quality of results depends on the state of mind in which information is received. It is therefore essential to learn how to approach the Book of Change in the best possible frame of mind.

So quiet yourself. Get past the clutter of chaotic thoughts to focus on forming a worthy question.

. . . There are many techniques for calming the mind and focusing attention. One of these is usually practiced before asking the question.

Bottom line: consulting the Book of Change is not only compatible with yogic and mindfulness practices of introspection, contemplation and meditation. They work synergistically. Settling the mind to ask the right question induces a meditative state. The ability to induce a meditative state enhances the quality of questions asked and value of answers received.

To give you the flavor of working with The Common Sense Book of Change, I’m sharing the example given in the book.

If you initially feel uneasy with this approach to increasing self-awareness, you might find the answers to commonly asked questions reassuring.

If this is new to you, try approaching it with the attitude for approaching the unfamiliar recommended by Samuel Coleridge, a “willing suspension of disbelief.” Or, as I do, at the start, prayerfully invoke protection and guidance according to your beliefs.

 

 

SAMPLE READING

First I collect my materials. I need three pennies, a pad of paper or notebook, a pen or pencil and the Book of Change.

Then I find a quiet place to sit. I take a few minutes to settle down. I clear my mind of other thoughts and silently watch the breath until it becomes slow and even.

Then I think carefully about what is going on, what is troubling me, and the issues I need to know more about. I list the decisions I have to make and consider what consequences are likely to follow from my future actions.

For the example in this book, I have decided to ask, “What does The Common Sense Book of Change have to offer its readers?”

I enter the date and my question in the Diary Section at the back of the book.

Concentrating on my question, I take my three pennies, shake them a few times in my gently closed fist and roll them onto the flat surface in front of me.

The first throw of my three coins comes up three heads. The value of heads is two, so I multiply three times two to get six.

Since this is an even number, I draw a broken line on my pad of paper. It will be the bottom line. Because all three coins were the same, I place an “X” next to this line to show that it is a changing line.

My bottom line looks like this:

Place Throws Values Sum Line

Bottom H H H 2 2 2 6 ___ ___X

Then I take the three coins and throw them again. This time I get two tails and one head. The value of tails is one, so I add one and one to get two. I add this to the two for the heads coin to get four.

Since four is an even number, I place a broken line in the second place over the bottom line. My pad of paper now looks like this:

Place Throws Values Sum Line

Line 2    T T H 1 1 2 4 ___ ___

Bottom H H H 2 2 2 6 ___ ___ X

̀I follow the same procedure four more times. My final hexagram looks like this:

Place Throws Values Sum Line

Top       T H H 1 2 2 5 _______

Line 5   T H H 1 2 2 5 _______

Line 4    T T H 1 1 2 4 ___ ___

Line 3     T T H 1 1 2 4 ___ ___

Line 2     T T H 1 1 2 4 ___ ___

Bottom  H H H 2 2 2 6 ___ ___ X

The next step is to find the number of my reading. I turn to the chart at the back of the book. The bottom three lines of my hexagram are all broken.

I turn to the chart at the back. In the “lower trigram” column of the chart, the picture which matches this figure is “k’un.”

The top three lines of my hexagram are two solid lines over a broken line. In the “upper trigram” row of the chart, the picture which matches this figure is “sun.”

By going to the box which shows the combination of upper and lower trigrams, I find the number 20. I therefore turn to Hexagram 20 for answers to my question.

Hexagram 20 is AWARENESS. So the answer to my question, “What does the Common Sense Book of Change have to offer its readers?” is AWARENESS. It reads:

Seek increased AWARENESS of the patterns which underlie all natural events. Tune yourself to the creative source of natural change. Then harmony becomes a way of life. Secrets of the arts and sciences will be revealed. Human relationships will become smooth. Mistakes of mis-calculation will be prevented. Avoid unnatural leaders.

Because the bottom line is a changing line, I go to the page directly opposite the hexagram, titled “Direction of Change.” I read the sentences for the bottom line. They advise:

Narrow-minded self-interest is not enlightened. Broaden your views. Include others. (42)

The number in parens after the warning represents the hexagram which results when the bottom line changes to its opposite, a firm line.

The new hexagram, GAIN, indicates the change that would result from the AWARENESS this book has to offer its readers. Turning to Hexagram 42, I read:

GAINS can be made after analyzing the situation correctly. When a person’s life goals are kept firmly in mind, no time is wasted. A way can be found to use whatever resources are at hand to serve one’s purpose. Serving others can be compatible with personal gain. Avoid smug self-satisfaction.

I then turn to the back of the book. In the Diary Section, I write the numbers of the hexagram and any changing lines next to my question. Then I decide what future actions I to take.

Finally, I enter a few sentences to describe my thoughts and decisions into the Diary Section. That way, I know I can return to my question, the reading and my decisions later to think more about them.

I hope this helps. Any questions? Comments? Your feedback is welcome.

How the CSBOC Came To Be

For those who wondered, I’ve already answered eight of your most often asked questions, including“What makes the Book of Change so unique and important? Why is it especially relevant worldwide?”

wondering face

Here, I’m answering another question: “Why is this particular version, the Common Sense Book of Change (CSBOC), an excellent choice for me to work with right now?”

As strange as it appears at first glance, there are actually several good reasons. So let me tell you more.

Discourse sized

First, I should let you know that today, publishing is a just hobby for me. The world will go its own way. I no longer think can any book change the world.

But it certainly changed me. It’s no exaggeration to say the I Ching saved my life. More than once.

So, for me, if the Common Sense Book of Change helps even one of you, that is enough. I would be satisfied. As it has been written, “To save one life is to save the world entire.”

I also recognized that the I Ching is not the only book with life-saving potential. The most powerful is the Bible. In my case, however, early in life, poor examples confused and repelled me. I do believe that in their infinite mercy, good angels guide and protect truth seekers through any medium available. Angels are not limited by the restrictions of human religion. : )

So long before I was ready for the New Testament, the I Ching was there to get me through some rough transitions.

Angel Calling

Now, then. How did I come to create this little book? I am American, not Chinese. Nor am I a scholar with advanced degrees in Chinese language and literature. I’ve described my personal journey in several places. For example, in The I Ching & Me, I wrote:

For me, the Book of Change is a gateway to magic. On this side, it has been a close companion, good friend and advisor through the years. On the far side, perhaps remembered from lifetimes past, it speaks to me from a place beyond time and space.

With it, I was never alone, even and especially when I was loneliest in crowded rooms. When the world impelled suicide, it brought me back to a deeper, all-pervasive love of life.

So I will share a few sections from Rethinking Survival about how I met the book, and how it has grown on me.

ICgraph

I wrote about the origins of CSBOC in Rethinking Survival:

. . . I’d had a hunch about [the I Ching] for a very long time. Ellsworth Carlson, who lived in Shansi, China during WWII, was a classmate of my parents at Oberlin College. When I was nursery school age, he bounced me on his knees at Harvard.

As Freshman student, I took Dr. Carlson’s course in Asian History at Oberlin. What stuck with me how vast an influence the I Ching had on China for 8,000 years and counting.

So, when I left the U.S., all I took with me was my violin and one small suitcase. Of that, half contained clothes. The other half held sheet music and one small book: the Legge translation of the I Ching.

It made no sense to me. I could barely get through a page or two before giving up. But I kept coming back to it. It led to something important I had to know more about.

When I happened upon the Wilhelm/Baynes edition in Düsseldorf’s International Bookshop on Konigs Allee — Finally! — I had a version I could relate to. It literally became my teacher. It gave me a whole new concept of how the world really works.

Not just this family or that institution or the other county. Not arbitrary and capricious, fluctuating fashions, but the constant anchor over time.

From it, I could deduce the fundamental energy dynamics of action and reaction which drive behavior, internally at a psychological level, and externally in relationships and day-to-day events.

It was an extension of the logic my English teacher Miss Elson impressed on my high school brain. But more. It gave me a map of logical consequences, as inevitable as computer language. “If this, then that.”

For example, If you kick people, they kick back (if they can) or otherwise resist. If you are kind, you inspire love and trust in others. If you violate natural law, nature bites back — your mental health suffers; relationships deteriorate; your behavior becomes erratic and social/physical survival is imperiled.

Asian cultures call this “the law of karma.” Its operation is also described in biblical terms: “As ye reap, so shall ye sow,” and “to everything there is a season.”

In sum, its 64 permutations map a progression of repetitive, cyclical change.

Tai Chi Tu

I’ve also explained why I felt compelled to write a simpler, accessible version, free of unnecessary jargon, sexism and cultural baggage:

There was, as in all things, a downside to the Wilhelm/Baynes version. It was unnecessarily difficult, sexist and elitist. A confusing overlay of cultural baggage obscured its meaning. After working for ten years with every version I could find, I wrote an easy-to-use version called The Common Sense Book of Change, intending to make this treasure available to anyone with an open heart and basic reading skills.

I fantasized on the possibility of teasing the Chinese people into reclaiming their heritage, self-publishing it as small yellow book (the traditional Chinese color of wisdom) in a pocket-sized form to replace Mao’s little blood-red book. No matter how many new versions have come out since then, it still works for me.

seated crosslegged
Here is the story of how the CSBOC came to be:

More “neatsies” surround my small version of the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Change. I wrote it in 1975 during the window of time after I moved back from Spring Green to Madison, but before I had a job. As a leap of faith, I concentrated on the writing, putting off a job search until the book was done. This was a bit scary. Money was going to run out very soon.

I sat cross-legged on the bare wood floor of a living room furnished with cardboard boxes. I spread every version I owned in a half-circle around me. They included the Wilhelm/Baynes translation brought back from Germany, of course. There was a battered second-hand paperback by Joseph Murphy, a research fellow in Andrha, India, as I recall, who quoted the Old Testament in the judgments. Others included the spiral-bound Workbook by R. L. Wing, a hardbound version which presented the I Ching as a form of astrology and a hippie-like paperback.

I trusted that the Platonic-like ideas of the I Ching are timeless, the common heritage of all humanity. They’re not the exclusive property of a particular culture or class. Each of these authors was drawing on the same source for inspiration, expressing universal experience from different viewpoints. So I opened my mind, asking for the deeper meaning these versions shared in common.

I was certain that the most powerful ideas are the most simple. They deserve to be expressed in the clearest language with fewest words possible, free of flowery poetry, scholarly hocus pocus, sexist assumptions (the so-called “superior man”) or other distortions. I intended to make my version easy to read – accessible to anyone with basic reading skills and an open heart.

The format just “came” to me. It worked fine. Fifty words, no more or less, for each hexagram. Ten words, no more, no less for each changing line. The images came easily. I worked systematically from start to finish, no looking back. With the exception of “Sacrifice,” which I revisited fifteen years later, I’ve made no revisions.

Eventually, I called this version The Common Sense Book of Change. I like the word “common.” To me, it doesn’t signify “ordinary” or even “vulgar,” as some use the term, but rather “universal.” “Common” is the root of both “communication” and “community.” And the allusion to Tom Paine’s Common Sense isn’t accidental.

But there’s more to this story:

Upon its completion, the kaleidoscope turned instantly.

Results of the civil service test for Typist III positions came in the mail, along with a list of job openings.

My first interview was at the UW-Madison Department of French and Italian. The Chairman not only gave me the job on the spot. He decided from my resume that I had administrative potential and made me an offer. The Department’s Administrative Secretary III had given notice. She was moving out of town soon. There was no replacement. If I was willing to do her job for Typist III pay, and if I took the pending Ad Sec civil service exam, and if I got one of the five highest scores to qualify for an interview, I could have the job. . . .

I agreed, did administrative work for typist pay, took the exam, qualified for an interview, and within a few months took a leap up the career ladder that secretaries usually took years to accomplish. I was suddenly earning more than ever before. . .

I concluded:

The reward for this leap of faith was immediate. I took it as confirmation from the powers that be that I’d made the right choice to put the book first.

listen with the heart

 

JBP at His Best

On September 30th, I found two particularly endearing tweets posted by JB Peterson Quotes. I thought, I owe him a post showing him at his very best.

The first one shows Dr. Peterson outdoors, sun shining on his brow, hugging smiling students from a surrounding crowd. There’s actually a broad grin on his face! It made me want to smile back at him.

The quote assigned to this photo: “Make at least one thing better every single place you go” – JBP

jbp w friends

The second shows Dr. Peterson gesturing in the professor mode, pronouncing a noble set of maxims. My first response: “What a great heart this man possesses!” It warmed my heart.

jbp Stumble Forward

But then, my rational mind took over.

After the warm fuzzy feelings he stimulates subside, clarity arises. What’s left is this: At each step, his reasoning is based on false assumptions. More fundamentally, the paradigm he’s operating on is incomplete and incorrect.

“Life is suffering” is what Mephistopheles (Satan) argues to Faust. This is pure irony, of course, because Satan’s lies are the primary cause of human suffering.

Christ’s example taught us quite the opposite, that Life is Eternal. Suffering exists on the ephemeral surface of the Life Wheel, in large part due to poor decisions based on false beliefs that lead to catastrophic mistakes. Suffering does not exist at the unchanging Center of the Wheel. I’ve dedicated an entire post, Life is Eternal, to support this alternative premise, from which very different results follow.

Further, however obscured by deception, humans are made in the image of God. They suffer terribly because they have forgotten who they truly are and don’t know how to re-member what they sense they’ve lost and dearly long to recover. Insufficiency is a surface illusion, though a very persistent one. (In the context of mortality, Einstein said the thing about time.)

A great deal of suffering comes from ignorant fear of death. Many have been deceived into doubting the existence of the immortal structure that supports the mortal frame. Sages act on the belief that the consequences of their actions inevitably return. They know of a certainty that upon physical death the immortal part continues on to complete whatever has been left unfinished in future life cycles. So they behave very differently from those who mistakenly believe they can get away with murder or that suicide puts an end to suffering forever.

So what’s the problem? Certainly it’s not lack of intelligence or sincerity. Dr. Peterson is looking for Love and Truth using the limited tool of reason to fathom what exceeds and transcends it.

The rational mind cannot fathom or encompass super-rational realms. Further, he’s looking in the wrong place, on the surface. According to an old saying, “It is futile to hunt for deer in a forest in which none dwell.” Even religions as codified, institutionalized teachings, though speaking to direct experience of the Center, partake of surface limitations.

Nor is truth to be found in the duality of human relationships. That’s an especially hard sell. Not very likely. Actually, it’s the other way around. To the extent individuals align with the Center, the more wisdom, compassion and competence they bring to their relationships. If more of us aligned our personal lives with the Center, increasing numbers would find ways to overcome interpersonal conflicts.

Nor do we need to “stumble” towards the Kingdom of God. As Christ confirmed, the Kingdom of God is already present. It rests within. Getting there, for most of us, however, requires a leap of faith.

He says, “To learn is to die voluntarily and to be born again, in great ways and small.” This is the Phoenix response, of which I’ve written at length.

Nor is any of this a quibble, because a great many people right now are influenced by Dr. Peterson’s logic.

book header bird

I felt compelled to address this quote one word at a time.

SUFFERING. To repeat, stating categorically that life is suffering is misleading. While Buddhists equate human experience with suffering, they also teach that the root of suffering is IGNORANCE. And the primary way to ameliorate suffering is to dispel ignorance. In this case, false, incomplete and incorrect paradigms perpetuate ignorance and generate suffering. As he has also made clear, there’s a direct correlation between beliefs and outcomes.

Whereas Dr. Peterson looks to Goethe’s Faust to explain suffering, I prefer the Old Testament:

And then there’s Job, the model of faith enduring to the end and being restored, even better than before. The phoenix image.

Here’s the secret to be gleaned from this story, illumined by the infinity symbol that links the levels of the Life Wheel. Job says, “The Lord giventh.” This is the outward, materializing movement from center to surface of the Wheel. “And The Lord taketh away.” This is the receding path of return to center. In all, “Blessed be the NAME of the Lord.” The Logos.

LOVE. “Love,” Dr, Peterson says, “is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated.” To answer that one, I had to write an entire post to reply, Yes. And much more:

[Love] can be an expression of one’s affection. It can mean a feeling of brotherhood and good will towards other people.

It can be strong liking for or interest in something (a love of music). It’s a strong, usually passionate affection, partly based on sexual attraction.

In theology, love refers to God’s tender regard for mankind, or mankind’s desire for God as the supreme good. Love is the ultimate mystery. It sparks and keeps the life process going, more to be accepted and honored than psychoanalyzed.

Further,

Plato described seven stages of love. Each is a rung on an evolutionary ladder which leads from a child’s love for parents, to erotic love, to friendship, and eventually the pinnacle of divine connection. These seven steps correlate exactly with the hierarchal seven energy centers of yoga anatomy.

Plato traces the attraction between males and females to jealous gods who split a complete, content person in half at the navel. Ever since, each part has chased after the other, longing to become whole again – another yogic priority.

Tai Chi Tu

Next, he says,”TRUTH it the handmaiden of love. Dialogue is the Pathway of Truth.”

WOW. What a partial truth. Again, it takes another post to even come close to addressing it.

I say, “Dialogue in good faith may be the instrument of coming to common understanding between individuals and amongst groups. But Truth has many levels.”

So, truth meaning what? Facts? Data? Axiomatic laws of nature? Absolutes? All of the above.

What does it mean to tell the truth? About what one is doing? Thinking? Feeling? Believing? Layers and levels of truth. How do they hang together?

I even supplied a picture, put together early on in my blogging years before I’d acquired photo-shopping skills:

TruthLevels021713

A Rare Opportunity

Immediately after posting Be Harmless, NOT Defenseless, a twitter message from JBP came to my attention. He will be speaking in Madison, Wisconsin on Thursday, November 16th. Small world. This happens to be a day when I’m already scheduled to be in town.

The event will take place on the UW-Madison campus in the building where I worked two years as a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Educational Administration. My office on the eleventh floor was so high above ground that I could watch incoming weather changes in the sky, far above the railroad tracks and coal yard below.

Since meeting face to face is the only way to answer inevitable questions on both sides, fate seems to be offering us an unlikely and rare opportunity.

Certainly he has many reasons to avoid it. But I have a hunch the best part of him will push past excuses. The opportunity may seem strange, uncomfortable and inconvenient. But on the opposite side of the coin, uncommonly valuable gifts might emerge from a “. . . dialogue . . . so that we can all humbly learn . . .”

Angel Calling

Love IS . . .

Dr. Jordan Peterson says, “Love is the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated.”

I say, “Yes . . and much, much more.”

Here’s what I mean:

Essay 38. LOVE

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. – Moses, Deuteronomy 6:4-5

As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. . .This is my commandment. That ye love one another, as I have loved you.  — Jesus Christ in St. John, The New Testament

In Taoism, we say the heart is the seat of love, compassion, joy and happiness. This is what people are looking for. But they are looking outside. We don’t know that joy and happiness is seated INSIDE our heart. We’re running around the whole world. Going to the amusement park, night club, theaters, all kinds of places in search of happiness, peace, joy. But the peace, joy and happiness are within us. – — Mantak Chia, The Inner Smile

THE FRONT

Roots of love mean to be fond, or to desire. Webster’s first definition is a deep and tender feeling of affection for, or attachment to. It can be an expression of one’s affection. It can mean a feeling of brotherhood and good will towards other people.

It can be strong liking for or interest in something (a love of music). It’s a strong, usually passionate affection, partly based on sexual attraction. In theology, love refers to God’s tender regard for mankind, or mankind’s desire for God as the supreme good. Love is the ultimate mystery. It sparks and keeps the life process going, more to be accepted and honored than psychoanalyzed.

Plato described seven stages of love. Each is a rung on an evolutionary ladder which leads from a child’s love for parents, to erotic love, to friendship, and eventually the pinnacle of divine connection. These seven steps correlate exactly with the hierarchal seven energy centers of yoga anatomy.

Plato traces the attraction between males and females to jealous gods who split a complete, content person in half at the navel. Ever since, each part has chased after the other, longing to become whole again – another yogic priority.

Tai Chi Tu - sized

Unfortunately, rather than seeking to integrate male and female energies internally, most Westerners persist in externalizing this desire for re-union. In contrast, I Ching-related healing arts provide methods for restoring inner wholeness, attaining the ultimate level of Platonic love.

The new law Christ taught fulfills the law of Moses. Further, the Old Testament command to unify the three levels of soul, heart and might into a single-minded love of One God resonates with I Ching-related practices which coordinate upper, middle and lower energy centers.

Practical methods give people of every faith practical ways to actualizing their religious ideals. Put another way, only by integrating and harmonizing the levels of mind, body and emotions can love of God be complete or the universal law fulfilled.

Healing gender, race and religious splits calls for fluency in the complete spectrum of love. Even in grimmest times, love is the omnipresent, underlying bedrock. In Rocky IV, for example, Sylvester Stallione scripted an East-West reconciliation of opposite cultures.

A nature-trained David not only defeats a technology-mutant Goliath with love and relentless grit. He wins the hearts of a hostile crowd. His victory message to international TV viewers: “If I can change, and you can change, we all can change.”

Those who turn love into a commodity exploit what people out of touch with their true selves crave most. There’s a push-pull between those greedy to get what they’ve been fooled into thinking they lack and those who profit from this illusion.

False prophets profit from persuading followers that they’re incomplete and not-okay. Further, there’s a life-changing product that can fix them. If they buy it, do whatever they’re told, turn over their power and money, they’ll be transformed and made okay. Sages grounded in reality, however, know better.

The question then arises, what happens when one is focused and centered. Does all interest in the external world and motive to accomplish cease?

Actually, it’s the opposite. As one becomes more secure from within, fear-built barriers come down. New, more authentic motives arise to replace artificial desires. As one pares away the illusion of need, the native impulse to serve with generous compassion arises.

THE BACK

In duality, hate is the opposite of love. While love grows upwards from childish attachment through degrees of maturity to altruism, hate descends to the depths of destruction. It obliterates connections, shatters hope, and in the end destroys those it consumes.

Fear-based insecurities generate a host of love perversions. Possessiveness, envy, jealousy and rivalry are variations on the theme of illusory insufficiency. In all cases, it’s the result of looking on the outside for what can neither be bought nor stolen, for the completion of Higher Love is the timeless, abiding state of one’s innermost life.

Phoenix - sized

In this context, I say to the definition of Love as “the desire to see unnecessary suffering ameliorated” . . YES. With this modifier: Love is an absolute. In duality it manifests in a multitude of ephemeral desires, altruism being one of the highest.

Angel Calling

Be Harmless, NOT Defenseless

Jordan Peterson is drawing predictable backlash upon himself.

Though a clinical psychologist, he seems irrationally intent on attracting danger, while at the same time, logically, persuasively but incorrectly protesting that retreating from conflict when you shouldn’t “will cause self-annihilation.”

The qualifier is “when you shouldn’t.” Sun Tzu, reputed author of The Art of War, is keen on the importance of knowing when to make strategic retreats. There is, after all, a time and place for every purpose under heaven.

Second, what does he mean by “self-annihilation?” As righteous warriors grounded in Old Testament faith know full well, the true Self is indestructible. So also, savvy martial artists who are seeped in I Ching wisdom trust that true identity is neither enhanced nor diminished by the dance of advance and retreat.

So what’s really at stake in pressing forward against the tide, against the grain, against the laws of nature? Why vent rage, disgust and contempt at despicable, treacherous, venomous opponents? If he exposes and humiliates them, however much deserved, they will mirror his negativity back – in spades. It’s called backlash. Every action generates an opposite and equal reaction. It’s a natural law of psychological physics.

There are other, wiser ways to shift gears — address valid grievances on higher ground without attracting inevitable vengeful retaliation.

Persisting in upping the ante, provoking human snakes, smells like pride to me. Hubris, to be precise. The stuff of tragedy in the making.

I am afraid for this highly articulate but unin-formed professor.

Here’s an example of the inevitable retaliation and escalating conflict he has drawn not only into his own personal life, but also into his neighborhood — not to mention the media.

On October 26th, 2017, he posted on Twitter: Those who consider themselves my enemies have been posting these all around my home neighbourhood.

Here’s the poster:

jbp

I tweeted back, “What else would you expect?” Afterwards, I realized that without this explanation, the remark wouldn’t make sense. Hence, this blog of explanation.

Phoenix - sized

Please understand. I do not write to humiliate or diminish Dr. Peterson. Quite the opposite. He has become to the current generation of young people what John F. Kennedy was to mine. A symbol of nobility. Of hope.

I remember as painfully as if it were yesterday what it felt like to me and my friends when we heard the news that his brains had been splattered by an assassin’s bullet.

I dearly want that NOT to happen again.

I’m writing to warn Dr. Peterson. To suggest ways to protect himself, not only for his own sake and for his family’s, but for those to whom he has become a hero – who would be shattered were he to come to harm.

To plead with him to rethink the limited psychology which allows him to rationalize such intensely emotional, dangerous risk-taking.

I’m writing to urge him to add to his armory of psychologies the survival wisdom of Lao Tze and the foundational attitudes prescribed in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. Their teachings have guided the lives of truth seekers of thousands years. There must be something of value to recommend them, having withstood this test of time.

For example, Dr. Peterson knows not whereof he speaks when he says, “Don’t be harmless.”

Is he intentionally rejecting ancient wisdom by this word choice, or is he unaware of the significance of this virtue in ancient lore?

Lao Tze, in fact, uses harmlessness as his defense. It’s a time-honored strategy.

Here is a famous drawing of Lao Tze riding his ox. He is credited with writing The Tao Te Ching, which next to the Bible is the world’s most often translated scripture. It shows the enlightened sage as so intricately merged with the beast which carries him that they appear inseparable. This image represents the higher mind which has tamed and harnessed the energy of emotions. He uses them to carry him towards his destination.

Lao Tze on Ox

I will give you a hint of this survival approach to dealing with snakes excerpted from Two Sides of a Coin: Lao Tze’s Common Sense Way of Change.

snake

Passage 50 reads, in part:

Those who live by the law are protected by it.

They travel the world without being injured.

In the midst of hostilities, no one knows where to attack.

Wild beasts sense no openings to penetrate.

Enemies find no weaknesses to exploit.

Armies can’t locate a fortress to assault.

This accords with the following section about harmlessness used as defense strategy.

Non-Violence

Taoists abhor selfish meddling and gratuitous violence as equally destructive to individuals, society and the environment.

In this, their thinking is in accord with the most fundamental tenet of the yoga. Non-violence is the virtue listed first among the commitments which constitute the fundamental basis of yoga disciplines. The attitude of harmlessness, or non-violence, is the prerequisite upon which all more advanced spiritual practices depend.

In Sutra 35 of Book II, Patanjali informs us that:

When non-violence in speech, thought and action is established, one’s aggressive nature is relinquished and others abandon hostility in one’s presence.

Similarly, in Passage 55 Lao Tze describes sages as being accomplished in the ways of the ancient yoga masters:

Sages who master the infant’s harmlessness:

don’t startle wasps or snakes, and therefore don’t get stung;

don’t threaten angry beasts, and therefore are left in peace;

don’t bother birds of prey and therefore aren’t carried off.

Lao Tze describes non-violence as the cornerstone of social stability. In Passage 68 he tells us:

The best leaders act with subtle dignity.

Successful warriors move with alert caution.

Enduring winners shun prideful vengeance.

Good employers quietly support their workers.

The way of non-violence is the supreme treasure of communities

founded in the eternal Tao.

book header bird

Again, let me emphasize that I wish Dr. Peterson all the best. May he live long and prosper. Let him put on the full armor of God for protection. Give him the wisdom to tame his righteous indignation with the discipline of a seasoned sage. Let him survive as a shining inspiration to those who have come to treasure his innate nobility.

As yet, for whatever reasons, he remains unresponsive. The Catch 22 seems to be that since I’m not a well-known public figure, he assumes he has no grounds for communication. In Don’t throw pearls before swine, he says, “You cannot talk to people who will not engage in a discussion.”

So be it. He says he had no desire to engage in the legislative issue that catapulted him to fame, but felt compelled to do so. In exactly the same way, I had no desire whatsoever to write these blogs, but felt deeply compelled to do so. Unfathomable but somehow irresistible.

Whatever the outcome, at least I’ve done my best. And having done so, leave the future in trust to God’s will.

Angel Calling

Yes, AND . . .

What follows is the irrefutable answer to bogus post-modernist views. Psychologists’ tool boxes are incomplete without it. Political theorists’ speculations are void.

Here’s the plan: I’ll give you the remedy up front, then paint with a broad brush its applications and implications. As a wrap up, I’ll ask why the answer has been overlooked, listing and dismissing arguments (prejudices) that have blinded us to this answer. A P.S. suggests why this post is longer than most.

The key I’m referring to is embedded in Asian teachings that predate Christ’s incarnation by thousands of years. (Mind you, this remedy in no way conflicts with his teachings. Quite the contrary. I’ll get back to this important point in good time.)

Interestingly, Jordan Peterson opened the door to acceptance of this investigation. In describing the classic Tai Chi Tu, the Chinese yin-yang symbol, he refuted the familiar objection that the idea is too abstract. It’s “not real” in the sense that it can’t be quantified or measured. He fired back, it’s hyper-real. It is the substratum which underlies and supports physical reality.

Tai Chi Tu

So too are the chakras. Ancient Hindus mapped the internal energy transformers knows as chakras (“wheels).” Know how to activate them, they taught. You’ll experience enlightenment. (This opens up the subjects of Einstein, the science of human energy transformation, and psychologists as agents of positive change – all of which I’ll also get back to briefly later on.)

Though recorded in ancient scripture, sages experienced vibrant spinning wheels of energy in deep meditative states as a fact of inner reality. Their reports are not the same as poetic symbolism, mythology or parable. Chakras exist as literal fact, integral to inner life as an experience which can and has been replicated by countless practitioners over time.

Here’s the basic picture of seven subtle energy centers aligned along the spine. It sums up the evolutionary stages of human development from base to crown. Increasingly more sophisticated psychological states are assigned to each of the centers, as are specific emotions, endocrine glands, internal organs and life issues.

chakras

Albeit subtle (which is different from “abstract”), this image, like the DNA imprinting of cells, is intrinsic to the very structure of our souls. It includes both the vertical alignment of centers and their interdependence. Its hierarchal nature can no more be debated than can the importance of breathing. Further, the vital structure of inner organization naturally reflects outwardly, mirrored in analogous family and extended social relationships.

So. Arguments that hierarchical relationships are invalid or that value systems have been negated, however apparently seductive to some, are WRONG! FALSE! The image of chakra organization supports the conclusion drawn in Be an Instrument of Light:

God is not

and could not possibly be

dead.

Being made in the image of God,

YOU are the living proof

of God’s existence.

Before you reflexively dismiss this imagery as foreign to Western thinking, let me remind you that, though overlooked, it is intrinsic to Western civilization’s deepest roots. The caduceus is associated with both Greek mythology and the Western medical profession. It serves as a vestigial reminder of the medical sciences which are shared in common by the Western and Asian healing arts, dating even further back to ancient Egypt’s Hermetic tradition.

Caduceus

In Greek mythology, the caduceus is the healing staff of Mercury, messenger of the gods. It links heaven and earth. The axis of the staff represents the human spine. The pair of snakes winding around the axis represent alternating, cyclical patterns of negative and positive (yin and yang) energy currents.

(These twin currents regulate the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which explains why focusing the eyes where they intersect at the nostrils evens the breath, calms the mind and heals the body.)

The six chakras are the intersecting points where the curving snake-like energy forces meet and cross at the axis. These are the major centers of transformation and evolution. The wings atop the axis represent its integrating ruler: the crown chakra.

Another view brings it closer to home. Dr. Peterson also opened the door to this picture, which explains the different orientations (he calls them temperaments) amongst the psychologist’s approaches in his “tool box,” each applied at discretion according to individual client needs:

invisible geometry sized

This suggestive picture could be unpacked at length. For those familiar with psychological traditions, however, it speaks volumes unto itself.

The concept of Invisible Geometry, by the way, comes from comparative religion teacher Huston Smith, who wrote:

Twenty years ago I wrote a book, The Religions of Man, which presented the world’s enduring traditions in their individuality and variety. It has taken me until now to see how they converge. . . .

What then emerges is a remarkable unity underlying the surface variety. When we look at human bodies, what we normally notice is their surface features, which of course differ markedly. Meanwhile on the insides, the spines that support these motley physiognomies are structurally very much alike. It is the same with human outlooks. Outwardly they differ, but inwardly it is as if an “invisible geometry” has everywhere been working to shape them to a single truth.

Much is available on the web for those interested in researching the details. What’s relevant to the forward movement of this particular discussion is that this picture shows the innate hierarchal nature of human development and social organization. Not coincidentally, the highest center, associated with Christ consciousness, is called the crown center. It rules over all lesser states of being.

Next in line is the Ajna or Command Center, usually referred to as the “third eye.” It receives messages from above and coordinates functions of the lower centers.

In an article to be published in Prabuddha Bharata, I expanded:

Now, the Western way of ignoring and denying the reality and influence of chakras makes life’s journey far more difficult than need be. But it can’t and doesn’t cause them to cease to exist. Despite scientific prohibitions, most of us still have glimpses of transcendent experience, most often through the arts.

For example, music moves us because its sound sets the chakras in sympathetic vibration. Inspired music has a healing, uplifting affect on the nervous system, the emotions, and the soul. It is not coincidence that the seven notes of the Western chromatic scale correspond with the vibratory rates of the seven major chakras. Indian ragas intentionally draw on chakra correlations to soothe emotions or lift the spirit. In the West, similar effects of inspired music have been described as The Mozart Effect.

In addition, the (albeit too-often unconscious) effect of the chakras on human experience is particularly strong in the visual arts, including the full spectrum from fashion and home-making to interior design, architecture and fine arts. This in due in large part to the fact that the chakras are associated with geometric shapes, as well as with specific colors of rainbow spectrum.

Yes, AND

The Yes, AND was originally a response to a JBP video: “Bravo, JBP – But there’s more!”

Yes. This is necessary, but not sufficient. My work compliments and completes yours. Knowledge, as written elsewhere, is a two-way street.

Make no mistake. I’m a great fan.

But there’s more. I MUST hope and trust that, as the declared truth-seeker and teller that he is, he’ll welcome the opportunity to learn and grow.

In one video, JBP says he’s deliberately working to improve himself, taking advice from friends who advise when he comes on too angry, too this or that. But these comments are at the level of presentation. What I’m addressing is deeper and directional. One approach starts from the outside and works inwards. The other starts from the inside and radiates outwards.

As the medieval Great Debate detailed in The Highway to Heaven is a Two-Way Street concluded, there is no contradiction. Truth travels in an infinite loop, joining surface with center, highest to lowest. So, no matter where you start, you’ll eventually cover all the bases and arrive at the same destination.

I’m guessing that limits on his approach might be intentional — strategic and necessary. His options are restricted by the professional hats he wears as clinical psychologist and teaching professor at an established university.

Whatever the case, I am free to take the next steps.

book header bird

Here’s a good example of what I mean. The Youtube video How To Transform is packed with statements that beg to be unpacked – taken the logical next step that leads outside the domains of empirical science.

What got my immediate attention was his mention of the phoenix. That happens to be the subject of a book on my drawing board, The Phoenix Response.

Referring to sorting oneself out, Dr. Peterson says:

. . . you have to allow yourself to shake off those things about you that you might be pathologically attached to – habits and people, for that matter, ways of thinking . . .

Immediately I thought, Aha! Because Rethinking Survival is premised on an Einstein quote: “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.”

But, continuing:

You have to allow yourself to shake those off. That’s more like a burning. That’s why the phoenix is the symbol. It’s old and it deteriorates, bursts into flame and then it’s reborn.

Well, do you want to be reborn? Do you want to burst into flame?

The answer to that generally is NO. But that’s the wrong answer. The right answer is, You let all that nonsense burn away.

Agreed. This is the hero’s journey, facing the challenges of Chapel Perilous, knowing that “the only way out is through.” Facing fears is part of the hero’s territory.

Here’s my summary or the phoenix book:

The phoenix is a mythical, magical fiery bird that recreates itself, repeatedly rising from its own ashes to begin life anew. An inspiration to self-healers, The Phoenix Response details the ultimate survival option that always remains open, even in a dangerous world which too often compels suicide.

Using time-tested methods, we can continue to repair and rejuvenate, even in the face of overwhelming stress. Yielding before life threats, we can die to the old – to be reborn IN THIS LIFETIME, over and over, each time better than before.

The Phoenix Response draws on universal wisdom written in every human heart, sought after as if lost, and esteemed as a priceless treasure by those who succeed in actualizing the hope of self-renewal.. . . anyone who deeply desires positive personal change can activate the archetypal Life Wheel, going deep within and returning to daily life again, transformed and renewed.

Just one sobering caution, however, before moving on. Ancient practices regarded each day as the microcosm of a life complete. They began and ended the day’s cycle with book-ends of prayer and preparation. Thus made themselves ready to meet the closings of larger-scale cycles whenever they should come, as prelude to the next day’s awakening.

Similarly, we can no more forestall the cyclical downturn we’re now engaged in than we could stop the sun and moon from making their rounds. Though the phoenix can usher in new beginnings, it knows better than to resist the call to transformation.

Politics and Unnatural Change

For a lighter angle, I’ll share the famous Upanishad story about blind men and an elephant as it applies to atheism. I refer to it in part to lay the groundwork for another application. I’m quoting from “The Ant and the Elephant,” a section in the “Atheism Answered” chapter of Rethinking Survival.

An ancient parable from India captures the dilemma of human inadequacy in the face of Truth. Five blind men were introduced to a gigantic elephant. After touching only one part, each reported his experience.

The one who embraced a leg said elephants are round and rough, like the trunk of a tree. The next, who felt a tusk, said elephants are hard and sharp, like a sword. The one who felt an ear described elephants as thin, flat and flexible like a fan. The next, who grabbed hold of the tail, was certain elephants are like ropes, perhaps even whips. The last, who felt its belly concluded that elephants are thick and heavy, like walls.

blindmen & elephant

Now add to the mix a contemporary riddle which captures the humor of human gropings. Question: “What is the height of ambition?” Answer: “An ant climbing up an elephant’s leg with sex on its mind.”

Next question: “What’s the height of fulfillment?” Answer: “The ant climbing back down the elephant’s leg with a smile on its face.”

Just so, we’re like blind beggars, groping towards fulfillment and comprehension of universal Truth. We mistakenly generalize our partial perceptions of a reality which none can see in entirety. We’re like ants who aspire far beyond our limits, sometimes fortunate enough to enjoy a taste of satisfaction.

Heated arguments between religionists and atheists are equally noisy, short-sighted and futile. Each disputant has a partial piece of the larger puzzle. But only that. Their antics — posturings and posings — would be comical, were it not for the extraordinary waste of time and energy lost to creative endeavors.

Atheists who deny the existence of God are equally ignorant and silly. They might as well argue that atoms have no nucleus, or that the solar system has no sun. It’s like ants presuming to deny the existence of elephants.

Their superficial (often angry, self-pitying and self-serving) arguments have no affect whatsoever on the eternal center which always was, IS, and always will be.

Have authority-cloaked religionists, for thousands of years, abused the name of God to excuse abuse of power, claiming divine rights for human rulers — be it European kings, Chinese emperors, Russian tzars, Arabian caliphs, or whomever? Certainly.

Have their enemies repeatedly wrested temporal power away from its holders, only to abuse it in even worse ways themselves? Definitely.

Have humans suffered unspeakable cruelties and injustices at the hands of fellow humans from time immemorial? Sadly so. Continuous upheavals on the surface of the wheel are part of life. It’s nothing new.

But the existence of the unchanging silent center continues into infinity, regardless of what’s happening at the surface. Whether you honor it with awe in simple silence or choose a particular name for it makes no difference. It remains the same.

If you’re totally disillusioned by bad luck or the particular version of religion enforced by your elders, your quarrel is with the ways of the world and its human institutions. Your misfortunes don’t reflect on the Creator’s existence, which is a different subject. God continues to broadcast. Whether you listen remains your choice, the exercise of God-given Free Will.

Here’s a quick summary critique of Saul Alinsky’s concept of “change.” It’s literally antithetical to the Natural Law embodied in the Chinese Book of Change.

It would seem that Edward Bernays — the so-called “father of spin” — was a foremost henchman of the invading aliens. If so, Saul Alinsky was their number one point man. The “coach” was a self-proclaimed radical.

In a twist of our poor abused language, Christ was rightly regarded as “radical” in his day. He would be today as well (in the original meaning) were he to walk among us now, because “radical” originally meant “going to the foundation or source of something; fundamental.”

That’s a far cry from Alinsky’s extremist meaning of “radical.” He was intentionally the antithesis of Christ, going so far as to acknowledge Lucifer in the dedication to Rules for Radicals: ‘the very first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom – Lucifer.’

His logic is so twisted that a critique would have to move line-by-line to unravel his spiderweb of tangled assumptions. The attempt would be like wading in quicksand. A Jesuit-trained logician would be hard-pressed to come out clean. Yet Rules for Radicals is sometimes made required reading for impressionable teenagers.

In the first chapter, Alinsky stated his exact purpose, namely to coach those who “want to change the world” from what it is “to what they believe it should be.”

‘In this book we are concerned with how to create mass organizations to seize power and give it to the people. . . We are talking about a mass power organization which will change the world . . [emphasis added.]

Here’s part of my analysis:

Note the use of the “royal we.” This is a megalomaniac talking. He wants to change the entire world. His attitude is towards power holders is openly aggressive. He doesn’t just want to take what they hold. He wants to seize it. To violently “change the world” by means of a “mass power organization” makes no positive sense. History tells us that repeatedly, when power is seized from one set of Haves, it merely passes to another set of worse ones. Never, ever has it been “given” to “the people.” This assumption-packed premise is an extraordinary feat of tragedy-fraught hubris.

First off, what blind, ant-like mortal would dare to think that he can comprehend what, in its entirety, the world — the elephant — really is? What human could possibly be so foolish as to think she is qualified — on the basis of one puny view — to judge what it should be? Alinksy’s rules extended an invitation for blind mortals to jump in feet first where good angels know far better than to tread.

Second, who really understands change? Many bandy the word about. But it’s a profound science of which few have in-depth knowledge. Confucius dedicated a lifetime to understanding the dynamics of Natural Law encoded in the perennial Book of Change.

So, for starters, the “belief” that anyone can change the world from what he assumes it is to what he assumes it should be is unspeakably misguided. Building on this false premise, Alinsky then fueled the undermining alien arsenal with a full battery of destructive tactics. In essence, political radicals should feel “free” to violate the ten commandments. The ends (getting what you want) justify any means.

His version of social change is engineered by stirring up conflict. Use fabricated information to bear false witness against inconvenient neighbors. Alinsky advocates scapegoating, not unlike the dynamic which propelled Nazis to power. Create the illusion of an outside enemy as the way to unify your base. (How is that for the ultimate double-speak? Conflict is the opposite of unity.)

Transformation and Psychologists

Looking back on the story of blind men and the elephant, I now recognize that the seers who told this story were alluding to the chakras, telling us that the world looks very different, depending upon which set of filters you’re seeing through.

That’s why, for example, the world seen through the first chakra makes sense to a behaviorist like Skinner. Whereas, seen through a more evolved lens, human potentials look quite different. Thus, in The Carl Rogers Reader we find this prophetic comparison:

Skinner argued for the intelligent and hopefully humane use of reinforcement theory to direct the course of the individual’s and the society’s development. . . freedom and choice are mere illusions. . . Rogers argued that freedom and choice were not illusory but real phenomena, and that a science that dehumanizes the individual and attempts to control human development paves the way for dictators and despots to move society inexorably toward a totalitarian, Orwellian future.

Now, it’s important that Jordan Peterson holds Rogers in high regard. The video called A Psychotherapist Is An Engineer Of The Soul is well worth quoting:

. . . read the damn therapists, man. Those people were smart. It’s like each of them gives you a different tool box. They’re not scientific theories, exactly.

But as a clinician, you’re not a scientist. You’re an engineer of the soul. That’s a better way of thinking about it. Because it’s applied. It’s like engineering. It’s an applied science. So that makes it not a science exactly. You can use scientific knowledge. But you’re still aiming at the good. Right? That’s what you are doing as a therapist.

You say, Look. You already know that things aren’t as good as they need to be. We’re going to work on that. We’re here to make things better. And I’m going to help you figure out how to make things better. Then I’ll listen to you. And we’ll move towards some place that’s lighter and better.

Then you have tools you can use. Those great psychotherapists, man. Those people had their 10,000 hours. They all come at it from slightly different temperamental perspectives. [chakra filters!] Like Jung’s work is really useful for dealing with people who are high in openness. You have an open client? Jung works. If you have a conservative client, forget it. It’s a whole different thing.

His attitude reaffirms the conclusion drawn in Therapists as Positive Change Agents. Given Alinsky’s nefarious influence on politicians and governments, you don’t dare look to them for positive change. Nor to religionists with their scripture-defying double-talk about “social justice.”

Filling a glaring need, therapists have been obliged to take on that important role:

In the past, those in psychological pain, suffering from self-doubt and looking for a better way to live, would have turned to sages or kings for guidance. At this stage in history, however, therapists as healers (meaning “to make whole”) are often the best secular refuge.

Just imagine, if you will, how even more effective they’d be if they added chakras and the Natural Law of Change to their tool chests.

Why Asian Sciences Are Overlooked and Undervalued

Many in the West devalue Asian teachings, though in some ways, they are more sophisticated than our own. Their sages obtained knowledge from the inside, in prayer and meditation. Unfortunately, this inward focus, taken to yin extremes, explains the material poverty of the masses, which materialist Westerners find abhorrent.

But extreme-yang Westerners swing to the opposite and equal mistake. Making a deity of empirical science, they acknowledge only the “reality” of that which can be quantified and measured. As a result, generally speaking, the vast majority enjoy a relatively high standard of living, but suffer terribly from spiritual poverty.

Here’s a picture of the way each approach fractures the Life Wheel. Extreme yin religionists value the center of the Life Wheel to the exclusion of the material surface. Extreme yang materialists go the other way, valuing material wealth while denying, if not defying, the existence of its Creator.

extremes

Reminiscent of the Hindu parable, extremists are blind to the whole, mistaking a limited experience of a part for all there is. Asians, atheists, theists all have partial understandings of reality.

Now, Christ did not make this mistake, though Western religionists who call themselves Christians often do. Nor could he possibly have sanctioned the out-of-hand rejection of Asian wisdom as if pagan and therefore “unChristian.”

I’ve been told by one who knows, OA, that few people actually understood what Christ was about during his lifetime. Even fewer can claim to completely fathom the vastness of his essence now. But surely, to the extent ancient teachings contain part of universal Truth, they partake of Christ’s essence. For Christ Consciousness pervades the entire field of creation, the full chakra spectrum of potential experience.

Since, as he told us, he existed before and will endure after this Earth, permeating the entire world, how could the truth teachings of distant times and civilizations not be part of Christ? I love this cartoon, in which the Christ corrects the blind men. He gets it! (Now it’s up to the rest of us to take the hint!)

christ & elephant

So let’s drop bogus excuses for overlooking the validity of Asian teaching. They speak to fatal blind spots in Western knowledge banks. They are no more foreign or outdated than are the teachings held up to us as the foundations of Western civilization. To reject them is to forfeit the immeasurable benefits to be gained from restoring that yin part of the metaphorical elephant to our yang arsenal.

It’s the abuse of the teachings, the corruption that has occurred in every time and place, the overlay of dross and foolishness which we must shed. Do this to let pristine Truth rise once more out of the ashes of outworn customs, ignorant prejudices and greedy exploitation.

Wheel2

Wheels within wheels within wheels. Got the picture? : )

Now, here’s what I’ve been trying to get across to JBP in one form or another. Christ, like many before and after him – from ancient Hindus to Mayans – spoke about end times. However detestable, like Judas, today’s postmodernist neo-Marxists have role to play. Crossing swords with them isn’t the Phoenix way of redemption.

The irrefutable answer to bogus postmodernist views is helpful only in so far as it used to prevent deceivers from confusing those who serve truth. It’s not going to “change” the course of history as it has long been foretold.

Resigning oneself to the inevitable crash and burn of civilization is a sad but necessary preliminary step which must be endured as the prelude to its rebirth. Titanic-like victims have chosen to take a joy ride on an ill-equipped, fated ship. Squandering regretful attention on their fate is fruitless. The wiser to choice is to devote limited resources of time and attention to what can be redeemed.

Christ compared today’s end times to the fate of Noah’s civilization. The wise heeded warnings and survived. Fools partied on, oblivious to danger until the flood waters rose up to carry them off. Now as then, those deaf to calling and hardened against Truth will choose to party on, oblivious. It’s their choice. And their consequences.

Let us, instead, choose to follow Noah’s example. Prepare for what coming. Preserve the timeless teachings and protect those willing to listen and follow Truth. The process necessarily begins one person at a the time, living according to a complete and accurate reality paradigm in which yin and yang ways of knowing complete each other, bringing the music of life once again into harmony.

Angel Calling

P.S.

There’s necessity to the length of this post. It’s the last for now, so I’ve reduced the content of what might otherwise have been four separate pieces, to include everything that wanted to be said. As it stands, writing takes too much out of me, for too little in return. I’ll consolidate past work into a book, whose whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. But unless balance is restored in terms of feedback, the rest must remain unsaid.

 

The KEY That Reconciles Science & Religion

In Potential, a TEDxUofT presentation, Dr. Jordan B. Peterson pinpoints the historical cause of current mayhem: the rise of empirical science and its “shattering” effect on religious belief systems. As a result, our current definition of “reality” is dangerously skewed. He draws on Western poetry, psychology and the philosophy of religions “developed over thousands and thousands of years” to argue the case that there’s much more to “reality” than current assumptions allow:

If you follow the follow the thing that manifests to you as interesting, it will lead you through adversity, lead you to do things that are difficult [the hero’s journey] . . .

What will happen is that as you hit yourself against the world pursuing what you’re interested in, you’ll tap yourself into alignment. . . Your internal structure will become non-contradictory like the internal structure of a jewel, which is something that reflects light. It makes you hard and durable and able to bear the terrible conditions of existence without becoming corrupt.

He includes all the main elements of the Life Wheel. The “inner structure” consisting of conscience, light, strength, and unity of alignment – are all described in his linear description.

What I contribute to this vision is the picture of ever deepening concentric circles unified by an endlessly infinite loop that traverses and links them, center to surface and back to center.

In Scientists and Sages Can Agree on This, I describe the Wheel. It is not “new” nor is it arbitrary. It embodies the timeless healing solution to the relatively “modern” rift between materialist and philosophical definitions of “reality:”

The archetypal Life Wheel formulated as the Positive Paradigm of Change is a modern day descendant of the time-tested Book of Change which leaders in every field of endeavor have consulted for over eight-thousand years.

While true to the ancient teachings of India and China, it abstracts their essence in a simple and complete manner accessible to us today.

It places the three variables of Einstein’s famous formula, e = mc2 mass, energy and light, on increasingly deeper levels within the Life Wheel. The result is the Unified Theory which Einstein already had, though didn’t know it.

PPoC gold

The three outer levels are interrelated and interdependent. Each is necessary but not sufficient. Their existence depends upon the unchanging hub of the Wheel. The true SELF — also called Conscience, the Tao or God — holds the spokes together as events on the Wheel’s surface rim change continuously. Creation in the form of primal consciousness emanates from and returns to this silent alpha-omega center.

This wheels-within-wheels model

is equally compatible with modern physics, yoga philosophy

and the world’s great religions.

It is a reality map upon which scientists and sages can agree.

Complete and accurate, it meets the Occam’s Razor standard by explaining the totality of human experience with maximum inclusiveness and utmost simplicity.

In Rethinking Survival, I connected with the idea that the Life Wheel is the answer to the ancient Upanishad question: “What is that, knowing which, all else is known?” In essence, genuinely understood and implemented, it holds the KEY to Life.

The Positive Paradigm of Change can be personalized to facilitate positive personal change on all levels. Applied on increasingly larger scales of magnitude (to relationships, families, communities and organizations) it carries social implications in its wake.

According to Dr. Peterson:

Nietzsche said, “The person who has a Why can bear any How.” That’s a really useful thing to know. Because you think, well, we’re very vulnerable creatures. And our life ends catastrophically. Terrible things happen. How can we bear that?

The answer to that is, and always has been, that you have to be in synch with something that’s beyond you. Because that synchrony gives you the strength that you need to bear your terrible limitations.

The Life Wheel pictures the seat of Why and the place of How. It shows the eternal connection between individual, physically fragile life on the surface and the eternal Source within. However, the source of strength is not so much beyond as it is deep within:

The WHY at the center shines through every HOW, conforming WHAT on the surface to its inward vision:

  • Intuition fits within the WHY level of the Wheel. This innermost level of Light is associated with conscience, spiritual guidance and flashes of genius. Unless integrated with the ability to strategize and implement, however, vision and insights fail to manifest as practical results.
  • Emotions (including empathy) and strategy belong to the middle HOW level. The Energy layer is associated with action, street smarts and Emotional Intelligence. Magnetism and charisma emanate from this level, but unfortunately aren’t always integrated with integrity, intelligence or practical organizational skills.
  • Outcomes belong to the surface WHAT level associated with tangible, measurable results. The Mass layer is the realm of quantifiable IQ as well as biological family and social/political connections. Persona (mask) and personality are surface appearances. They don’t necessarily reflect actual motives and feelings. (This is why merely imitating the words and actions of great leaders doesn’t have the same affect).

Phoenix - sized

DYSFUNCTIONAL BELIEF SYSTEMS

Please stay with me. What follows isn’t necessarily sexy or fun. But it IS a matter of life or death. And the life it saves could be your own.

Technically, this subject comes under the philosophic umbrella of “epistemology” – the (highly politicized) rules of the knowledge game that prescribe who may know what, and how. Today, empirical science dictates that experience which is intangible and can’t be measured doesn’t exist – it isn’t real. In effect, conscience, intuition, compassion and gut feelings of the Life Wheel are ruled out. People who depend on those modes of knowing are invalidated and socially excluded.

Of course, saying inward modes of experience don’t (and shouldn’t) exist doesn’t make it true. As Carl Jung pointed out, repressing these intrinsic parts of the human psyche only has the effect of putting them outside of conscious awareness. Relegated to the “unconscious,” fragmented parts continue to operate out of reach, wreaking havoc on mental health, relationships and social systems.

Dr. Peterson is clear that our current course, driven by skewed belief systems, is fraught with dangers up to and including annihilation. In this, he echoes Albert Einstein, who, dreading the possibility of a nuclear holocaust, warned, “We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive.” Again, the Unified Theory and substantially improved (holistic) manner of thinking is hardly “new.” But it urgently needs to be restored to wide-spread, generally agreed-upon conscious awareness.

This urgency is underscored by Dr. Peterson’s point that competition between scientific and religious viewpoints resulted in large numbers of confused thinkers turning to substitutes for religion, especially to mass movements that are “erroneous in every way.”

Since the scientific age began, we’ve lived in a universe where the bottom strata of reality is considered to be something that’s dead like dirt. It’s matter. It’s objective. It’s external. There isn’t any element of it that lends reality to phenomena like meaning or purpose. That’s all been relegated to the subjective, and in some ways, to the illusory.

However, grave dangers flow from decisions and actions based on erroneous belief systems:

It really matters what you assume is most real, because you base the decisions you make that. You run the entire course of your life on those assumptions — whether you recognize it or not. And if you get the assumptions [basic axioms] wrong, or even if you leave them incomplete, you’re going to pay a big price for it.

Trade-offs have huge consequences:

The assumptions we use in our culture, although they’ve enabled us to develop a tremendously potent technology, are incomplete in ways that have cost us and that are extremely dangerous. . . A fair number of pathologies stem from assumptions of the systems they use to define reality.

Here is my visual representation of the hollow, incomplete reality brought about by empirical science. It rules out the middle and central inward levels of a complete and accurate belief system.

MaterialistAthest

And here is a representation of resulting pathologies. The levels are out of synch, fragmented and disjointed. In “The Second Coming,” the poet Yeats mourned, “the centre cannot hold.” In fact, it is the other way around. The eternal center is, was and will always remain steadfast. It is we who have distanced ourselves from truth, blinded ourself to awareness of the unchanging. At terrible cost.

Stress

CONCLUSION

In the right hands, championed by well-known truth-speakers like Jordan Peterson and by the legion of folks who have grown to know, respect and love him through his good work, the KEY concept offers the world a way out of madness, an alternative path to the current course that leads to destruction and hell.

The question remains, how many truly want a positive, healing reconciliation of science and religion? How many are closed and committed to the path of ultimate destruction?

The worst case scenario is that members of fragmenting, polarized, warring factions world-wide are content to remain “conveniently” blind and deaf. They salivate at the visceral excitement of conflict, not to mention the greedy side-benefit of violence – looting (think Nazis dispossessing the Jews, Stalin robbing Russia’s Orthodox Churches, and Chinese warlords filling their coffers from the spoils of Tibetan temples). Heedless of the ultimate consequences, all-too-many are committed to killing each other off in uncivil wars, reducing the structures of civilization to oblivion.

My best case scenario and remaining hope is that those with the foresight to prepare will prevail. May they stay safely under the radar as long as possible. May the Angel of Death pass over their dwellings. And may they also be ready to fight and WIN when the time calls for them to take a stand. For God will be with them as they were with the psalmist/healer King David in battle.

Angel Calling

Rethinking SACRIFICE

After listening to Jordan Peterson’s Youtube video, The Great Sacrifice: Abraham and Isaac, I thought to revisit the Essay on Sacrifice written in 2000 and later included in Conscience: Your Ultimate Personal Survival Guide.

My document search stopped at Essay 7 on Authority. Lo. Not coincidentally, I found a quote which puts the Abraham story in larger context. It helps make sense of my approach, which sheds a different but helpful light on biblical traditions:

Christ was one of the greatest mystics of all time. He knew everything that has been ever said in the Eastern traditions.

When Moses asked God, who are you? God said, I AM that I AM.

Christ in the Gospel of John says, “Before Abraham was, I AM.”

The very word Abraham comes from the Eastern word Brahman, which means the primordial being. . . So when you start looking, as paleo-linguistic anthropologists do, at the common roots of the various religions and traditions, you find that it’s all universal. Truth has to be universal. It can’t be your domain or my domain.

In a more popular vein, when I think of sacrifice, trading the lesser for the greater, the Lovin’ Spoonfuls’ tune, Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind, starts humming in my mind:

Did you ever have to make up your mind,
Pick up on one and leave the other behind?
It’s not often easy and not often kind.
Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did you ever have to finally decide?
Say yes to one and let the other one ride?
There’s so many changes and tears you must hide.
Did you ever have to finally decide?

This is the essence of the life or death choice offered us in Exodus: Choose Life. “Return unto me and I return unto you.” It emphasizes travel on the inward path from surface to center of the Life Wheel, releasing attachments to ephemeral possessions, limited opinions/identities, and outgrown lifestyles.

Looked at this way, sacrifice isn’t necessarily a negative or hurtful experience. It can be positive change: expansive, illuminating, and in the long-term, generative.

book header bird

Essay 33. SACRIFICE

A balanced relationship between the individual and the whole is achieved through service in the spirit of SACRIFICE. Changing selfishness to compassion and acts of kindness builds bridges of mutual trust. Unselfish giving benefits everyone involved, helping the community to overcome obstacles and dangers. Avoid twin dangers: selfishness and self-denial. — Patricia West, The Common Sense Book of Change

A significant part of the existential suffering of life is the suffering involved in constantly discerning — or choosing — what we are responsible for and what we are not responsible for and maintaining a healthy balance. — M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled & Beyond

The pain of verbal abuse goes deep into the self and festers there. . . Verbal violence all too often goes unrecognized, except at a level that you cannot even understand yourself. You know you are suffering, and you vaguely know where the pain is coming from; but because the aggression is so well hidden, you are likely to blame yourself instead of the aggressor. – Suzette Haden Elgin, The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense

THE FRONT

The root of sacrifice means to make sacred. Webster’s first definition is the act of offering the life of a person or animal or some object in propitiation of or homage to a deity. It is the act of giving up, destroying, permitting injury to, or forgoing something valued for the sake of something having a more pressing claim. It can mean selling or giving up of something of less than its supposed value.

The Old Testament story of Abraham and his son Isaac in the mountains of Moriah deserves careful consideration in regard to sacrifice.

  • It’s about willingness to trade attachment and human love for the sake of fidelity to a higher calling.

  • It’s about faith that surpasses understanding.

  • It’s about trading earthly desire to perpetuate one’s life through transmission of genes for the abundant certainty of eternal life.

Abraham was tested to prove his fidelity to the voice of inner conscience, no matter what. The parallel to the life of Jesus is direct. Christ was literally sacrificed, but, paradoxically, like Isaac, lived on, albeit on a higher level.

Pagan sacrifice of children and animals is irrelevant to the meaning of Abraham’s test. At issue is the difference between transcending pain for the sake of higher love versus selfishly destroying life using physical, verbal and/or psychological violence, to get what one wants here on earth.

This distinction is relevant to prosperity courses which flirt with spirituality, but in fact tamper with Natural Law. In the short term, harnessing aversion to pain and desire for pleasure to get what we want may work. But where’s the wisdom?

Pain and pleasure motivate animals. However, the purpose of I Ching disciplines is to overcome such instinctive reactions. Pavlovian dogs can be trained to react automatically to programmed stimulation.

Humans, however, have the unique ability to reason. By choosing to remain steadfast in commitment and true to higher calling, we realize the priceless opportunity to overcome and transcend reactive pendulum swings of nature — pain and pleasure, attraction and aversion – to fulfill our innermost, innate potentials.

In this way, following the example of Christ, who sacrificed mortal existence for eternal life, we too can change, shifting gears, raising our focus from the material surface of the Life Wheel, then from the deeper emotional level of what we want, to the central core of what IS. This, ultimately, is the purpose of mastering natural change, and the gift which a profound understanding of the I Ching has to offer.

Similarly, working with the meta-reality-map — the Life Wheel — helps articulate, focus and accelerate the self-actualization process. It is KEY to fully understanding the multiple dimensions and meanings of scriptural events.

Saving the Best

It’s important to remember, however, that fidelity to calling is the standard. Whether or not one physically lives or dies is irrelevant. Bodhisattvas, for example, are fully-attained beings who have completed their life lessons here, but choose to remain on Earth in order to serve.

We each contain the seed potentials of our most admired leaders.

If we each dig into our own depths and live the promise now by following their examples, then hope could not be extinguished by killing single individuals.

If one person of conscience stands alone, one bullet can demoralize a nation.

If conscience informs the entire community, when one leader is struck down, two, ten or a thousand more come forward to continue on.

This is the fruitfulness promised to descendants of Abraham.

THE BACK

The opposite of sacrifice is attachment. Refusing to let go of outgrown beliefs — resisting change or hanging on to people when it’s time to move on in order to grow — is antithetical to the life process. Making a show of suffering, imposing obligations and guilt on others for what they’ve been given is false martyrdom.

Slaughter of animals or innocents to atone for one’s own sins is a perversion of sacrifice. It violates the sanctity of life and free will of others. Each of us is accountable for our own actions. Therefore, taking life can’t change bad karma. Instead, it compounds trouble.

book header bird

Paradigms Are a Matter of Life or Death

Jordan B. Peterson, psychologist, truth-sayer and rock star of recent months, said that the most important work that can be done is establishing the relationship between belief systems and the outcomes they generate. I agree.

BECAUSE:

It doesn’t help to tell people to follow their dreams, to be the best they can be, or that nothing is impossible with the right attitude. When they live in societies that enforce limiting, false beliefs, they are (so to speak) paddling upstream in a leaky canoe without oars.

If you thinking you can wish on a star and get what you want, whenever you want it, with no concept of history, you’re in for a rude shock or two. Easy times are over.

If you think it’s possible to eliminate irrational hatreds and eradicate self-serving prejudice with logic and love alone, you’ll have as much success as a man pissing on a forest fire.

Here are (just a few) examples of disastrous results that flow from static, incomplete and incorrect paradigms:

People who live in the poverty of a flattened, empirical science belief system are being told, in effect, by their parents, educators and political leaders that they don’t (and shouldn’t) exist. That only their physical appearance, social status and material possessions matter. Wonder why suicide rates are so high? Or that respect for authority is at an all time low? Or that government corruption is rampant? Or that underworld violence is escalating over the top? (Surely you can add to the list.)

Deny inner emotional levels of the Life Wheel. Suffocate innate impulses to play and seek adventure. Ridicule innermost intimations of immorality and highest aspirations. Starve people of meaning and joy in the name of duty and obligations to serve the collective. That’s the sure recipe for destruction of highest magnitude. It begins one destroyed individual at a time. And ends with the collapse of whole civilizations.

The only way out of this madness is to restore a complete and accurate paradigm. Acknowledge the multi-dimensional quality of life – the inherent pattern of perfection – which is everyone’s inalienable birthright.

Further, the Life Wheel doubles as a time clock. You need to know not only who you are, but where you stand. The precise point in the cycles of history you’re in right now tells you the specific dangers and opportunities open to you NOW.

For example, the biblical stories which Dr. Peterson recommends as Maps of Meaning show repeating cycles of events. Which of these stories apply to us NOW? More specifically, which point in time within those stories is relevant?

Dr. Peterson is looking to Abraham right now, possibly because he was the progenitor of three major religions currently engaged in mutual self-destruction.

But I’m more interested in King David, who, like Christ, was born in Bethlehem, and who as a young shepherd was anointed by the prophet Samuel to be future king. The point in time that’s appropriate to us now, I think, is the confrontation between the boy David and the giant Goliath. Today, this might represent individuals of good will in the face of impending totalitarian global government.

What’s important here is that David exemplifies acting from a complete and accurate paradigm. He acted fearlessly on the belief that “God is with me.” With a single shot to the center of the giant’s forehead (not coincidentally seat of the third eye), he brought the monster down.

David trusted that he was not alone. He “knew” exactly where to aim. His vision was clearly focused on his target (light). He had the vigor (energy) and physical strength (mass) as well as coordination (unity) to overcome the fearsome obstacle that threatened to annihilate him and enslave his people.

There are other biblical figures who at critical points in their cyclical (hero’s journey) experience, are being picked up upon as useful role models. One is Noah anticipating the flood. Another is Joseph at the time he foresaw and was allowed to prepare for times of famine.

There’s Moses at the critical time when the Angel of Death upon the Land of Egypt passed over the homes of the faithful.

And then there’s Job, the model of faith enduring to the end and being restored, even better than before. The phoenix image.

Here’s the secret to be gleaned from this story, illumined by the infinity symbol that links the levels of the Life Wheel. Job says, “The Lord giventh.” This is the outward, materializing movement from center to surface of the Wheel. “And The Lord taketh away.” This is the receding path of return to center. In all, “Blessed be the NAME of the Lord.” The Logos. Think Indy Jones in the Grail movie, the Last Crusade. The receding steps leading to treasure are marked with the Hebrew letters that spell out the Name of God. The creative Name. Remember his “Leap of Faith.”

Also remember that he’s not the only one seeking the Grail . . . power-hungry Nazis are close on his heels, seeking immortality not for love of human/divine fathers, but for the fatherland.

Phoenix - sized

The 11th hour we’re now approaching was foreseen in 1998. I continue to write in this mode, most currently in As Conflict Escalates, What Can Be Done Now? Here is summary and conclusion:

In the past, monasteries arose as islands of hospitality, learning and civility during Europe and Asia’s so-called dark ages. Once again, as another dark age looms on the horizon, intentional communities dedicated to preserving the essential teachings will naturally arise. My best hope is that future leaders will meet the responsibility of shaping hopeful new beginnings; that they will succeed in transmitting the wisdom of the ancients to future generations along side the complimentary technical know-how of today’s sciences.

In the Positive Paradigm reality map, future educators have a versatile self-awareness tool with which to teach the basics of leading an integrated, self-responsible life. Building on the seven basic axioms which flow from it, tomorrow’s leaders have a viable model upon which to structure healthy social organizations.

Conclusion

Resolving conflict necessarily occurs one person at a time, and from the inside out. For this reason, however complex and overwhelming world problems may seem, we each have the option and responsibility to improve that which is closest to home: ourselves. By reducing internal conflict within, each of us has the potential, if only in modest ways, to reduce the conflict without. . . .

Angel Calling