Article 4. The Purpose of Consulting the I Ching Oracle by Carol and Hanna

©  by Carol K. Anthony and Hanna Moog

   The purpose of consulting the I Ching oracle has traditionally been defined as “bringing oneself as an individual human being into harmony with the order of heaven.” Our new version of the I Ching differs from this definition in that it speaks of bringing oneself into harmony with the order of the Cosmos. The word “Cosmos” comes from the Greek and means “the Universe in its harmonious order.” This is not just a minor difference, but one that determines our relationship with the invisible world, and thereby the way by which we can bring ourselves into harmony with its order.

   The traditional versions of the I Ching speak of the “order of heaven” in terms that create the impression that the entire Cosmic order is synonymous with the human-made feudal social orderthat has traditionally ruled China. This was an order that passed from one conquering warlord to another. This way of one group of people assuming powerover others was passed on for so many centuries that it became viewed as “the way things are.” We do not need to look only at China to see that the feudal mindset was extended worldwide. Historians have upheld such structures to represent the “greatness” of human achievements when they point to the empires of ancient Egypt, Rome, and to others in the West, generally. The more power and grandeur each achieved, the more they have been admired.

   The I Ching makes us aware, through its use over many years, that these hierarchical pretensions are in conflict with the Cosmic principles of harmony; when we follow them as “the way,” we create what the I Ching calls “misfortune.” Thus we find that our striving for power and dominance may succeed for a while, but that ultimately we are deprived of the joy of life. The Cosmos, as we see, wants us to have a joyful life.

   All hierarchical ideas are products of the feudal mindset. Among them is the justification for the use of power, threats, and punishments, and the presumption that one group has the right to dominate another; other ideas are that we must uphold and be faithful to the established system; and that conflict is the natural state of things because ‘the world, visible and invisible, is divided into good and evil.’ All such ideas become “true” when we follow the way of grandiosity.

   The I Ching has similarly made it clear to us that the feudal order described above, in its placing humans as the “centerpiece of creation,” is totally mistaken. We were shown that our conflicts, be they of a strictly personal or collective nature, are the consequences of this human-centered view. We were shown that the I Ching was originally given to humans to help them become free from this human-centered view, but that it became overwritten with edits made relentlessly over the centuries by one dynasty after another, with the intention to legitimate the authority of the feudal system and its right to control others. When writing I Ching, The Oracle of the Cosmic Way, we were guided by the Sage to separate those overlays from the underlying Cosmic Principles of Harmony that supercede all human-made social structures.

   The Sage showed us that the Cosmos is a system of Principles of Harmony whose main principles are the equality, uniqueness, and modesty of all aspects of the Cosmos. Equality refers to the worth and dignity of its every aspect; uniqueness means that no aspect can be compared to any other in terms of “higher” or “lower,” or “more special,” or “less special.”  Modesty, one of the central themes of the I Ching, is the result of understanding and following these first two principles, which are imbedded in our original human nature. For indeed, goodness is our true nature, and following the feelings within ourselves that “feel good” and “feel fitting” is what leads to the expression of our dignity, worth, and happiness. There are many other Cosmic Principles of Harmony the user of the I Ching becomes aware of in our version of the I Ching as he addresses the things that are causing disharmony in his life.

Article 5. How Our New Version of the I Ching Was Written

by Carol K. Anthony and Hanna Moog

   Prior to 1998 it would have seemed preposterous to write a new version of the I Ching. I, Carol, personally felt a deep sense of gratitude to Richard Wilhelm for having brought this wonderful book to the West.* To write another seemed disloyal at the time.

   The thing that made us, Hanna and I, put the question to the oracle, “Are we meant to write a new version of the I Ching?” was the large body of new insights that came out of our use of the rtcm (the Retrospective-Three-Coin-Method) during the first six months that we began working together. We both noticed, on using this method, that the Sage frequently used the opportunity to correct a number of our previous views about what a hexagram could be addressing at a given time. Also, a hexagram could be pointing to one thing now, and an entirely different thing later. The insights, on occasion, completely blew away the meaning conventionally attributed to a hexagram. With these insights accumulating nearly daily, it became the obvious question to ask whether we were meant to write them into a new version. The answer received through the rtcm was an unequivocal “Yes! Yes! Yes!”

   On beginning this project, we were guided to follow a method that gave the Sage the maximum ability to “write” the book from an experiential viewpoint. That is, each day we worked on the hexagrams we received that were relevant to situations in our lives. Once we had developed the hexagram, we asked the Sage, “Do you want us to include in the text anything that was written in… (the Wilhelm, the Legge, the Alfred Huang, the Wu Jing-Nuan, or other well known translations, and even anything written in my Guide to the I Ching). Most often it said “No” to all of these, preferring us to ask what the Sage wanted to include in the hexagram and line texts.

   Once we understood what the Sage wanted (or did not want) to be included in the text, we always asked two questions: “Do we now understand it correctly,” and, “Is this all the Sage wants to say?” Sometimes the Sage corrected only one word that would give the reader a wrong impression. Sometimes whole sentences were to be removed. The Sage was very precise in making the text clear. We found through these questions that some words had too many connotations and were thus too “polluted” to use, or “too vague,” having a potential to mislead. Some words, such as “guilt” were to be recognized as having no Cosmic validity at all, because they were human inventions made to support the hierarchical ordering of society.

   The second question, “Is this all the Sage wants to say,” was asked when we thought that perhaps enough had been said. To our surprise, the answer was often “No.” It was not until after the book was complete that we could see that each hexagram had been given more than one “window of understanding” as to how the text was to be viewed. Being a lover of small books, I often felt resistance to the book’s growing so large, yet in the end I realized not only how wrong it would have been to impress my view upon the book in that way, but that each of these understandings addressed a particular issue that would be of help to the reader.

   One of the most interesting experiences in this process occurred on the day that we received Hexagram 5, Waiting, as the next hexagram we were to work on. Traditionally, this hexagram had counseled the person seeking advice to be patient and wait in the certainty that the help he needed would come. Following our method, we began asking, “Does the Sage want us to include the Wilhelm understanding?” “No.” As we went through all the other versions, we kept receiving, “No.” We then fielded hypotheses that came to mind. Each still received, “No.” When we had exhausted everything we could think of, we sat feeling quite dumb. Then it occurred to us to ask the Sage, “Help!” Almost immediately the question came to mind, “Is this hexagram about the Helpers waiting to be asked to help?” “Yes! Yes! Yes!” was the clear answer. This was to be the entire focus of the hexagram. No other hexagram, in writing this version, received such a complete reversal of its traditional meaning.

   A final point that we found interesting in this process was the fact that we were a year and a half into the project before we received Hexagrams 1 and 2. By that time we were ready to see that Hexagram 1 was speaking of the Cosmic Consciousness as the origin of all things, and Hexagram 2 as “all the things manifested into the forms we see as Nature.” This process, seen from our perspective today, nine years later, still astonishes us to think that such a book as this, with its nearly 700 pages, was written in just two years. There is simply no way we could have done this by relying entirely on our own minds and experiences. It was the product of our collaboration with the Sage that speaks through the I Ching.

   *Before Richard Wilhelm’s translation was published in Germany in 1924, more than five different translations of the I Ching had been made. These versions were little read outside the field of sinology. Even Wilhelm’s now famous translation languished unread until world-famous psychoanalyst, Carl G. Jung, wrote the Foreword to the English edition, calling the I Ching a mirror to the unconscious.

Article 6. The Meaning of True Understanding by Hanna Moog

   Several things happened in the last few days that helped me gain a new perspective on the meaning of true understanding:

   The Snowbell (being lifted up through transformations)

   The first thing that happened was that I caught five minutes on a radio program in which a woman who loves her profession in the field of botany explained how snowbells manage to come out of the ground while it is still covered with snow: The answer is that this is possible due to the natural intelligence of the metabolism in their bulbs. Just before the beginning of spring, their metabolism produces a temperature of up to 46 degrees F. The heat melts the snow so that the sprout can easily grow. It even drinks from the water that is set free by the melting of the snow!!

   How can we gain a true understanding of the nature of the Cosmos and its way of functioning

   As I went for a walk in the fields the next day, the Sage added another piece to the mosaic to answer my question of how we can gain a "true understanding."

    I need to mention that I had noticed to my chagrin that my mind had been overly busy. I was longing for my thinking to come to a rest. As I was walking along, the Sage drew my attention to my feet, my ankles, and my Achilles tendon. I was helped to see the connection between the habit of constantly thinking about more things to deprogram - a habit that comes from the ego - and the true meaning of under-standing. I realized that at the root of this problem is the false image of the Cosmos as a "huge mind," i.e., a thinking consciousness. This image, in turn, has given rise to the mistaken belief that "we need to understand the Cosmos from our mind." The truth is that the Cosmos is first and foremost a feeling consciousness (although it can also think) that is directly connected with our heart. When our mind seeks to understand things while it is separated from the true feelings of our heart, it is unable to understand the true nature of the Cosmos.

   I was reminded of the fact that when a question put to the Sage  “misses the point,” i.e., falls too far out of the way of the Cosmos, we are led around in circles without ever finding an answer. What leads us around in circles is the logic of the ego, from which the question originated. This is typical for a situation in which the ego is in charge of our search for understanding, our search for the truth. To use the example of the snowbell, we miss the point when we ask, “How does the snowbell manage to push up through the snow?” The idea of “pushing up” implies effort. The use of this expression reflects a way of thinking that contradicts even the laws of physics. The example of the snowbell illustrates that Nature functions through transformations. Consider, for example, photosynthesis, which is another well-known example of transformation. Transformation is another name for “the easy way.” This is also the meaning of the word “I” in “I Ching”: the I Ching is the book that shows us the easy way through initiating transformations that occur when we begin to see things in Cosmic terms. Whenever we are caught in ‘pushing up with effort’ (in this case, the effort of thinking), it helps to remember the example of the snowbell.

   When we are in that strenuous mode and put questions to the Sage that reflect the ego’s way of thinking, the Sage has to retreat. The Sage does this knowing with certitude that we will get to the point of burnout in our efforts. That burnout brings our mind automatically back in touch with our true feelings: we feel remorse over the separation that has occurred through unfortunate circumstances when we were young. Our deeply felt remorse reconnects us with the Cosmos, and, if not intercepted by the ego, is the first step in freeing our mind from its prison. (This is one of the meanings of Line 1 in Hexagram 40, Freeing.) If, however, our feeling of remorse is intercepted by the ego, it gets turned into self-blame, which only perpetuates the vicious circle.

   As I am writing this down, my understanding of the true nature of the Cosmos and how it functions has become expanded: I was helped to understand that our remorse reconnects us with the Cosmos without any need to make a mental effort, just as the snowbell manages to come out of the ground while it is still covered with snow.

Article 7. Infections of the Mind by Carol Anthony

   It has always amazed me how the Sage teaches through the I Ching. At first, we only get a vague feeling that we are receiving a “new lesson.” Then some time goes by when the subject presents itself again, defining it just a bit more. Then some time later, the missing Rosetta stone is revealed, at which point the message becomes clear and defined. In the end, we suspect that this process has been necessary for us to understand it.

   The following lesson began in the summer of 2011 when an I Ching friend sent us a link to a lecture by Dan Dennett on “memes.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_dennett_on_dangerous_memes.html

   For you who are unfamiliar with memes, the Meriam Dictionary describes them as “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture.”

   Dennett’s lecture focuses at first on a scientist who observed a peculiar ant-behavior that was clearly contrary to the ant’s biological imperative to survive, and which, indeed, brought about the ant’s death. Afterwards, a scientist examined the ant’s brain and found it had been invaded and damaged by a certain kind of fluke causing it to self-destruct.

   Dennett next compared this to the “memes” that influence the brains of humans, leading them to think in ways that are contrary to their biological imperative. He then showed a New Hampshire license place that has on it the revolutionary war slogan, “Live Free or Die.” Dennett then continued with a list of things that people have said are “worth dying for”: freedom, justice, truth, communism, capitalism, Catholicism, Islam, etc..

    His point gave a new angle to what we have learned from the I Ching, and have written about in our books: the deleterious effect that untrue words and ideas have on the human mind, psyche, and body.

   A seemingly unrelated question that long had been in my mind came after watching this video: why does the I Ching consistently make the point that evil is not an intrinsic part of our human makeup, and likewise is not intrinsic to the Cosmos? Always, when I experienced what I called “evil behavior,” it made me aware that those words were not true. It urged me to come to a deeper understanding.

   What “clicked” in me particularly while watching this video were the words “injection” and “infection.” I suddenly saw that all so-called evil behaviors are the result of infectious ideas that have been injected into the mind from an outside source. I had already learned that evil is the result of our being conditioned to think in ways that are in conflict with our true nature, but now these two new words made the matter clearer and simpler.

   The concept of “infections of the mind” came more vividly alive later when I happened to listen to a live performance of the opera, Otello, by Guiseppi Verdi. I had seen it both as an opera and in its original form in the Shakespeare play. This time, I was struck by the realization that Othello’s mind has been infected by an outright lie, told to  him by one of his lieutenants, Iago. The general situation is one in which Othello has chosen another lieutenant to replace him when he will soon be leaving for Venice. Iago, jealous of that lieutenant and seeking to discredit him and get the position for himself, has injected into Othello’s mind that his rival lieutenant is having an affair with, Desdemona, Othello’s wife. Othello disbelieves Iago at first, but Iago contrives “evidences” to prove his assertion, thus fixing Othello’s suspicion. From that point on, the infection grows in Othello to the full mental state of feeling utterly betrayed. These feelings are such that Desdemona’s innocent denials only seem to him to further prove her disloyalty. No sooner than he kills her than her maid, who happens to be Iago’s wife, enters, and in horror at what Othello has done, reveals Iago’s evidences to be false. In horror and remorse at what he has done, Othello then kills himself.

   A few more weeks passed by when the thought came that Shakespeare must have been fascinated with the way infectious ideas are being injected into the mind, because this theme occurs repeatedly in his tragedies. In King Lear, Hamlet, and MacBeth, a single negative idea, injected into the minds of the main characters, starts them on their totally self-destructive courses.

   King Lear, for example, has become infected with the self-flattering idea that he will give his kingdom to the daughter who best proves her love for him. He has expected that Cordelia, his favorite daughter, will be the one who will best say how much she loves him. However, it is his two ambitious daughters who floridly declare how much they love him, while behind his back they mock him. Cordelia, who truly loves him, finds herself unable to make a demonstration of her love. Lear’s insistence on this idea leads to both Lear’s and Cordelia’s destruction.

   In play after play, and even in the comedies, Shakespeare investigates the self-destructive nature of ideas that, coming from without, infect the minds of the characters around which his plots revolve. Measure For Measure is one such example in the comedies. The Duke, in this play, temporarily hands over his dukedom to a subordinate noted for his strict morality. This subordinate soon turns the place into a madhouse of morality as he seeks to make examples of immoral behavior, in order to “to clean up the dukedom.” His first example is a young gentleman who has got his bride-to-be pregnant; the penalty he proscribes is for the young man to be hanged at dawn. When the young gentleman’s sister comes to plead for her brother’s life, the subordinate, attracted by her in the extreme, tries to bargain her brother’s life in exchange for her acquiescing to his desire. Fortunately, the duke who has been studying the situation in the garb of a monk, reveals himself and puts all to rights.

   It seems that the main difference between the tragedies and the comedies, is that someone in the comedies, usually an unlikely person, puts the runaway infection in a sensible light, thus exposing its totally absurd nature.

   This is shown particularly well in The Merchant of Venice. The plot revolves around Antonio, who is about to lose a pound of his flesh to Shylock, because he is unable to pay back what Shylock has loaned him. Hearing of this, a woman friend of Antonio’s resolves the problem by disguising herself as a judge who intervenes in the case. She proposes to Shylock that while by law he is entitled to cut off a pound of Antonio’s flesh, he is not entitled to “a scruple more” than a pound. If he so much as cuts off the weight of a hair more, he himself shall die. Commonsense draws Shylock back from the brink of turning the play into a tragedy. We see a similar pattern repeated in The Winter’s Tale, even though the threat is not always a death threat, in the The Merry Wives of Windsor, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Tempest.

   What is it, I asked myself, that makes these “fictions” so interesting, “classic,” and timeless as pieces of literature? Is it because they reinforce in us an inner truth we all possess: that what we call evil is neither indigenous in us, nor part of the Cosmic way, but rather comes from abstract and false words — ideas planted in our minds, usually during our youth, that hide our true nature, which is totally good from our conscious awareness.

   I was also drawn to ask myself, what allowed that “bonfire” of vengeance to be lit in the mind of Othello, once he heard that his wife was unfaithful? Surely it was his pride, inflamed by the false words.

   Then came the question: what was behind that pride? How did it come about? The Sage answered that question, as well, namely, that pride is an ego emotion that is created the moment when, as a child, our innate dignity is injured. Usually, this happens when we are told, “you know nothing!” If this injury is not healed, pride then develops into a “compensatory system” that makes us think that we are in some way important. The pride system acts like a splint on a broken bone; it enables us, in limited ways, to use that bone until it has healed. Unfortunately, that healing usually does not fully take place. It is prevented by the false, but widespread view, that we are born faulty and lacking, and “there’s nothing we can do about that.” Pride thus becomes a permanent fixture in our psyche — our main way of compensating for the injuries to our psyche that subsequently occur. It is permanent until we find the way to heal that wound.

   Pride, being a makeshift system of compensations, is extremely vulnerable to ideas that either flatter the mind, or arouse it to a sudden defense. Hurt pride is the sickness behind all hate crimes. Pride makes us blind to the fact that everyone is born with dignity; that dignity is the Cosmic essence of our being. Dignity is also the sum-total of all our Cosmic possessions; it allows us to know innately what is harmonious and true, and what is not.

   Ideas that have the potential to infect the mind are bound up with idealistic virtues propounded by the culture we live in. In the case of Hamlet, it is the “virtuous” duty put on him by his father’s ghost, to avenge his father’s murder — an idea that was quite common in the Middle Ages. In Measure for Measure, it is the virtue of blind obeisance to the letter of the law that is enforced by the threat: “either you obey it or you will be executed.” Today’s form of “execution” is not so literal; rather it occurs in the form of  condemning people for their mistakes.

   We little realize that pride-based ideas have a strong hold on us until such time as that original deep wound to our dignity has been healed. For most of us who have grown up in the Western cultures, that idea is that “our original nature is faulty, and the source of evil in us.” We free ourselves from it by deprogramming (utterly rejecting) that idea with Cosmic help. In this way, our natural dignity is released from its prison. From that new place of full self-possession we can then discover and dispense with ideas that have been driving us to self-destruct.

Article 8. The Inner Truth of the Year 2012 by Hanna Moog

   In the more than three thousand years the I Ching has been around, the book has often erroneously been viewed as a fortunetelling device – as if the future were something prewritten. In Hexagram 25 called “Innocence/Not Projecting/Not Expecting,” the I Ching shows this assumption to be false. “Innocence” refers to our original innocent state of mind that brings us into harmony with the Cosmos and its harmonious order.

   The year 2012 is characterized by worldwide crises in almost every aspect of our lives. These crises manifest from the disharmonious consciousness created in the minds of people by disharmonious words, ideas, and beliefs. The I Ching helps us, by connecting us with our deepest inner truth to see that we are by nature part of a harmonious Cosmic order. Disharmonious words, ideas, and beliefs create the disorder we experience.

   We possess, by nature, an inner truth that is in harmony with the Cosmos. Our inner truth is a feeling knowledge, that would light our path, and enable us to respond to its inspirations harmoniously. When we follow this inner light, the word “crisis” takes on the meaning of “opportunity” — the opportunity to find the Cosmic solutions to problems that benefit the whole.

   How does our mind lose its innocence? It happens when it elevates itself over all other things in Nature by imagining that it is “special” due to its ability to think and express itself in verbal language. Looking down from its high place, our mind no longer listens to our inner truth, but plots and plans from a purely mental approach to life. It thus shuts the door to what is possible when we follow our inner truth and creates a self-made prison. The walls of that prison are made of the limitations given by the parameters of time and space, and by what we think we “should do.” The relevance of this fact becomes clear when we realize that our inner truth exists in a dimension beyond time and space, which we can call the dimension of eternity. In practical terms, it is the realm of possibility.

   The salient point here is that the Cosmic reality of which we are an integral part comprises both the dimension that is subject to time and space (the world of all the forms in Nature), and the other dimensions that exist beyond time and space. The I Ching shows us that the forms in Nature are compressed Cosmic Consciousness. The act of being compressed into form and thereby becoming subjected to the parameters of time and space occurs through transformations in the atomic realm. We can picture the process in this way: something that first exists as a harmonious feeling in the Cosmic Consciousness takes on the form of an image in the Cosmic Consciousness. Transformations then compress this image into a form in Nature that corresponds to its original image. Thus, the process of “becoming form” begins in a dimension that is beyond time and space. Although the thing has become a form, it has duration in the sense that it always remains connected with the eternal dimension. Thanks to this connection, the thing participates in constant transformations. The name for this wonderful ability is LIFE.

   By contrast, let us look at what happens when our mind projects an image that is caught in the limitations of time and space: while that image can take on form, its form lacks a connection with the unlimited Cosmic Consciousness, and is therefore lifeless.

   The I Ching shows us the difference between these two kinds of reality: the first is the Cosmic reality; it is characterized by a way of life that is in accord with the Cosmic Principles of Harmony. The second is a fake, parallel reality created by the human mind from abstract ideas that are contrived; that reality is lifeless, and therefore cannot endure. This truth becomes evident in the fact that abstract ideas inevitably produce crises. However, what seems to be the possible “end of the world” is really the end of the false, parallel reality that has been established in the lap of the Cosmic reality. The collapse of false constructs reveals the underlying Cosmic reality that has duration. What the collective crises mean for the individual is something each of us, as individuals, needs to investigate. One way is through consulting the I Ching. What we learn from it is that we each have a Cosmic destiny to fulfill; first, however, we need to become aware of our unique Cosmic possessions.

   The purpose of consulting the I Ching is to reconnect our mind with our inner truth and thereby with the Cosmic Consciousness. To make this possible our mind needs to be willing to come down from its high horse of delusionary thinking. This is neither done by incriminating ourselves nor by committing acts of repentance; the belief in fighting the crisis equally misses the point. Rather, returning to innocence is an act of freeing ourselves individually of the neurotic pride that is the cause of the world’s problems. When our mind thus takes its true place in the Cosmos, the result is “supreme success,” as it is put in Hexagram 14, Possession in Great Measure. Once reconnected with our inner truth, our mind then needs to tune into the images and inspirations it receives from this inner source, and follow them.

   In this way, our mind, instead of functioning on self-created abstract ideas that have increasingly isolated it from its Cosmic source, joins the Cosmic evolution. This act of self-correcting can only be carried out by each of us individually. Self-correcting enables us to make our creative contribution to manifesting the harmonious Cosmic order on the Earth. The energy that is set free when our mind lets go of its arrogance is then transformed into the creative energy we need, in order to express our uniqueness as individuals.

   What becomes clear from the above description is that true progress is made through returning to our original state of innocence, which is synonymous with returning to our true nature. Hexagram 24, Returning, describes this process in the following words:

   “‘Returning’ indicates the direction in which the path of development leads: back to the person’s original nature. It does not lead forward, through cultivating virtues; nor does it mean trying to become something we are not; rather, it is a process of continuously subtracting, or weeding out what we have falsely added. Each step on this path leads to increasing light and relief. We take this path through ceasing to look outward for solutions to problems; we look inward instead. Each hexagram of the I Ching illuminates some hidden part of our psyche that, through giving the mind pre-eminence, we have left behind; thus, it helps us to discover and reclaim our true nature.”

   A final note: What we have described above may sound abstract because we are not relating it to specific experiences, but everything we have written about the I Ching is based either on our own experiences in everyday life, or the experiences of people who have worked with our book “I Ching. The Oracle of the Cosmic Way,” and who have shared with us what they learned.