Living near Boston, we have experienced extreme amounts of snow in the past weeks, and we know that the same is true for other parts of the Northeast and the upper Midwest of the country. Friends in California, on the other hand, have reported conditions of extreme drought. Although snow, cold, and snow storms have happened before, the persistence of this pattern over North America gives every reason to look into the deeper causes.
We decided to take the question to the Sage, and asked to be shown the inner truth of the situation. We learned that it needs to be seen as a fate people have created. From our experience in working with the I Ching we know that a fate has several purposes: (1) to make a person aware of a mistaken idea he has, as for example, about his relationship with the Cosmos; (2) to give the person an opportunity to correct his thinking, with Cosmic help; and (3) to restore the harmony of the Cosmos, which has been violated by the mistaken idea. In short, Fate as one of the Cosmic Principles of Harmony has the overall purpose of maintaining the harmony of the Cosmic Order, while at the same time offering us humans the opportunity to learn about its order. Fate acts like a boomerang in that it returns the damage caused by a mistaken idea to its originator. It is in this way that it makes us aware that all mistaken ideas create disorder.
However, the fact that every fate also offers us the opportunity to correct the mistaken idea that has created it, deserves our particular attention, because it means that the fate can be ended when we have recognized its purpose and correct our thinking. Cosmic help is available to us when we are willing to do so.
The Sage confirmed to us that this opportunity is also given in the present situation. It was now time to find out which mistaken idea had caused this fate for North America. We need to add here that it has been our experience that even though people in other parts of the world may be sharing a particular mistaken idea, the fate may only occur in a limited area, as a warning, so to speak. This situation is described in Line 3 of Hexagram 51, Shock, in the words: “Shock comes and makes one distraught. If shock spurs to action, one remains free of misfortune.” The counsel to take “action” in the I Ching always refers to inner action. Most often, it points to the need to identify a mistaken idea and deprogram it with Cosmic help. “If shock spurs to action, one remains free of misfortune,” makes us aware that when we are in the position of an observer of a fate that affects someone else, we need to reflect on what the fate wants to tell us. Fates that have been interpreted as the consequences of “global warming” have already occurred in other parts of the world, but their warning nature has at best spurred dire predictions rather than reflections as to their basic cause.
Clearly, we needed the Sage’s help to find that basic cause. Once we understood it, we were able to see that “the production of greenhouse gases” was only another symptom, or what can be called a “secondary cause.” The primary cause is what the Sage has shown us in previous lessons as “The Doubter.” This name refers to a demonic coping mechanism that becomes installed in our rational mind when we adopt the following two mistaken ideas about ourselves: “In and of ourselves we are not special enough,” and “Only the eyes can see the truth.” The Sage has made us aware that the invention of the word “special” violates the Cosmic Principle of Equal Worth of every thing that is part of the Cosmos. That Principle is complemented by another: the Cosmic Principle of the Uniqueness of every thing that is part of the Cosmos. What is unique cannot be compared to anything else. The word “special” separates us from our original unity with the Cosmos by setting a false standard. To be told as individuals that ‘we are not special enough’ makes us strive to become something special (which is an abstract word without meaning), while the second phrase gives our sense of outer seeing the sole authority to assert “the truth.”
The Sage has shown us that “The Doubter” is also the origin of the human-centered view, in which humankind sees itself as special, and as the center of the universe around which everything revolves. This view is ultimately the cause for all the disorder humans have created in the world. (See Hexagram 11, Harmony, Peace, Prosperity.)
Obviously, this article is not the place to explain in detail the way the Cosmos functions, and the belief systems humans have created through projecting their human-centered ideas onto their relationship with the Cosmos.
However, the Sage drew our attention to destructive habits of mind that are part of the human-centered view. One such habit needs particular mention in the context of today’s lesson: the habit of taking what we see with our eyes to be “true,” and then drawing conclusions from what is actually a half-truth. Those false conclusions are then projected into the future, where they can become self-fulfilling prophesies.
This makes us realize that by ignoring the inner truth (here: the true cause) of the fate humans not only fail to end it, but actually accelerate the fate.
The reader may ask, how under the conditions that scientists have observed regarding the “warming of the arctic” and the various other natural phenomena caused by it, it should be possible to halt the development of “global warming.” Is it a question of having faith? The Sage does not support faith, rather it wants us to learn something new about the way the Cosmos functions. It happens that the “new” has something to do with a Cosmic Principle first tapped into by Albert Einstein: the Cosmic Principle of Relativity.
The Sage has shown us that the Laws of Nature must not be taken as absolute, because they are complemented by the Cosmic Principles of Harmony. The latter are not limited by the parameters of time-and-space, and therefore give the Laws of Nature their relative quality. This is the aspect that is not taken into account when predictions are being made by scientists. It is not within our capacity as humans to imagine how this fate will be ended, nor how long it will take. All we are meant to do is keep our minds innocent, i.e., free of predictions or expectations.
The Sage summarized today’s lesson in the following two hexagrams: Hexagram 41, Decreasing, and Hexagram 42, Increasing. We were counseled to put a request to the “Helper of the Cosmic Principle of Relativity” to free the land and the atmosphere from the negative effects of the human-centered view. Its “decrease” will bring “increase” to the Earth and to us humans in general.
(For more about the Helper of the Cosmic Principle of Relativity see Article #12.)