New Video: The Importance of Symbols, and Why the West is Losing It

Symbols are the secret language of humanity; the language that operates on a deeper level than surface speech. Universal symbols are common to all human beings and operate on a fundamental level to our human nature; while each culture also has specific symbolic languages that act as their own particular dialect of the human experience, which allows their culture to function.

In the 1960s, the Chinese declared war on their own symbolic language (that began in the I Ching), and it came at a terrible cost. Today, the West has done much the same, and if you lose this language of symbols, really bad things happen to your culture:

Getting the Right Answer From the I Ching

I've had a number of people who have expressed difficulty with being able to get a coherent or useful answer out of their I Ching castings.

When I help them analyze their casting, it is quite often, certainly more than half the time, that the very first thing that becomes evident to me is that the caster did not take the time to formulate the ideal question.

This is the most important part of an I Ching casting, in the sense that it is the first thing you must figure out, and forms the ground for everything that comes after!

The nature and quality of your question will fundamentally determine the answer you receive.

The nature of your question speaks to the state of mind you have at the moment of making the casting: part of formulating the right question is not just a matter of the question itself, but of taking the time to contemplate and center yourself, to be in the right state to approach the casting.

So remember, first and foremost, when you are going to cast the I Ching, first give yourself a good while to work out what you want your question to be. Think about what it is you really need to know about the situation you want to cast about, and how you can phrase that in a way that will present you with the right sort of answers you can actually use.

Just "Being In The Moment" is Useless

"In the moment" is kind of a tricky term. Because in fact no matter what, we're ALWAYS 'in the moment'. The real question is whether we're Conscious in the moment, and what that means. Just 'living in the moment' is nothing special, and it's actually useless.

 

 

Fundamentally, being Conscious in the Moment is about bringing the Future INTO the moment. It means being sufficiently aware of one's own self that you expand through Space/Time in this very moment to be able to INCLUDE where you've already been and where you're likely to be into this moment.

So what does this do? It gives you free Will. Without this Active Consciousness, you are still here, in the moment but the moment is actually very small, so small that you don't really have the power to really control what happens to you. You are a prisoner of the past and doomed toward a given future because you're not Aware enough to Change anything.

If you are Conscious in the Moment, then Space/Time is all existing right there, in that moment. The gives us the power to move; to change. What has led us to here, and where here can lead to, is part of our Awareness, and we can alter it.

Just being 'in the moment' without any Consciousness is basically being an animal or a robot.

On the other hand, being Conscious in the Moment means that you have the power to transform reality itself.