An Introduction to the Yi Fa Society

What is the Yi Fa Society really about?

The Steps of Human Consciousness

 There's a teaching in Chinese mysticism that there are two levels of our consciousness. They're associated with the concepts in the I Ching of the "inferior person" and "superior individual". 

At every moment in space and time we have a choice of which of the two we associate with in our active consciousness, but most people in general associate with the inferior person. The inferior person is a collection of influences and conditionings based on your physical nature, your environment, and the influences of your past and present choices and people in your life.

The Superior Individual is your true nature, what is real about you behind all those things. But in point of fact most people are so disconnected from their true and essential nature that it feels like it is another person. In many rituals used to "communicate" with the Superior Individual, that division is so notable that it feels like the Superior individual is some totally different entity from "ourselves", which is why in western symbolism its called the "Holy Guardian Angel". 

This is also why when one is trying to shift the association of their consciousness from the inferior person to the Superior Individual it feels like dying, like the very essence of who were until now (or rather, who you thought you were) has to be destroyed for you to get to that true self. In a lot of cases, people's motives for getting to that true state involve desires OF the inferior person, so they realize that to get to what's real, they'll have to give up the fantasies of the false person they were, and that's very hard.

This internal conflict is mirrored externally by the struggle between (the inferior person) wanting to imagine one's self the center of the universe, and wanting to have a power that acts on the universe and get to impose its desires on the universe, and the (Superior Individual's) understanding that we are one non-divisible part of reality and are not the central actor but one small part of a very big picture in the vastness of Space and Time, and how this is not something that can just be reasoned out, but has to be experienced through meditative practice and the application of virtue to restore that Union with the Taiji (what in modern English we could call the "Singularity").


So in fact while most of these sorts of studies and articles and ordinary perceptions on the subject of "enlightenment" talk about a two-option process (unconsciousness / enlightenment), the work of spiritual Cultivation is actually a multi-step process of initial glimpses of waking up, initiation, developing discipline, achieving communication with the Superior Individual (in western magick called the "True Will"), working to change one's life and environment to better fit one's efforts at attainment and union, making the shift from general association with the inferior person to general association with the Superior Individual, engaging in teaching or other forms of applying Virtue in the world, attaining states of Union to reality, and finally manifesting that Union fully and becoming the Sage (Enlightenment). There are steps Beyond Enlightenment as well but these are generally not spoken of in lay contexts.

Of the above stages, the big three are:

- Initiation: the beginning of awareness of one's Enlightenment quality, and the start of serious spiritual cultivation.

-Adepthood: the shift into association with the Superior Individual

-Enlightenment: uniting to nature or space-time as a whole (which is to say, overcoming this false notion of separation between self and other, and the self-referencing nature of "thinking you're in the middle of the picture").

 

Finally, I'll note that the very notion that Enlightenment is some kind of separation from the World or one's humanity is ridiculous and disgusting. That's essentially either nihilism or solipsism, the heresies of the gnostics. You can't become "one with everything" by being less human, or less engaged. 

Anyone claiming to be Enlightened while pretending that they don't care about things, or feel things, or that there are certain normal human things that they just don't experience (be it anger, sadness, physical pain, or basic physical needs) are both arguing for Enlightenment being a kind of sub-humanity, and blatant liars.

Enlightenment requires, as my own teacher once said, that you Be More Human.

It's not about separating yourself, it's about Showing Up, being present in the active consciousness.
It's not about feeling less or caring less, it's about Totality. Becoming one part of the big picture, without trying to run away from that big picture, or trying to be right in the middle of that big picture, or trying to control that big picture. It's about being 100% of yourself in the here and now.

You Don't Matter and That's The Only Way To Matter

A video today, explaining our relationship to the universe, and the path to Union.

Video: Freedom is the Basis of All Spiritual Transformation

In this week's video, I talk about freedom, on both the level of the individual and also of society. And I try to explain that freedom is the fundamental requirement for spiritual transformation in an individual; and that a society that values freedom is going to be more open to evolve socially than one who disregards the freedom of the individual.

Chapter 50 of the Path and the Power (Tao Te Ching )

In this new video, I read chapter 50 from my new book, The Path and the Power, a new interpretation of the Tao Te Ching, with commentary. 

You can get a free PDF copy of the Path and the Power if you sign up to the Swami's Newsletter, which will give you one or two updates a month with recent teachings and new material just for subscribers.

You can join the Newsletter by following the link on the video description or by clicking on the "Newsletter Sign Up" link to the right of this blog.

(note that it's an interactive sign-up form so you need to make sure that if you have "noscript" or "adblock" or programs like that on your browser you may have to allow the page's script to see it!  When you sign up, the link to the Path and the Power will be found in the Welcome e-mail sent to you on sign up, so be sure to read that)

The Great Work, Healing, and Growth

Is personal 'healing', physical or emotional, a part of the Great Work?

The Great Work has many levels at which it operates. 
In the Microcosmic, it has to do with growth, expanding consciousness, the achievement of the Superior Individual, and Enlightenment.
In the Macrocosmic, it has to do with the spiritual evolution of humanity. There's much more teaching on this subject in Levels 2 and 3 of the curriculum.

As to 'healing' think of it like this: imagine there's a complex knot tied in a string, and that knot is in a tiny box (say, 2 inches by 2 inches).  The perspective most people have on "healing" is like trying to untie that knot in that tiny little box, because the knot occupies almost all of the space in the box.

Growth is where you expand that box, so the space is now 2 feet by 2 feet; or 2 yards by 2 yards, or 2 miles by 2 miles. So now, that knot that seemed so huge occupies just a tiny little space in the box. At that point, if it was necessary, the knot would be much easier to untie; but you might find that the knot is now so small that it won't really need to be untied at all, it can just be there, as one tiny part of the large space.

On the Scope of the Great Work

On a personal level, the Great Work involves each individual's progress to manifesting the Superior Individual, and attaining to the level of the Sage (Enlightenment).

But on a greater scale, the Great Work involves the spiritual evolution of humanity as a whole.
In that greater scale, the work you do applying Virtue in the world is not meant to change the world at this present time, but to lay down currents of Change that will change the world over the course of cosmic Time. 

Presidencies, nations and whole civilizations will come and go while we perform the Great Work.
Things happening in the world now are the ripple-effect of things Initiates did 300 years ago.

The things we do with consciousness now will ripple forward to change the entire world 300 years from now.
The Great Work on this scale is done not for one's own gratification, because it is not anything any of us will live to see.





It is work to change the future.

The Curriculum of the Yi Fa Society, Level 3

Each level of the Yi Fa Society has its own curriculum, with new material presented for the student's growth, practice and study.  Previous entries already detailed the Curriculum of Level 1, and Level 2.

The Curriculum of Level 3, in brief, consists of the following points:

1. The "Great Book of Yi Fa": a 95-page "secret text", this book elaborates on some of the mysteries already revealed about the philosophy of Yi Fa, the practices of Yi Fa Qi Gong, and the great work of Enlightenment (personal and universal).

2. The Guide to the Taijitu:  this short text consists of an explanation of the Taijitu, the I Ching cosmology's equivalent of the Qabalistic Tree of Life (though it is in fact older than the Tree of Life), and how the different dimensions of manifested reality unfold.

3.  The Level 3 Yi Fa Qi Gong exercise. This is a secret exercise taught only to members of level 3 of the Yi Fa Society program.

4.  The Zhong Yong: a 9-page text on cosmology, philosophy and virtue, revealing the nature of the Middle Pillar.

5. An exercise for understanding the Image of the Hexagrams.

6. The basic instruction on the techniques of Qi Extension.


These advanced teachings are only available to those students who are members of the Yi Fa Society and complete the Level 1 & 2 curriculum.

If you are interested in membership in the Yi Fa Society, please contact me!

On Contemplating The Illusion of Human Control

Everyone on earth
feels like they don't know what they're doing with their life
feels like they are out of control
feels like they're wearing a mask

That is because it's true.
No one knows what they're doing with their life
no one is in control of their life
everyone is wearing a mask to be able to speak to others

The Enlightened one is not
the guy who knows
the guy who is in control
the guy who has no mask

The Enlightened one is the guy who realizes
there is no way to know what you're doing
you just have to go with it
there is no way to be in control
you just have to jump
there is nothing behind the mask
but if you see this you can wear any mask you like

People grasp at the Tao
like a falling man grasping for a parachute

But the Tao isn't a parachute
It's the sky

The bad news is
you are falling and there is no rescue
you can fight to slow your descent but you can't stop
there is nothing to grab on to.
You can glide a little but you cannot fly.

the good news is
There is no ground.

Qi, Gong, Spirits, and Magick

 (The following is an excerpt from a teaching to a Yi Fa Society student, who had inquired about the role of spirits in the Yi Fa system, compared to the important role spirits play in western magick. Its relevance is mainly for students who are working at Level 2, but may be of interest to those in Level 1 of the Yi Fa Curriculum or to non-members curious about the relationship between the Yi Fa Curriculum, which is in essence a system of mysticism/magick inspired by Eastern cosmology, and the traditional systems of western magick in the hermetic tradition)


"First, I have to preface by saying that you should not under-estimate Qi.
Qi is only 'kind of weak' compared to Gong.
In fact, Qi can be used to do all sorts of things.
Qi, when it is applied to cultivation practice, is essentially a measurement of Will. If you consider in western magick just how important Will is, you also have an idea of just how important Qi is.

Gong, on the other hand, represent a measurement of one's "Enlightenment Quality".
It doesn't measure Will, it measures Consciousness.

The difference in the 'power' of these two is that Qi can change things in reality, while Gong can change reality itself. Qi is limited by the particular environmental conditions found in nature/reality at a given time; Gong is limited only by the laws that make up nature/reality.

Spirits, like humans, contain Qi and can manipulate Qi.
Like humans, they can also potentially receive Gong. Although it is usually impossible for them to do so without some form of human intervention.

Think of it like this: in western magick, planetary spirits, angels, demons, whatever you want to call it, have their own power. But they generally can't actually accomplish miraculous effects without the human intervention of the magician. In Buddhism and Hinduism you see the same: the power of the Buddha requires human intervention.

So the formula in western magick is that spirits (of whatever type) have power in their own domains, sometimes immense power, but to be able to make Change occur, it depends on human beings interacting with them. And yet, human beings can only EFFECTIVELY interact with them if they first have the 'Authority" to do so. That "authority" being either their own level of Enlightenment or the obtaining of authority through a divine hierarchy: for example, a (regular) magician trying to do evocation must first perform an Invocation of Adonai, Adonai himself is the link to YHVH; so first the magician goes up the hierarchy, through Adonai to YHVH, gets the authority, and then can summon and bind the demon by that authority.
An Adept, because of their level of attainment, has a kind of permanent authority, so they can do this with much less effort.
Note: for "Adonai" and "YHVH", you can also supplant with the current of THELEMA, and its entities/formulae in modern magick.

In the YI FA system it works much the same way.
So spirits can be summoned. They must be directed through the authority of the cultivator, that authority must come from the Taiji, through the authority of the YI FA current (which is coequal to the current of Thelema).
Spirits can then be of assistance.

Spirits could also receive gong, in theory, if connected in some long-term way to a cultivator; but this is usually not a good situation, because it is Gong that they are getting from in essence doing the practitioner's cultivation for them.  Thus it is Gong they get that the practitioner does not. This only happens when a practitioner is using a spirit in a bad way (as a short cut to their own cultivation), so you probably don't need to worry about it right now.  More information about this sort of thing is detailed in Level 3.

One of the key differences between the Yi Fa system and western magick is that western magick is far more externally focused.  Yi Fa recognizes the existence of and utility of spirits, but places internal cultivation and internal power first and foremost. Spirits can be used to try to achieve change that the one's own internal Qi cannot so easily accomplish, but this is something to do in those sorts of specific circumstances and not as a first option. Thus the Yi Fa system always puts your own consciousness and ability first and foremost.




(if you are interested in joining the Yi Fa Society and working its curriculum, which is a complete system of esoteric training, please contact me!)

The Relationship Between "Spritual" and "Reality"

There is a great spiritual difference between spiritual teachings and religions that place the unmanifested above the manifested, and those that do not.  Just as there are materialistic philosophies which deny anything 'spiritual', there are also anti-materialist belief systems that deny the material in favor of something they choose to imagine as 'spiritual', separate from the material.

In ancient China, all three concepts existed.  There were strictly materialist philosophies that denied anything but the manifest, the "Yi-fa".  There were likewise many movements that wanted to envision the universe as a universe of immaterial 'spirit' and that the manifested world was either an illusion or a corruption, something inferior to the pure and unsullied 'spiritual world'.

But if you study the I Ching and the teachings of the great Sages, it becomes evident that neither of these are a correct reflection of reality.

This same conflict existed in many other places and times, with other names; certain "gnostic" sects in the west claimed that our world was nothing but an illusion.  The institutional forms of Buddhism made similar claims, many of them ascribing a higher position to some 'spiritual' world that the Buddha himself denied.

In The Magician's I Ching, I have detailed the story of the debate between Zhang Shi and Zhu Xi, and Zhu Xi's quest to achieve enlightenment as to the true nature of reality, and how to reconcile the difference between the unmanifested (Wei Fa) and the manifested (Yi Fa).  It is unsurprising that after coming to realization, Zhu Xi would strongly advocate the study and practice of the I Ching, because within it, it uncovers the truth of this relationship.

Some would-be mystics want to conceive of the nature of reality as a kind of top-down hierarchy where the lowest and least important level of reality is the manifested world.  But consider the I Ching: a hexagram contains, within it, the trigrams. Trigrams contain, within them, the Yin and the Yang.  Within Yin and Yang are found the Taiji (the undivided polarity). Within the Taiji is the the Wuji (the boundless), and within that boundlessness is Wu (emptiness).

Without trying to confuse scientific concepts with mystical ones, this can't help but bring to mind the nature of physical reality as we understand it today: how within objects there are molecules, those are composed of atoms, atoms are composed of protons and electrons, within those there are quantum particles, and inside all of this is empty space. Reality is not top-down, it is a whole, and that whole has layers, more fundamental and basic layers, and more complex outer layers.

This is the functioning of reality, and it is essential to understand if you are going to practice a real system of cultivation (because any spiritual practice not based on reality will not get you very far)!  The Manifested (Yi Fa) and the Unmanifested (Wei Fa) must of necessity both exist, they are both real, but the only place where the unmanifested can possibly exist is within the Manifested.  Wei Fa is not 'outside' or 'beyond' Yi Fa, it is only real within Yi Fa.

This is important to spiritual practice, because it means that Wei Fa, for the practitioner, can only be reached through the Yi Fa. You can't reject the body, reject the world, reject reality, and go off into some spiritual wonderland that is somehow beyond all that, because there is nothing to connect to there. You cannot find the Unity of all things by rejecting any thing. You have no tools to connect to the truly 'spiritual' if you ignore your body, your mind, your world, and your interactions with the world. This place, this world, our bodies, our awareness, all the things that exist in the manifested reality are the alchemical laboratory of our self-transformation. Without them, you can go nowhere. 

"Form and Meaning" vs. "Image and Number"

Since early in the history of the I Ching, there has been a division among I Ching thinkers and practitioners between two ways to approach the system: there is the "image and number" aspect, and the "form and meaning" aspect.



"Image and number" refers to looking at the I Ching as an esoteric teaching based on numerology, sacred mathematics, predictive systems and a method of structural analysis of ourselves and cosmology.  On the other hand, in the "form and meaning" aspect, the emphasis is placed on the philosophical and allegorical value of the I Ching; in how it functions as a life-teaching, as a guide to a variety of human functions.  So the "image and number" school looks at how the I Ching teaches us the esoteric mysteries of the universe, and the prediction of the future; while the "form and meaning" school emphasized how the I Ching teaches us everything from self-improvement, to leadership, to how to relate to others, and the development of personal and social virtue.

 Both perspectives are imperfect.  The "image and number" perspective is often prone to getting lost in numerological nonsense, and does not focus on Virtue.  But the "form and meaning" perspective tends to be ungrounded, ignoring the cosmological basis of the I Ching that justifies not just what to do, but why it is legitimate to do do these things.  Also, the "form and meaning" teachings often end up being based on speculation or on projecting outside interpretations onto the I Ching: expressing a Taoist understanding of I Ching, or a Buddhist understanding of I Ching, or a Confucian understanding of I Ching, or a psychological understanding of I Ching, or a new age understanding of I Ching, etc.  But in doing so they lose sight of the primacy of the I Ching itself.

The real answer is to use the aim of the Form & Meaning school, while using some of the methods of the Image & Number school.  The I Ching itself must be in the center of any interpretation of the I Ching! And it must be understood as a teaching system for attaining the Superior Individual.

It does so through a set of images and mathematical structures, which demonstrate a solid quality of the nature of change and time. This is the very Real foundation of the I Ching; not in projection but in operative Truth.  The lines and messages of the I Ching in turn teach the philosophical processes necessary to use those symbols to distance one's self from the Inferior Person and approach the Superior Individual.

In many ways, the core concept of the Image and Number school was to treat the I Ching as a system of divination; and the core concept of the Form and Meaning school was to treat the I Ching as a philosophy and guide to Enlightenment.   But a divination system that doesn't serve as a system for self-transformation and guide to enlightenment just goes around in circles; and a philosophical teaching about Enlightenment that has no practical construct of cosmological understanding cannot begin to change the person (that is, if you do not have a METHOD by which to 'do' the teaching, the teaching is left to be only an intellectual distraction).  So we need to apply the method of divination to the aim of enlightenment.

When, Where and How to Practice Qi Gong

There are many things that can affect your ability to process Qi, most of these internal. What in Qi Gong is often called your 'enlightenment level' (just how Conscious you are), your physical health, whether or not you are under stress, how many distractions there might be and whether you allow them to be distractions, your will (to "show up" for the practice and do it with your main consciousness), and of course the cultivation of Virtue.

And it is important to note that ALL phenomena are 'natural' phenomena from the perspective of Yi Fa, so there is no special advantage in and of itself between practicing on a mountaintop or practicing in the middle of a mall. But of course, that difference could cause differences in those internal conditions I already mentioned. If where you are is more appealing to you, changes your stress level, makes you more willing to show up, etc, it will put you in a better frame of practice. So the golden rule is: do Qi Gong where you feel most inclined to do it, if possible (but above all else, DO QI GONG, do it every day, regardless of whether circumstances are ideal).

There is one external difference that is more important than any other I have found: Qi Gong practice is much more effective if done in a space that has some kind of opportunity for circulation of air. So if you are doing Qi Gong in a place with all the doors and windows closed, it will be less effective. If you are doing it in a small room with the door locked it will be less effective than doing it even in a bigger room with a door to some other rooms open. Practicing in a big indoor space, or outdoors, is more effective than in a small enclosed space.

(the former is from a letter to a Yi Fa Society student.  If you are interested in personal training in Qi Gong and the whole system of internal alchemy worked by the Yi Fa Society, please contact me regarding membership)