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.

An Excerpt From a Level-4 Yi Fa Text: Advanced Commentaries

II. The Vast in the Small

People want to imagine a top-down vision of reality, where there is some "higher" and "greater" true reality, and their everyday ordinary world is just some pale shadow of the real thing.

This perspective on reality will lend itself to escapism. Even many models of creation, like the Qabalistic Tree of Life or the older Taijitu Tree of Life, give one the impression that our material world is at the "lowest" point and everything else is higher (and thus it is suggested, more important).

But imagine if you held those models upside-down! The World of 10000 things is the final, most completely diverse manifestation of reality.

In fact, the idea of 'up' and 'down' is factually irrelevant; there is no level of reality that is "more real" or "less real" than another. But what is true is that the root of creation begins with the simplest form, and grows in complexity into the final form. 

Consider the Taijitu: the simplest forms are Wu and Wuji, which are both types of emptiness. Emptiness is present in all levels of creation. Emptiness by definition cannot be either small or large; you can find conceive of emptiness as the tiniest gap or the largest expanse, and without anything else present (to provide boundaries for it) you cannot really consider it to have 'size' at all. Thus Wuji is "boundless".

Then there is Taiji, the ALL. The Taiji must emerge out of Wuji, as it is a more complex thing; Taiji is all that exists and all that is empty at once.

Then there are the two poles: Yin and Yang. These must emerge from the Taiji, because again they are more complex and diverse. The Sixiang emerge from Yin and Yang, the Bagua from the Sixiang, and the World of Ten Thousand Things from the Bagua.

So where could you go that is not part of the World of Ten Thousand Things to find the Bagua? Where could you go apart from the Bagua to find the Sixiang? It is like if you had an object: to find molecules you would have to look inside that object; to find atoms inside that molecule, to find electrons inside that atom, to find quarks inside that electron. You can't go looking for the building-blocks of reality by ignoring the very small, because it the more fundamental things are the smaller things that make up the more complex forms.

The Qabalists have a saying about Kether and Malkuth (the highest and lowest points on their tree of life): "Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether". It is the same in the Taijitu: The Taiji can only be found within the Hexagrams, and the Hexagrams are found within the Taiji. There's no place you could look for the Taiji, nowhere to "seek out the Tao", except within the Yi Fa (the manifested reality); and at the same time, you cannot find the Ten Thousand Things except within the Taiji.

It is the same way with yourself: people want to escape their material existence to seek out some kind of "higher plane" but you cannot find any such "higher" plane. You can find the vastness of reality only by going within, not by escaping to some other place. When the Celestial Eye is opened, what you see are vast universes: those universes all exist in the Yi Fa. In fact, they all exist within your own body, and your body exists within them.

So understand that the vastness of what you will begin to experience is not some other world, it is in fact the hidden interiors of this very Manifested Reality. It is within you.

(if you are interested in joining the Yi Fa society to work through a structured curriculum of spiritual/esoteric Cultivation training for self-transformation,  please contact me for an application)

An Explanation of The Generation of Changing Lines

In the system of the yarrow method of I Ching casting, when you have two small piles of yarrow and one large pile, that is a Yin line (the Yin being the 'small' piles), and when you have two large piles and one small pile, that is a Yang line (the Yang being the 'large' piles).

So some students of the I Ching have expressed confusion as why three small (yin) piles would be a Yang changing into Yin, or conversely three large (yang) piles would be a Yin changing into Yang.

 

Imagine the image of the Taiji:
































It is Yin and Yang, intermingling. Within the yin there is a centerpoint of yang; and within the yang a centerpoint of yin.

So at the very core of Yin is the most yin of anything possible; it is so overflowing with yin, that it takes on the nature of Yang.
Likewise at the very core of Yang is the most yang of anything possible; it is so overflowing with yang that it takes on the nature of Yin.

The former is in fact Yang that is inevitably transforming into Yin, that is the only direction it can go.
Likewise, the latter is Yin that is inevitably transforming into Yang.

So this is why in the casting, when you have three small (yin) piles, it is manifested as a Yang that is becoming a Yin.
And when you have three large (yang) piles, it is manifested as a Yin that is becoming a Yang.

That is the reason.
And the reason is reflected in the probabilities of the casting method, because these forces are not equal in nature; in nature Yin is more stable, so it is less common for Yin (the stable but weak) to become Yang (volatile but strong), than for Yang (strong, but volatile) to weaken into the more stable Yin.




"Weak but stable" are the valleys of space-time, "strong but unstable" are the peaks.

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!

The Tao Manifest in the I Ching

The I Ching is vast and powerful. 

In terms of Space, it has no limit of distance. 

In terms of the moment, it is precise in its measure of Time. 

In terms of all phenomena within the boundaries of heaven and earth (within the Taiji), it encompasses all.


(taken from the Yi Dao, "Ta Chuan", part 1, Chapter VI; a Level 2 Yi Fa Society document)