Tag Archives: DNA

Invitation to Gregg Braden

Dear Gregg,

Repeatedly, I find myself astonished at how closely our wisdom quests have run parallel. It is as if we were spiritual twins, the same but, at the same time, compliments. That is to say, just as you have traveled to places I haven’t been, my work fills in blanks where yours has left you with unanswered questions.

I addressed one of your questions in an earlier post:

Physicists throughout the world are struggling to build a new story of you, me, our creation and the beginning of our universe, because the old story is no longer working. Science has been struggling to come up with a Unified Field Theory.

You continued:

They cannot find that unified field because their thinking  . . is incomplete. The piece they’ve left out is consciousness. (37:20) Traditionally, scientists have been reluctant or resistant to include consciousness in the Unified Theory.

I’ve supplied that missing piece, placing the variables of Einstein’s theory within the concentric circles of the Life Wheel which has appeared in sacred art throughout the world for thousands of years. The result is the Unified Field Theory Einstein already had, but missed. It is consistent with Yoga Sutras and the Old Testament as well as with quantum physics. It embodies the timeless secret of creation.

Unified Field Theory

Even more exciting, this model can be activated and personalized in countless ways to picture the fractures and distortions we bring to our personal and organizational lives. Creating new Life Wheels becomes a means for designing intentional futures, ones aligned with original wholeness.

The second, related question you posed was this:

If I came to this world from another world and I could ask one question . . . I would ask, What is the one thing that we have in this world that would wake us up and remind us that we’re a family, that we are more than the differences that have separated us in the past and that we are too precious to kill ourselves in war? What is the one thing that could be awakened in this lifetime and shared with every human on the face of the earth that will remind them of that truth?

Your question resonates with the ancient one posed in the Manduka Upanishad, “What is that, knowing which, all else is known?”

Here, in the form of a picture worth a thousand words, is my response. It speaks to yet another, similar question from Joseph Campbell (popular student of comparative world religions):

We don’t have a mythology for people recognizing the humanity of a person on the other side of the hemisphere. I’ve often wondered if some of the notions coming out of quantum physics, quantum interconnectedness, don’t express that.

This picture modifies the concentric circles of Albert Einstein’s Unified Field Theory, placing his beloved compass (seed of compass-ion) at the heart of the Life Wheel, honoring his well-known warning:

A human being is part of the whole called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest . . . This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us.

Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. . We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to survive. [emphasis added]

circle compass of compassion

Now, Gregg, what we share in common is a profound, even urgent sense that at this time in history, the mosaic pieces scattered throughout various wisdom traditions must be recovered and integrated, the better to survive and prevail through the testing times that lie before us.

A major contribution I make to your work is my enduring respect for the Chinese I Ching, the Book of Change . . . a subject aptly suited to this time of rapidly accelerating change. It is the ancient of ancients, predating even the Sanskrit Vedas. It informed the understandings which resulted in my Life Wheel work, which Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras serve to confirm.

As written:

This is a book that truly belongs to the world. It transcends, in its essence, the limitations of time and space. Used correctly, as intended, it leads the ordinary mind towards experiences of self-awareness and transformative transcendence.

Further:

The Book of Change combines the best of many worlds. On the one hand, it is pure logic and math. Its binary-digital code long predates both Leibniz’s calculus and computer science.

On the other hand, it leads inwards, serving to link the material world of physical experience (empirical science) with its ultimate source (the realm of con-science).

Working with it, one starts in immediate, practical experience, with the option to travel to the opposite end of the reality scale, merging with the mystical. This interactive book, regarded by some as magical, depends on the phenomena of synchronicity to link person, time and events in the decision-making process.

In The Ultimate Gatekeeper, I supplied preliminary hints.

The extraordinary value of the I Ching is that it reveals the secrets of dynamic Natural Law. Working with its changes opens access to the middle level of the Life Wheel, the “e = energy” layer of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory.

Further:

Unfortunately, the middle level is too often clogged with painful memories, negative emotions and repressed, socially taboo urges. It becomes a barrier to deeper knowing . . . .

For eight thousand years and counting, the Book of Change has served as an indispensable tool for resolving this dilemma. Used as intended, it can restore the unnecessarily “unconscious” to conscious awareness, opening levels of potential so they can be aligned and unified. . . .

To the extent that the Natural Law of energy dynamics remains a blind spot in the prevailing, linear and exclusively empirical paradigm, we are left powerless to move beyond the surface level of experience.. . .

Making this compendium of Natural Law — the premier leadership training and decision-making manual in China for thousands of years — widely accessible now is necessary in order to fill in this fatal knowledge gap.

It also suggests how and why meditative practices can “upgrade” DNA:

The 64 changes of the Book of Change have been correlated with the 64 basic strands of DNA. Nor is it coincidence that Chinese ideogram for I Ching bears a striking resemblance to the double helix of DNA.

side by side

In Stay Alert to Cosmic Patterns, I described benefits of working with the Book of Change:

For ordinary mortals (like me), who aren’t always present and clear, the discipline of settling down the physical body and quieting the mind is a great help. Then, the practice of carefully defining the immediate situation leads to the formulation of coherent questions. In this higher, open and receptive frequency of mind, magic can happen. You bridge the gap between now and the future. It’s experienced as a synchronous connection between yourself and timeless wisdom – call it intuition or angelic guidance, as you will.

In Self-Awareness Tools for Empaths, I offered this perspective:

The text has a long history. In the last century, psychologist Carl Jung picked up on it. In his introduction to the first genuinely useful English translation, Jung coined the term “synchronicity” to explain its power – precipitating seemingly magical and awesome non-local connections of understanding, insight, and awareness.

This affect may be due to the similarity between the opening and closing lines of the 64 hexagrams and the geometric patterns seen by meditators in deep trance. (Dr. Joe Dispenza is a fan of synchronisities. He tells students, as they grow in their meditative practice, to look for confirming synchronisities to appear in their lives.)

Tai Chi Tu

Now, I have followed your work for many years. Why have I chosen to contact you only now? . . . .  the date September 28, 2019 is a pivotal one. I quote at length to explain.

Right now we are experiencing significant energy shifts. Many of us are integrating significant energy changes at every level of being. A major contributing factor is the Schumann resonance. It represents the frequency of the Earth’s electromagnetic field, usually measured at around 7.83 Hertz.

It has had very few major variations since the 1950s. However, since June of 2014 [not coincidentally the year I published the RethinkingSurvival website] there have been many changes in the Schumann resonance. The vibration of what is essentially the Earth’s heartbeat has been accelerating. Just this past week, the frequency reached up to 99 Hertz. That’s a huge leap.

As human beings we have our own frequencies relative to our own electromagnetic fields and naturally attune our frequency to that of the Earth’s heartbeat.

The Earth’s frequency has a significant impact on how we feel, particularly physically affecting our brain waves and nervous systems. And we know that what changes in the body changes also in the mind and the spirit.

The Earth is undergoing a major change and human spiritual collective consciousness is changing right along with it. This vibration, this cosmic music, is working to heal us as a collective, in part by flushing out stored emotional memories, most especially traumatic thinking and behavioral patterning.

Once we have cleared out the past negative patterns, our consciousness, as well as our bodies and souls, will naturally be able to follow and match the cosmic metronome in a harmonious, unified manner.

The higher purpose and meaning of this is UNITY. We are growing into greater awareness of our unity with all.

Phoenix - sized

 

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The Ultimate Gatekeeper

Phoenix - sized

Lately I’ve been fully engaged in absorbing the remarkable work of Dr. Joe Dispenza, including his recent Becoming Supernatural. I have the yoga background to greatly appreciate just how skillfully he has translated and then integrated ancient science (defined as “with knowledge”) with cutting edge modern sciences, including Einstein’s quantum physics.

The Quantum Life Wheel I often refer to meshes perfectly with this work, as does its ancient ancestor, the Book of Change. Both of them compliment and have the potential to further enhance Dispenza’s work. For example, an early post, Sages and Scientists Can Agree on This, pictures the layers and levels of Dr. Joe’s message, in particular his instructions to “become aware of what you are doing and why.”

be aware

Dr. Joe systematically precipitates “miraculous” healings, teaching students how to “change” their lives by raising their energy — focusing awareness on the energy centers . . . blessing them, if you will. In Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, he reminds readers: Einstein said that no problem could be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.

Here is an image of the chakras (energy centers) spanning the levels of the Life Wheel. It pictures the levels of awareness residing at the center of the Wheel where access to higher orders of consciousness generates positive new solutions.

Wheel2

Another point of convergence is the concept that meditation can “upgrade” DNA. The 64 changes of the Book of Change have been correlated with the 64 basic strands of DNA. Nor is it coincidence that Chinese ideogram for I Ching bears a marked resemblance to the double helix of DNA.

side by side

The Preface to The Ultimate Gatekeeper which follows opens still further avenues to links and possibilities.

book header bird

The Ultimate Gatekeeper:

Restoring the Book of Change to the World

PREFACE

In the millennial year, 2000, the title of this book was The Ultimate Personal Survival Guide. It came out of a brainstorming session with a business consultant. We were discussing how to market The Common Sense Book of Change. Suzanne was totally unfamiliar with the I Ching.

We went back and forth with questions and answers about its use and value. Finally, she sat back and blinked. “It sounds like the ultimate personal survival guide,” she concluded.

She’d hit the nail right on the head. She got it!

What I learned as she drew me out with her questions was that I had taken my answers to her valid concerns for granted. Surely many others had similar doubts.

So a further step was necessary. A follow-up book was required, one which would lead people to draw the same conclusion that she had. I had to dispel myths and misconceptions which prevent this gravely misunderstood and underrated treasure from getting the international acceptance it so richly deserves.

For this is a book that truly belongs to the world. It transcends, in its essence, the limitations of time and space. Used correctly, as intended, it leads the ordinary mind towards experiences of self-awareness and transformative transcendence.

Over the years, I had grown absolutely certain that the worldwide leadership deficit (and related budget deficits) are explained by an underlying knowledge deficit. For lack of what The Book of Change has to offer, people everywhere remain perplexed as to how and why so much continues to go so horribly wrong, despite the best of intentions.

It seemed urgent to clear the decks. Making this compendium of Natural Law — the premier leadership training and decision-making manual in China for thousands of years — widely accessible now is necessary in order to fill in this fatal knowledge gap.

Mainstreaming this vitally important information is the first, necessary step towards the positive change which many call for, but remain unable to achieve.

Fourteen years later, after completing a trilogy on change, I found myself in the same predicament. How does one shake up the sleeping public? What will it take to make people worldwide aware of how important this information is, and how gravely we’re at risk due to its absence?

The extraordinary value of the I Ching is that it reveals the secrets of dynamic Natural Law. Working with its changes opens up access to the middle level of the Life Wheel, the “e = energy” layer of Einstein’s Unified Field Theory.

Gatekeeper

This middle level of Natural Law serves as mediating, two-directional gatekeeper between the ever-changing surface rim and the universal, timeless center. You can’t get from here to there and back again, except through the middle “energy” layer which, in Western thinking, is effectively taboo, buried deep within the inaccessible “unconscious.”

To the extent that the Natural Law of energy dynamics remains a blind spot in the prevailing, linear and exclusively empirical paradigm, we are left powerless to move beyond the surface level of experience.

To compound the loss, when stuck on the surface, the realm of light and conscience which rests beyond, on the far side of the dynamic energy level, remains functionally inaccessible.

Only by becoming intelligently competent in managing the subtle energies of the middle level does it become possible to travel further inwards for the direct personal experience of not only Light but even deeper still, its very Source.

Unfortunately, the middle level is too often clogged with painful memories, negative emotions and repressed, socially taboo urges. It becomes a barrier to deeper knowing.

For eight thousand years and counting, the Book of Change has served as an indispensable tool for resolving this dilemma. Used as intended, it can restore the unnecessarily “unconscious” to conscious awareness, reopening the levels of human potential so they can be aligned and unified.

In this context, genuine survivors fit to prevail in today’s increasingly dangerous times aren’t those with the most material wealth, possessions or political power. They’re the ones who’ve successfully navigated the middle realm, reached the far shore of enlightenment and returned to the surface with their new information intact.

Those who succeed in linking the levels of experience are genius-leaders in whatever fields they choose to engage. They’re the fortunate ones who have acquired the inner wealth necessary to both hear the still voice conscience and act effectively on the guidance they receive.

Patricia E. West, Ph.D. 

Wisconsin, U.S.A. 2019

Psychology’s Blind Spot

 

Jordan B. Peterson’s finest moment (from my point of view) came in his answer to the last question of the lecture’s Q & A session. He came very close to touching on the tradition which explains his mystical experience as well as Jacob’s dream. Almost.

People who are interested in grand narratives have pointed out that there’s a set of common mythological themes across many cultures. They can be the same on one level, different on another. But humanity coalesces on what’s the same over a reasonable period of time.

. . . there’s this constant force [literally, energy structure] that makes our ethical presuppositions converge. And then that’s automatically expressed in those stories.

In one way, he is correct. But in another, significant way, not. Stories take on the images of each specific culture. In that way they are different. What they share in common, however, is not myth or archetype but SCIENCE, meaning “with knowledge.” Jacob’s ladder is certainly a striking example.

Lacking this universal, underlying science, humanity cannot be properly, completely understood. Psychologies remain incomplete and inaccurate. They have grievous blind spots.

Put another way, Huston Smith, premier comparative religion teacher and advocate of what he calls “timeless wisdom,” 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.

This “invisible geometry” is literally the snake-like intersections of energy pathways crisscrossing and intersecting along the spine. They link the seven centers in a pattern strikingly similar to the DNA double-helix represented in the Caduceus, the healing staff of the winged-messenger god Mercury, familiar now as the symbol of modern medicine.

 

Ancient Himalayan sages mapped the internal energy transformers knows as chakras (“wheels).” Know how to activate them, they taught. You’ll experience enlightenment.

. . . 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 quantum inner life as an experience which can and has been replicated by countless practitioners over time.

Chakras are key to personal growth and psycho-spiritual evolution.

Genuine transformation can’t be accomplished by mental speculation or acts of sheer will power. It occurs in the deeper layers of the Life Wheel which have, disastrously, been made taboo in Western civilizations.

Einstein called this blind spot “the fateful fear of metaphysics.” The fateful-fear of self-awareness comes in its train, sometimes justified, most often times NOT.

Descriptions of heaven’s gates opening and unfolding lotus flowers which Dr. Peterson experienced in dream state come straight out of the ancient Vedas. The seventh chakra located above the head is described as a Thousand Petaled Lotus. To mystic vision, it looks something like this:

crown chakra x 4

Seven basic chakras are aligned along the human spine and within the skull. In ascending order, each is associated with an increasingly more sophisticated state of consciousness and related emotional/psychological issues. Musicians correlate them with the tones of the scale; artists with geometrical shapes and colors of the spectrum.

The 7th or crown chakra is located at the top of the head and is related to the induction of spiritual energy into the body. Said to control every aspect of the body and mind, it is associated with full enlightenment and union with God. This chakra is normally not fully opened in most humans, although pictures of saints and other spiritual beings with”halos” are depictions of activated crown chakras.

Here’s a picture of all seven, putting the heavenly ruling seventh center in context:

chakras

In the creative process, the non-physical precedes and drives the physical. Western physicians psychologists greatly would benefit from understanding the correlations of each subtle energetic center with equivalent mental and biological conditions.

Put the other way, lacking this foundation, their understanding of human nature is incomplete. Seriously skewed.

The other six are briefly described:

  • The 1st or root chakra, located at the base of the spine, is involved with the physical process of elimination and the organs that work involved in that function. It is the chakra associated with the emotional energy of survival, as well as with grounding to the physical plane.
  • The 2nd or sacral chakra is located about three inches below the navel. This chakra corresponds to sexual energy and the reproductive organs. It is also associated with creativity and intrinsic life force.
  • The 3rd or solar-plexus chakra is located at the navel and several inches above. Its energy is associated to digestion and the digestive organs, personal power, and self mastery.
  • The 4th or heart chakra it located in the center of the chest. On the physical level, it corresponds with the lungs and heart. On the emotional level, it expresses as the energy of compassion.
  • The 5th or throat chakra is located in the throat area, at the base of the neck. It is the center with communication, speech, and hearing. The ears are associated with this chakra, as well as the vocal apparatus.
  • The 6th or brow chakra is located in the center of the forehead, between and slightly above the eyes. Often called “the third eye,” it is associated with imagination and psychic abilities, along with mental activity and brain function.

Each center represents a stage in human evolution. As consciousness grows and ascends to higher levels of awareness, human potentials expand. In an equitable world, people are allowed to live and serve according to their level of consciousness. Qualifications for leadership roles rightfully depend more upon inner awareness than IQ.

A lateral view of chakras aligned along the spinal column reflects the qualitative differences in focus of awareness amongst well-known  psychologists.

invisible geometry sized

From Quantum Paradigm perspective, the chakras align with the levels of the Life Wheel like this:

As written earlier:

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

For example, music moves us because its resonant 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 uplift 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 symbolic, visual arts –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 the rainbow colors of the light spectrum.

closing

Patricia West is author of The Common Sense Book of Change and Two Sides of a Coin: Lao Tze’s Common Sense Way of Change. She’s currently working on The Phoenix Response: Dying To Be Reborn – in the Same Lifetime. 

Pray for Lee

DNA 1

I get it. It’s early August. Most of us are on summer vacation now. It’s not the time to be bothered by “serious stuff.”

But sometimes, serious stuff won’t wait.

Here, we’re been dealing with escalating medical emergencies. They have dire implications for Lee, for those who care for him, and yes – for the rest of us, too.

Please bear with me. I’ll connect the dots for you.

It started a few months ago with sleepless nights that left him too weary to work during the day. Pain of unknown origin gave Lee no rest.

He lost his appetite. Lost weight.

It seemed like a flare up of rheumatoid arthritis. So the doctors thought. But then came chest pains. Strong enough for an urgent call to 911. Even after an ambulance trip to the hospital in Baraboo and several hours in the emergency room, he continued to experience episodes of severe chest pain no one could explain.

Local doctors consulted together, then contacted Lee’s Madison specialist. It was agreed to transport him via ambulance to the UW-Madison Hospital for a cardiac cath procedure.

To make a long, convoluted story short, two days later, doctors finally agreed on a diagnosis. Lyme’s disease.

I’d heard about it, of course. But didn’t know that much about it. So, while waiting for him to be discharged, I did some research.

I found an excellent article that explains the science and history of Lyme’s. It’s a scary bad plague-like affliction of apparently epidemic proportions, though for some mysterious reason, it’s given little media attention. According to arizonaadvancedmedicine.com:

  • The organism responsible for Lyme disease was identified in 1981 by Dr. Willy Burgdorfer, and named Borrelia burgdorferi (B. burgdorferi), after its discoverer. It is similar in shape to the spirochete Treponema pallidum, which causes syphilis, the scourge.
  • Mankind’s earlier experience with a disease caused by a spirochete was syphilis, the scourge of Europe for hundreds of years. Syphilis was called “the Great Imitator” because its symptoms mimicked so many other diseases. The same is true with Lyme.
  • Lyme disease presents a host of challenges. Once the corkscrew-shaped spirochetes enter the bloodstream, they can cause a wide range of constitutional, musculoskeletal, and neurological symptoms.
  • New York pathologist Dr. Alan MacDonald found B. burgdorferi DNA in 1986 in seven out of ten autopsy samples from the brains of people with Alzheimer’s. MacDonald was also the first to document B. burgdorferi in fetal tissue, meaning the infection passes from mother to child in the womb.
  • The number of Lyme disease cases in the United States has doubled since 1991. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there are nearly 325,000 new cases each year – making Lyme disease an epidemic larger than AIDS, West Nile Virus, and Avian Flu combined.

Lyme’s hides itself inside cysts so the immune system can’t find it. It also mutates, making it especially difficult to detect and treat.

In short, it’s one sneaky, sinister bugger.

Reading on Lyme’s resonated with memories of working as an assistant in the UW Hospital’s Department of Pediatric Oncology in the 1990s. Pediatric leukemia was the villain. An international team of research scientists was studying the use of Interleukin II to stimulate the body’s own immune system (T-cells to be exact) to heal this cancer.

Because I asked, one dedicated researcher described what she recognized as the deep, spiritual implications of her work. Her eyes radiated intense conviction as she described the war between good and evil going on at a cellular level. She described the insidious mechanisms of the disease and the doctors’ emotional battle to save afflicted children from pain and sure death.

That experience brought up many of the same questions I have now. Namely, why don’t practitioners of different medical sciences pool their information? Each has a significant piece, but only a partial piece of the larger puzzle. If a boundary spanner could bridge the gaps and put the pieces of the mosaic together, miracles would become possible.

I’m thinking specifically of the benefits attributed to the practice of Tai Chi and Chi Kung (QiGong). Both these approaches to healing-in-motion are based on Traditional Chinese Medicine, which in turn depends on the science encoded in the Book of Change, the I Ching.

Some preliminary work in this direction has already been done. For example, medical research documents that Tai Chi practice stimulates T-cells. In fact, this medical-martial arts discipline achieves what the researchers hoped to achieve with drugs. It stimulates the body’s immune system to protect against and reverse damage done to DNA.

Now here’s a secret hiding in plain sight. I Ching science has been correlated with DNA science. The ancients experienced through meditation what scientists much later discovered through painstaking empirical research. There is no conflict between conclusions, only many roads leading to the same knowledge.

One important difference between the medical and Tai Chi approach to healing, however, is its availability. Tai Chi has long been a family tradition passed on through the generations. It’s slowly becoming available in the West as well. But it requires an attitude of self-responsibility and diligence to practice these methods.

In contrast, drugs can be passively ingested with no intelligent participation on the part of those afflicted. Many drugs, however, have unforeseen and unwelcome side effects. In addition, some are prohibitively expensive, and for many, inaccessible.

I like to call Tai Chi the “poor man’s genome therapy.” The beauty of it is, that it hardly matters how you have become off balance or what symptoms you’re experiencing. Diligent practice restores health. It would seem that especially in a case like Lyme’s, where the symptoms are hard to detect, tend to mutate, and to take multiple forms, this universal solution is uniquely appropriate.

As it happens, I recently found a treasure in books by Jou, Tsung Hwa. The Tao of Tai-Chi Chuan is exactly what I would love to share with Lee. The introduction begins:

I was a math teacher who had published about thirty books on mathematics in Chinese. In 1964 at the age of forty-seven, I became very ill with an enlarged heart and a gastroptosis, because of years of hard work and vigorous schedules. My doctor told me that my condition was incurable using available medication.

At the same time, however, one of his friends told him about Tai Chi Chuan and introduced Dr. Jou to a teacher. He continues:

At first, I had only enough strength to practice a half hour at a time. In only two weeks, my appetite improved and the frequency and severity of my stomach pain lessened. In three years my stomach was completely healed. In five years, my heart returned to normal, and I regained total good health without the use of drugs.

This good experience led to an interest in the Book of Change. In the introduction to his version,  The Tao of I Ching, Dr. Jou writes:

Since the I Ching was first translated into German and other languages, it has awakened great interest and fascinated countless people. Yet, I believe this interest is only a fraction of the attention it deserves when it is used in the way created to be used.

His next words made me jump for joy. I could not agree more:

Remember, this is not a book on Chinese culture or philosophy. This is a book about things no more exclusively Chinese than a lake, a person or the sky.

On a hunch just now, I googled “Tai Chi & Lyme’s Disease” and found this: Nothing is Incurable! In this case, the author is describing his experience with QiGong, the precursor and close relative of Tai Chi.

But why, then, am I conflicted about offering this extraordinarily hopeful approach to healing Lee’s Lyme’s disease?

Because he thinks it’s rubbish. Has an intense aversion against it, probably the result being educated in Catholic schools compounded with an aversion to what he dismisses as “New Age bullshit.”

Well, fortunately for me, I haven’t allowed centuries of historical atrocities committed in the name of the New Testament to alienate me from the teachings of Christ. Now, I can only hope that likewise, he will see fit to give this treasure the benefit of the doubt.

I pray for Lee. I pray that he be restored to health. Not only because as a repository of training, information and experience, he is irreplaceable. (He owes it to the rest of us to get well!!!) But also because this disease can be changed into a teacher and opportunity, if he can accept it as such.

My dearest hope is that, like Dr. Jou, when faced with dire medical circumstances, Lee’s eyes and heart will open to this healing alternative to drugs. May he be like the greatest doubter changed in a flash to become greatest advocate, a Saul become Paul, if you will.

I know he has the integrity, intelligence and will power to take responsibility for his healing and make this science in all its aspects his own. In turn, his example serve to might open Lyme’s researchers minds to alternative ways of erradicating B. burgdorferi DNA. This, in turn, might open doors of help for others suffering from this dreadful plague.

I pray for Lee for many reasons. Please pray for him as well. Your prayers will certainly speed his healing. When healed, he will most definitely become a helper and healer to you and yours in ways too many to count.

Blessings and thanks to all who read this.

Who Is Qualified to Know What – and How?

Have you ever thought about how the organizations you were born into – family, communities, governments – society in its many interdependent forms and interrelated facets – came into being? Or are you concerned about where they might now be headed?

I certainly do. Often.

Nor are we alone. Over history, serious thinkers have pondered the subject. A LinkedIn connection recently asked for my thoughts on the possible relationship between awareness and responsibility. He framed his question in the context of social contract theory.

Though initially the subject might seem academic, it’s the basic stuff of human survival. The quality of our lives – even, ultimately, our existence – depends on the level and quality of awareness leaders bring to their organizations.

In turn, their success as leaders depends on the trust, integrity and loyalty of their followers. For in fact, rights and responsibilities on both sides – leaders AND followers — are a two-way street. And when the delicate balance of expectations and obligations is violated, social fabric unravels.

contract

Yet the subject doesn’t get the serious attention it urgently deserves. The consequences of taking for granted what we have inherited, with too little awareness of dangers risked by squandering the fragile blessings we enjoy, need comprehensive rethinking NOW – before it’s too late.

I responded to the question with a LinkedIn article, “Natural Leadership or Authority – Where in the Wheel Do YOU Stand?” (See www.linkedin.com/pulse/natural-leadership-authority-where-wheel-do-you-stand-patricia-west.)

A comment on that post by Lloyd Amogan sparked this extension of the subject. With his permission, I’ll quote:

Yes, there is a relationship between social contract and awareness. The awareness has to involve both our physical levels and our Spiritual levels of Awareness/Consciousness, and not many are familiar with the Spiritual Levels, hence very few are qualified to teach.

I responded:

Your premise poses an interesting question, Lloyd. If the relationship “HAS to involve” full-spectrum awareness, yet many are NOT aware, how does lack of awareness impact of the status of the contract? Some theorize that the contract is “understood” or “implied.” Is this sufficient? What consequences follow from a lack of conscious, intentional involvement in the social contract?

An after thought, if Hobbes was unfamiliar, was he unqualified to write on the subject?

Hobbes, by the way, was famous for his view that, without the overseeing rule of a leviathan ruler, human life is necessarily “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” Spiritual awareness, in his world view, was NOT a factor on either side of the leader-follower equation.

In contrast, trusted advisors to the rulers of long-lived Chinese dynasties depended on a high-level of awareness to maintain social-political stability. The Book of Change, the leadership manual upon which they depended, instills a comprehensive understanding of the human dynamics which drive social-political organizations.

The applications of the following Essay on Knowledge offer an approach to leadership awareness that might have a positive influence on the future directions of existing organizations:

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Essay 20. KNOWLEDGE

“Lao Tzu believed that intuitive knowledge was the purest form of information. For that reason, he expressed his philosophy in the form of thought experiments — mental exercises designed to enhance and evolve the intuitive skills. In the Tao Te Ching, he compels us to use intuition as an equal partner with logic.” — R.L. Wing, The Tao of Power

“There is a stream of transcendental, information power flowing into the DNA. . . The I CHING, which, by this hypothesis, is coincident with the DNA system, is perhaps the textbook for this cosmic force, the static tension and dynamic flux flowing into the matrix of the DNA.” — Martin Schönberger, The I Ching & The Genetic Code

“Modern science tells us that the human organism is not just a physical structure made of molecules, but that, like everything else, we are also composed of energy fields. . . We, too, ebb and flow like the sea. We, too, are constantly changing. How do we, as human beings, deal with such information?” — Barbara Ann Brennan, Hands of Light

THE FRONT

Roots of knowledge mean both acknowledgment or confession, as well as to play, give, or move about. Webster’s first definition is the act, fact, or state of knowing, specifically direct acquaintance or familiarity with a fact or place.

It can mean awareness or understanding. It can mean acquaintance with the facts, range of information grasped by the mind, or enlightenment. It can mean the body of facts, principles accumulated by mankind. An archaic meaning includes carnal knowledge.

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which defines the rules of knowledge at any given time/place, setting limits by its answers to these questions: What can be known, how, and by whom? Answers have political overtones, often assigning roles according to class, race, age or gender. They influence cultural decisions about the distribution of wealth, power, social status and access to legal protections.

Empirical science respects only information known through reason. Universities train students to dissect and analyze with quantitative and verbal skills. At its best, reason is a tool of constructive discernment, capable of articulating both tangible and intangible information.

With proper training, it can be used to harness the sub-rational, serve the super-rational and link the two, balancing their extremes. As such, reason is a harmonizing function.

Using reason to rule out, avoid or even demean awareness of sub- and super-rational experience is an abuse of the critical faculty.

One overlooked knowledge matrix is ingrained in our very DNA. Many striking resemblances between the structure of DNA and I Ching hexagrams suggest at least one fascinating explanation for how/why this information source resonates with inner knowing. For example, it can’t be accidental that both are both based upon a binary-quaternary code that generates a system of 64 possibilities.

The chakra system of energy transformers which traverse the spine is another knowledge matrix that affects how we process and transmit information. Each chakra filters perception. Each influences the way we interpret experience. Their existence explains how/why the inspired ideas of every religion or science change over time, being diluted and narrowed to fit the thinking of less evolved followers.

One proof of this process is the wide array of Western psychologies, each relevant to a specific chakra issue. Skinner’s is a first chakra psychology based on behavior. Freud focused on sex, a second chakra issue. Adler thought in terms of power, the third chakra. Fromm wrote about love, the fourth chakra focus. Jung was interested in literary symbols and self-actualization, which are fifth and sixth center interests.

Asian sciences, however, have recognized the interactive relationships amongst these concerns. They provide practical methods for integrating the chakras to pave an optimally functioning two-directional highway of continuous energy and information.

Chakra filters also explain why some users interpret the I Ching through the filters of the sub-rational, using it as an oracle of divination. Farmers rely on it to predict the weather and agricultural yield. Others reject such use, preferring to regard The Book of Change as a rational manual for personal improvement and professional advancement.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioners refer to it as a psychological and/or medical diagnostic instrument. Still others view it as a super-rational code book, giving it spiritual interpretations. For example Taoist masters interpret it as a yogic manual detailing the alchemical process of inner transformation.

Because it encompass the whole of human experience, the I Ching actually accommodates all of these perspectives – and more.

THE BACK

Ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. It can be the innocence of an inexperienced child, or the result of being kept in the dark, deceived or misled. Some people know, but deny who they are and what they know. The social price of being different seems too high. Others fail to use love and creativity to bridge the gap between inner knowledge and outer experience, and succumb to madness.

Delusion is a perversion of knowledge. It’s a belief that things are as one wants or fears, not as they actually are; or thinking one knows everything there is to know, when one doesn’t. Untrained mediums are sometimes misguided either by their own fantasies or dark angels posing as benefactors.

Rethinking CHANGE

Natural change on the surface and middle levels of the Life Wheel is ongoing and inevitable. In addition, ignorant and/or irresponsible people superimpose additional layers of unnatural change to the mix, products of cultural conditioning and human agendas. So the best hope we have for maintaining inner and outer stability in the midst of chaos and suffering is to focus on the unchanging center. Otherwise, working consistently to achieve worthwhile long-term goals would be impossible. Hence, from the Introduction to the Common Sense Book of Change:

Ancient sages looked to The Book of Change primarily to discover ways to maintain balance and stability in the midst of change.

Advisors to long-lasting dynasties in China observed how to adjust with the winds and waves of time just as a ship pilot shifts the sails or a surfer rides the cresting water to reach a far shore safely.

They knew that temporal wisdom depends on the existence of a timeless essence deeper than change, the same at the heart of the universe, the individual and every atom.

Here, then, is an Essay on natural change from an I Ching perspective:

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Essay 11. CHANGE

We have always thought of the Bible as a book. We now know that was only its first incarnation. It is also a computer program. Not merely a book that Rips typed into a computer, but something that its original author actually designed to be interactive and ever-changing.  — Michael Drosnin, The Bible Code

 

For the last eight years, I have been studying all the various ways that people can heal, and I have integrated all the integrative medicine approaches, and I have learned how to change my lifestyle. . . I can honestly tell you that the one thing I never questioned was the fact that there is divine order, that there is a supreme being behind the universe. I’ve always known that. It’s as if it’s in my DNA. [The “Power to Change” Tour] — Naomi Judd, Larry King Live Interview

 

The responsibility for [improvement strategies] rests at the top, as in everything that has to do with the spirit of an organization. And so the executives who run innovative organizations must train themselves to look out the window, to look for change. The funny thing is, it’s easier to learn to look out the window than to look inside, and that’s also a smart thing to do systematically. — Peter F. Drucker, Managing the Non-Profit Organization

 

THE FRONT

Webster’s gives seven definitions of change. Root derivations include exchange, or bent and crooked, suggesting the image of a curved, wavy line. The first definition of the verb is to substitute, replace or transfer one thing for another. The second is to give and receive reciprocally, exchange or switch. The third is to cause to become different, alter, transform, convert, or undergo a variation. The fourth is to give or receive the equivalent of a coin in currency. The fifth is to put on other clothes. The sixth, used as a noun, describes the place where merchants do business. The seventh is the pattern in which bells are rung. By extension, jazz musicians use the term to denote chord progressions.

Translators call the dynamic natural law mapped in the I Ching “change.” However, if we think of the word as its regularly used, we miss what the book’s really about. Change isn’t synonymous with political reform, for example, which results, literally, in different forms. Rarely does it bring about qualitative change. Revolution is closer. Just as the minute hand of a clock revolves once an hour back to its starting point, governments revolve over time from reactionary to revolutionary extremes and back. Rarely, however, is long-term qualitative change is achieved in the process.

Evolution is another word used to mean change. Often it implies improvement. However, life is not like a mechanical clock which always runs forward. Over time, poor choices and destructive behavior change us for the worse. The life clock can be turned counter-clockwise. Humans have equal potential for both evolution and devolution.

No one can take for granted either that change is automatically good, or that no matter what one does or doesn’t do, improvement is inevitable. The I Ching helps careful thinkers to relate wisely to change, to ensure through their choices that they actualize their potentials for positive growth.

As Drucker indicates, leaders too often think of change as external, something imposed from the outside upon others. They too often forget about the personal, internal changes that must precede any qualitative, long-lasting external change. Repent is defined as an awakening of conscience that stimulates regret for past mistakes and determination to improve. The warning “repent before it’s too late” on one level refers to a change of heart. On another, it indicates, as Einstein warned, the urgent need to change the way we think and therefore respond to life’s challenges.

In The Bible Code, a challenge was found in proximity to a pending assassination: “Can you change it?” Drosnin took the question literally and made a futile attempt to warn Prime Minister Rabin, as if to change the course of history.

Perhaps on another level the question implies other challenges. Maybe we are being asked to change our relationship to the timeless teachings we take for granted, to look again with fresh eyes and change not external events, but rather our hearts and minds, to change from the inside out.

THE BACK

The opposite of change is stasis. People who feel threatened by change and think they can benefit from resisting it try to freeze time. This results not in perfection, however, but in stagnation and decay. While natural change is vital and life-enhancing, obstructing it is counter-productive and ultimately self-destructive.

Anarchy is a perversion of natural change. Nature is exquisitely ordered and therefore, to those who observe carefully, predictable. Political radicals impatient with corrupt governments leap to opposite and equal abuses of power. Lacking wisdom, their violence abruptly shatters existing order, but fails to improve the quality of life. On subtle levels, attempts to destroy natural patterns results not in desired freedom, but in annihilation.