The Toltec I Ching Blog

I cannot distance the I Ching from my own life any more than you.

My first teachers of the Book of Change impressed upon me the perceptual aspect of this ancient work, as opposed to the historical interpretation so prevalent in modern versions.  They focused my attention on the natural symbolism of the trigrams, encouraging me to develop an emotional, or heart-mind, experience of the real world energies they represent.  This meant spending long spaces of time in nature, learning to cultivate a communication with these energies based on the kind of spiritual intuition I was being taught at the time.

My nature pilgrimages led me to more remote areas of the Americas, especially the least-traveled parts of the Copper Canyon in Mexico, where I was adopted by a family of Tarahumara shamans.  My initiation into the densest Pre-Columbian rituals of these descendants of the Toltec peoples opened the gateway of energies connecting each of us with all others.

Stumbling into Native American teachers, in other words, brought me to the understanding that my teachers of the indigenous Chinese I Ching had insisted I learn.  This makes profound sense in retrospect.  Nature is Nature everywhere.  And shamanism, though its techniques and descriptions differ by culture, is everywhere based upon sensing and interacting with the spirit within all matter.

Beyond this, however, it is self-evident that the indigenous peoples of ancient China and the Americas share the same mother culture, which spread not just through Asia but crossed the Bering Strait and populated the whole of the New World.  It was only after I encountered the sacred divinatory calendar, The Day Count, or Tonalpoalli, of ancient Mexico that I glimpsed the thread of an oracular tradition running through both cultures.

In the meantime, my continuing studies of the I Ching proceeded without books.  I pursued my teachers’ advice to grasp the real world nature of the trigrams in order to see through their eyes.  Experiencing the trigrams as the archetypal structure and pattern of human perception allows us to extend that structure into the hexagrams, whose combinations of trigrams reflects the real world coupling of internal and external dimensions.  This perceptual approach to the I Ching provides us with a way to encounter the living Oracle, as opposed to sticking to the dead words of the historical rendering.

There are many good books published on the I Ching.  However, they are all based on the King Wen Sequence of hexagrams and rework the same historical material over and over.  This is not in and of itself bad, of course.  There is much to be gained by mining such a rich vein of interpretive material.  But we now know that those interpretations of the hexagrams and trigrams, attributed to King Wen and the Duke of Chou, are based on historical events that occurred at the time of the transition from the Shang Dynasty to the Chou Dynasty.  The naturalistic symbolism of the I Ching, in other words, was used as a vessel to contain and express the power of righteous change that cannot be fulfilled without the righteous effort of righteous individuals.

Undoubtedly the work of several generations of priest-diviners spanning the Shang and Chou Dynasties, this historical interpretation infuses the hexagrams and lines with the oracular power of an ancient lineage of shamans using the historical developments of the time as a living metaphor for archetypal change as it manifests in any Age.  This remarkable accomplishment explains the predictive power of the historical interpretation, originally titled the Chou I, or Changes of Chou, and its continuing efficacy as an Oracle.

But the real power of the Oracle does not lie in its interpretive material—it lies in the real-world energies that manifest in all matter, including human nature.  The real power of the Oracle lies in the real-world energies that likewise manifest as the living symbols of the I Ching in the form of its lines, trigrams and hexagrams.  This correlation between the real-world energies that form the unchanging pattern of change within nature, spirit, and human nature is the real dynamic that establishes the Oracle’s communion with unfolding events across the entirety of the eternal moment.  It is this naturalistic perspective that needs to inform the interpretive material and not the historical events of 3,500 years ago.

The concept of righteous, for example, is based on both a specific spiritual presence and spiritual ethic:  it indicates something that is both in accord with the One and actively pursues the course that benefits all.  It is a concept that runs like an unconscious assumption throughout the traditional text:  because it was written by the court diviners, who were advising the political leaders of their time, it is a top-down model of change that assumes an enlightened, righteous, ruler will lead the many into a time of peace and prospering for all.

Such an ideal, noble and well-intentioned as it is, can now be said without any fear of contradiction to be ill-founded and antithetical to human nature.  Power creates institutions to perpetuate power.  The many suffer at the hands of the few that hold the reins of power.  Wealth and power are concentrated among the few, who enjoy privileges at the expense of the many.  Rulers serve their own purposes, not the needs of the governed.  Even if one such ruler established a reign of real equality and justice, we know now that the succeeding generations of rulers would not cease in their efforts until they had undone all those reforms.  Power is anonymous and perpetually seeks the line of least resistance, following the pull of gravity, towards totalitarianism.

If we are to reach the Golden Age of Humanity that so many generations of sages and savios have prepared us for, it will not be because of the trickle-down righteousness of a ruler.  It will be because the ground-up awakening of righteous individuals continues to build into a sea change of self-governance that spans borders and guarantees peace and prospering for all.

Rather than being written for the rulers, the I Ching needs to be written for the governed, who must adapt to the political, economic, and social pressures of the day, all the while seeking the path of personal and collective metamorphosis.  The question is no longer how to rule but, rather, how to deal with rulers.  It is not how to influence the many but, rather, how to deal with those seeking to influence.  Rather than being written for those seeking to maintain the status quo, the I Ching needs to address those seeking to create the most meaningful life possible for themselves and all others at the same time.  Rather than being a vessel for the elite, the I Ching needs to be a raft for those seeking to free the elite from their slavery to greed, dominance and self-interest.

Some might argue that there have been efforts to update these anachronisms in various modern interpretations.  But this argument fails on the single issue of the Sequence of hexagrams, upon which all those interpretations are based.  As mentioned above, this Sequence is attributed to King Wen, who masterminded the overthrow of the Shang Dynasty and the founding of the subsequent Chou Dynasty.  This Sequence he allegedly devised while under house arrest by the Shang emperor.  It is this Sequence and its appended interpretive material that came to be known as the Chou I or Changes of Chou.

In fact, this Sequence, which begins with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Heaven trigram, is completely identified with the founding of the Chou Dynasty.  The importance of this cannot be overstated.  Legend has it that the Sequence of the hexagrams was different during the preceding Shang Dynasty, where it began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Earth trigram and was known as the Guizang Sequence.  Likewise, the even older Xia Dynasty that preceded the Shang had its own Lianshan Sequence, which began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Mountain trigram.  Thus, each of three succeeding dynasties had their own Sequence of hexagrams.

The historical accuracy of this legend is less important than its symbolic import, for what it means is that the new Sequence of hexagrams confers upon a new Dynasty its legitimacy.

The Mawangdui manuscript is the oldest physical copy of the Chou I and, even though it starts with the same hexagram formed by the doubling of the Heaven trigram, it presents a different Sequence and even different names for many of the hexagrams.  Not only, then, were there different Sequences of hexagrams associated with different Dynasties, but even within the same Dynastic tradition, it was permitted to alter the received Sequence as well as the names of the 64 hexagrams.

Why?  Because such altered sequences were not intended to be used to communicate with the Oracle.  Similarly, the masterful Sequence of Shao Yung that was based on the natural number values of the hexagrams arose in conjunction with the Chou I but neither was it intended to be used to communicate with the Oracle.

Why not?  Because the order of the hexagrams in the Dynastic Sequence alone is charged with Oracular power.  The Sequence and even the hexagram names can be changed in order to investigate the pattern of change among the 64 hexagrams but the Oracle answers only to the sacred unchanging pattern of change among the hexagrams as exemplified in the King Wen Sequence.

However, the priest-diviners of the Shang, who were seeing the end of their Dynasty—not just in the events surrounding them but in their oracular divinations—faced the problem of constructing a new Sequence for the coming Dynasty.  This they would have considered their sacred duty since their ultimate allegiance was to the Oracle and not any political entity.  The specific problem they would have faced, then, was how to devise a new Chou Sequence while maintaining the magically charged Sequence of the Shang Dynasty, which began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Earth trigram—the same problem their predecessors faced during the transition from the former Xia Dynasty, whose Sequence began with the hexagram formed by the doubling of the Lake trigram.

What we know as the King Wen Sequence, therefore, is conceived as at least the third iteration of a magically charged Sequence of hexagrams, each of which began with a hexagram formed by the doubling of a trigram.  Much research and discussion have followed the King Wen Sequence over the millennia in an effort to explain what appears to be the random ordering of its 32 pairs of hexagrams.  It is, of course, this mysterious relationship among the real-world energies of the trigrams and their emergent hexagrams that gives the Oracle its power—which makes formulating a new Sequence that holds this same charge a question of profound import as we enter this new Dynasty.

Next Week:  A New Version of the I Ching

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

Why do we never see butterflies carrying around their old cocoons?

Why do we never hear of snakes saving up their old sloughed-off skins?

Obviously, because the new replaces the old.

Yet, there is continuity between the old and the new:  even under the extremes of metamorphosis, there is something unique that can be identified as having moved from the old condition to the new.  In the human being, this unique element is called the identity.

It appears self-evident that my identity is determined by what I identify with—and although I certainly identify with my way of perceiving, I identify even more intimately with my ingrained character traits.  Even after undergoing a transformative experience, therefore, it is nearly certain that my identity will carry some of its old traits forward into its new form.  In this sense, the transformative experience impacts my awareness first and my character second.  Like rain on a tree, it takes only a little to wet the branches—but it must rain really well to saturate the ground and reach the roots.

To transform awareness is easy, in other words, but to transform character is hard.

Yet the transformation of awareness is only half a transformation.  If I do not undergo a metamorphosis of character, then my clarity of perception will forever be obscured by my old habits of thought, emotion, and reaction.  If the rain does not eventually reach the roots, the branches will ultimately dry up and wither—if the transformative experience does not continue long enough to saturate my character and transmute my old traits, then my new perception will eventually be compromised by its need to accommodate the most stubborn qualities of my identity.  For this reason, I need to prolong the transformative experience until my character is fully re-formed.

If I cannot relinquish my angers and resentments, for example, then even my transmuted perception will be forced to rationalize in myriad ways in order to justify my continuing to act and react as before.  If I do not feel compassion for others, then, likewise, my clarity of perception must be deformed in order to place responsibility on others for my continuing to act and react as before.  Similarly, if I hold on to old desires and aversions, then the purity of my perception will be contaminated by something as arbitrary as my personal tastes.

If I do not burn away all the dross from the gold of my character, in other words, not even the refinement of my awareness can disguise the impurities of my character.  I become the butterfly who cannot leave behind its old cocoon, the snake guarding its shed skin.

I am able to awaken from my sleep.

But I am unable to awaken from my dreams.

The path of good fortune ultimately leads to a kind of vital happiness that can neither be decreased nor increased by external circumstances.  Just as a reliable well produces cold clear water regardless of the political or social changes in the town around it, those who achieve the ecstatic life produce a kind of robust happiness that wells up from deep within them and overflows out into the lives of others.  Such a life should not be pictured as an ideal of moment-to-moment uncontrollable bliss but, rather, an ideal of conducting oneself so that, from some point of transformation onward, one’s life as a whole is felt to be a state of sustained ecstasy.

This is to say that the result of personal transformation is joy.  That the consequence of wisdom is laughter.  That the upshot of awakening is exuberance.  It is to say that a return to the natural state of communion with all is a return to the newborn’s state of open astonishment.

How can we say that all our knots are untied if we drag our past sorrows along with us?  How can we say that we are wholly open to everything we encounter if we carry our past attitudes and behaviors along with us?  How can we say that the light of the present has eclipsed the shadow of the past if the new has not yet replaced the old?

The transformation of the lower self into the higher self occurs when my character follows my awareness into the Current and is carried, along with my awareness, forever away from the past.  Suddenly uprooted from all I ever identified with, I am forever part of the one unfolding moment that is the living edge of the breaking wave of the Current.  This communion with all evokes the complete change of heart that crystalizes my transformed character into a perfect reflection of my transformed awareness.

The metamorphosis of the lower self into the higher self triggers repercussions in the field of spiritual cause-and-effect that can only be likened to the bursting forth of a new supernova in the nighttime skies.  With the emergence of each new higher self from its cocoon, the light of the inner universe grows exponentially brighter, increasingly dispelling aloneness and revealing the universal communion inherent to creation.  That the fullness of time’s potential should follow as the natural result of our personal evolution in this way is a bottomless mystery, the very source of all our longings, joys, and triumphs.

This is called following the inner path all the way to the end.

Drink in the rain of transformation until the roots of your dearest thirsts are fully quenched.

Trust that every turning point in your life is an opening through which inner power is accumulated.

Immerse yourself in the moment-to-moment ecstasy of this all-pervading creation.

Take pleasure in using your endeavors to further the success of others.

With every advance, allow the new to replace the old.

At the end of the inner path lies another path, for this is where the path of freedom begins.  Where the path of personal transformation becomes the path of spontaneity.  Where the path of wisdom turns into the path of ecstasy.  It is the point where our transformation is complete and we move on to the next stage.

Personal transformation is not, after all, the goal of personal transformation—the actual goal is freedom, spontaneity, and ecstasy.  It is the freedom to think, feel, and act according to our best intentions, without being compelled by any force within or without.  It is the spontaneity to respond to everything we encounter without preconception, uneasiness, or artificiality.  And it is the ecstasy that comes when we clearly perceive the miracle of being alive within matter.  The path of the cocoon does not lead to the cocoon—it leads to the path of the butterfly.

The ecstatic life is the creative life, the productive life, the rewarding life.

For the butterfly, the ecstatic life is found flitting from one perfect blossom to the next, consuming only the nectar produced by perfect beauty and, in so doing, propagating the next generation of perfect beauty.

For us, the ecstatic life is no different.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

The wisdom teachings are clear on this point:  all of existence arises from and returns to the Current.  All form arises from and returns to this formless Current.  Everything visible arises from and returns to this invisible Current.  Everything known arises from and returns to this unknowable Current.

The Current cannot be described in its entirety—but there are aspects of it that can be described.  It is the on-going Act Of Creation that continues to flow, back up, fill up, spill over, fall, eddy, stall, dry up, submerge, surface, and flow ever on, from seed to fruit and back again to seed.

The Current cannot be described in its entirety—but its entirety can be expressed.  In fact, we cannot avoid expressing it every moment.  All we see and experience is its on-going expression.  It is the living moment, whose continuous outpouring carries all of existence from one end of eternity to the other and back again.  It is the aware dwelling place, whose emptiness houses the natural unfolding of the universe as it expands to infinity and contracts back to infinity again.

It is for this reason that it is said, Move along with the Current and you will know no end.

It is not merely that nothing will be able to stop you—it is that nothing will want to stop you.

Indeed, the action of the Current is its own unfolding.  This is the action of self-revelation, by which the Current reveals itself to itself by means of its own unfolding.  To move with the Current is to align ourselves with its action, allowing its intention to be our own.  In this way, our own unfolding leads to our own self-revelation:  we come to discover our true potential by intending to move along with the Current’s unfolding rather than trying to direct it.  Moving against the Current is the source of all frustration:  trying to direct my life by the force of my own will power is like a leaf trying to make its own way against a rushing stream.

We are trained from birth to exert our will on others and the world in general.  We are taught, by word and by example, that the only way to succeed is to use our will power to overcome others in the competition for resources.  Yet this logic is patently false:  we often succeed, for example, because our competitor fails due to a crisis completely outside our awareness.  Or, just as likely, it is we who fail because of a crisis completely outside the knowledge of our competitor.  Will power cannot make a great sumo wrestler into a successful jockey nor a great jockey into a successful sumo wrestler.

Exerting my will power on circumstances does not bring me good fortune.  This is principally because I cannot be aware of the direction of the Current’s unfolding.  Because the Whole is greater than the sum of its parts, the behavior of the Whole cannot be perceived by its parts.  This means that blindly trying to direct my life by the force of my own will power inevitably leads me to move against the Current.  In this sense, exerting my own will power is the precise opposite of my expressing inner power.

Clearly, the difference between will power and inner power is one of intent.

When we speak of the chain of spiritual cause-and-effect, we are addressing the way in which intent changes the behavior of people and events:  spiritual cause, in this sense, refers to an intent, whereas spiritual effect refers to a change of behavior.  Intent is able to cause a change of behavior on the spiritual plane because the essence of one person is identical to the essence of another.  Just as salt permeates each drop of water in the sea, intent leaps from essence to essence.  This essence-to-essence communication lies at the root of all beneficial influence:  beneficial intent triggers a change of inner behavior—a change of motivation—on the inner, spiritual, level, which eventually results in a concrete change of behavior on the outer, physical, level.

In this context, will power is the energy directed by the lower self to achieve its aim:  its intent is to promote its own self-interest, even at the expense of others.  Inner power, on the other hand, is the energy directed by the higher self to benefit all:  its intent is to promote the well-being of the Whole, even at the expense of its own.

Both of these intents produce a change in behavior.  As far as the lower self is concerned, its intent to promote its own self-interest causes a backlash against it among the people and events it seeks to influence—no one likes to be exploited and sooner or later the exploited turn on their exploiters.  As for the higher self, its intent to benefit all causes a resonance in the people and events it seeks to influence—everyone wants peace and prospering and they will do everything they can to support those who are willing to sacrifice their personal interests for those of the Whole.

The backlash change-of-behavior brought about by will power stands in stark contrast to the resonance change-of-behavior brought about by inner power.  While both are certainly responses to my own intent that then become spiritual causes of their own, their difference lies in how they influence my progress on the Current:  backlashes hinder my advance, whereas resonances further it.

The backlashes caused by my lower self’s intent accumulate over time, raising inner and outer dams between me and good fortune.  They stand like intangible obstacles between me and the connections I need to make in order to advance.  They thwart my progress, leaving me with the sense of being penned-in and stuck in place—I seem to be unable to step off this treadmill that I no longer remember ever having decided to step onto.  The backlashes caused by my lower self’s intent accumulate over time, spinning a web of entanglements that hold me back, disrupt my sense of timing, and pull me out of the rhythm of the Current.  They accumulate over time, intensifying my own fears, frustrations, and resentments—which only intensifies my lower self’s intent.  By promoting my own interests, I set myself in motion against the Current and away from good fortune.

The resonances caused by my higher self’s intent to benefit all likewise accumulate over time, helping weave the strands of all beneficial intents everywhere into the single tapestry of beneficial coincidences.  These resonances stand like invisible crossroads that unexpectedly bring me together with people and events that open up opportunities and further the completion of my endeavors.  They increase my momentum, restore my sense of timing, and pull me into the rhythm of the Current.  They accumulate over time, intensifying my gratitude, happiness, and creativity—which only intensifies my higher self’s intent.  By promoting the benefit of all, I move along with the Current and toward good fortune.

This is attained by eliminating the lower self’s intent while cultivating the higher self’s intent.  It is not as complicated as it might sound.  It simply involves watching how our lower self single-mindedly intends to promote its own interests by trying to turn everything it encounters to its own advantage.  Once we observe how single-minded intent works, we simply exchange the higher self’s intent for the lower self’s.  It is not necessary, in other words, to intend a specific aim in order to generate a spiritual cause—it is simply a matter of consistently intending that everything benefits all.  If we practice this uninterruptedly for even a short while, we soon find ourselves collaborating with everything we encounter.

Aligning ourselves this way with the higher self allows us to move along with the Current, increasingly finding ourselves in the right place at the right time, enjoying the sense of belonging that comes with being part of a steady stream of beneficial coincidences.  No selfish intent in the world can carry us into this stream of unselfish coincidences—only when we act as part of the Whole do we sense the movement, rhythm, and harmony of the Whole.  Unforeseeable things happen by chance and we are an integral part of them, employed by them to advance the well-being of all.  Unexpected things happen by accident and we seem to arrive just in time to help shape them into wellsprings of benefit overflowing into the lives of all.  Each moment is a crossroads of resonances, where we arrive together with the momentum of all the beneficial intents everywhere carrying us toward the destination of our shared longing.

This is called using inner power to foster beneficial coincidences.

And it defines the difference between shock and inner Surprise.

Shocks are created to capture attention in order to advance the interests of a particular group or individual.  Inner Surprises are serendipitous coincidences that we have made room for in our lives:  they arrive unforeseen, their very unpredictability opening new windows of opportunity for all.

Shocks are like rocks tossed into a pool, each creating ripples that intersect with the others, generating an on-going series of more and more complicated backlashes.  Inner Surprise is like moonlight falling into a pool—by its very nature it cannot make ripples.  In this sense, moonlight is the essence reflected in every pool of awareness facing the immeasurable night of sleep.

Shocks are intentional and destructive.

Inner Surprises are unintentional and constructive.

We are able to avoid using shock to influence people and events by incorporating the previous stages of Calm, Resiliency, Autonomy, Gratitude, Nonresistance, Curiosity, and Insight into the least expected acts of inner Surprise.  By intending that everything benefit from our every thought, word, and deed, we find ourselves as surprised as those around us by the good fortune we share.

Stabilizing this single-minded intent by returning to it immediately every time it is interrupted, we unexpectedly find that we have crossed the threshold of wisdom and are traveling, irrevocably and irresistively, the path of good fortune.

You cannot create or construct such coincidences—trying to direct or control the Current like that merely reveals the quality of your motives, causing an untold number of backlashes that work against your advance.

Such coincidences occur—and involve you—because you coincide with other beneficial intents.

Certainly, the lower self will argue, everyone knows that such concepts sound fine in principle but have no place in the real world of dog-eat-dog and big-fish-eat-little-fish competition of everyday life.

Yet, the higher self will assert, two ants from the same colony will struggle over the same piece of dung even though both of them intend to carry it back to the same destination—after we have tried the path of competition and found it unfulfilling, how much further down the road must we go before taking a new one?

Interesting, the lower self will argue, but I practiced these principles all day yesterday and nothing whatsoever changed for the better.

Yet, the higher self will assert, you do not think it strange that the light from a distant star takes years to reach your eyes—the more your intent harbors hopes of personal advantage, the longer the time lag between the spiritual cause and its material effect.

Lightning and thunder, the symbols of shock, are natural characteristics of powerful storms.  They may be accompanied by rain, bringing much-needed water to the land.  But they may also be accompanied by the wind, bringing destruction and hardship to people.  Before the storm, it is calm.  After the storm, life wants to return to calm.  Things cannot thrive and prosper in a climate of constant storms.  Our own endeavors should not contribute to sustaining a climate of constant shock.  Our own endeavors ought to use the element of inner Surprise to help return things to their state of calm.  Shock may shake people out of their routines of thought and feeling, but so can inner Surprise.  There are enough natural and historical shocks that it is not necessary to fabricate any—especially when they are merely attempts to gain some advantage for our own interests.

Real freedom is able to exercise self-control for the benefit of the Whole.

Real wisdom serves the needs of people and the natural world upon which we all depend.

Real good fortune is being a well of benefit overflowing into the lives of others.

Real joy is being carried on the Current through this life into the Beyond.

Exercise One—Sit quietly with your eyes closed, breathing slowly and deeply.  Visualize yourself as having achieved complete peace of mind, sitting calmly in the center of a circle.  Around you, turning clockwise, are the four seasons, each of which is fixed to one of the cardinal directions:  Spring to East, Summer to South, Autumn to West, and Winter to North.  As the seasons and directions turn around their center, visualize yourself as a great tree whose roots extend vertically deep below you and whose trunk and branches extend vertically high above you.  Now align yourself with this vertical axis running through you, running through the center of the turning seasons and directions.  As you open yourself to sensing the power and peace of the unchanging center of all change, silently repeat the catch-phrase, Tranquility is the center from which all my actions and reactions come.

Exercise Two—Lie down and close your eyes, breathing slowly and deeply.  Visualize yourself on your deathbed, surrounded by your loved ones.  Visualize who is present and how they are acting and how you are feeling about them.  Allow yourself to feel that these are your last moments alive, that these are your last breaths.  As life slips away and you look upon your whole life from the end, ask yourself, What was most important? Linger in these feelings, absorb them deeply, allow yourself to be affected by them.  Complete the exercise by writing your future self a letter setting forth your priorities.  Now govern the rest of your life accordingly.

If we respond to this age of overexcitement, agitation, and frenzy with encouragement, tranquility, and good will, then we can capture attention without shocking, we can influence people and events without creating backlashes, and we can succeed without causing suffering for the Whole.  Before following the example of others who are competing with us, we ought to study the consequences of using shock to attract attention to our endeavor—we ought to look deeply into the backlashes it produces and how it disrupts the natural unfolding of people’s lives.  We ought to keep in mind that just because we can do something doesn’t mean we must.  We ought to try to begin right away, uninterruptedly intending for all to benefit from our endeavors, accumulating resonances in the field of spiritual cause-and-effect that will draw together the diverse forces needed to create the most beneficial surprise possible.

This is called the art of making the whole world the path of good fortune.

~

The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

~

The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.

With this chapter, the bulk of our course comes to an end.  Our overall goal—to apply the spiritual principles of good fortune in such a way that we do not bring harm to the Whole—is nearly met.  We have done the transformative work that allows us to identify with the higher self, which in turn allows us to more effectively influence people and events around us.  But in doing so, we enter the arena of all those seeking to influence people and events.  This is not merely an arena in the sense of a common ground of shared activity, however.  It is also—and primarily—an arena in the sense of a highly charged and competitive environment.  And because many in this environment are motivated by nothing more than self-interest, our ability to act for the benefit of all is put to the test.

As competition intensifies, it becomes more and more difficult to capture the attention of those you seek to influence.  Since everyone else is having the same difficulty, even the competition for attention intensifies.  There are numerous ways to capture attention but the one people fall back on when they are hardest pressed is shock.

Shock gets attention.  Because it works, it is used whenever people demand attention.  Whether it is a matter of shocking claims against another or shocking images or shocking lyrics or shocking news or shocking volume or shocking humor or shocking stories or shocking games or shocking appearance or shocking behavior or shocking violence, shock is used whenever people will not be denied attention.  This raises two problems.

The first is merely technical.  Few of those who know how to get attention using shock have anything worthwhile to offer that will hold the attention once it has been captured.  They can get people’s attention but cannot hold it long enough to influence their attitudes or behavior.

The second has far-reaching ramifications.  Shock is like a drug:  the more it is used, the more of it is needed to get the same effect—and the more widely it is used, the more the social fabric is frayed and torn.  When people are bombarded from all sides with shock they get unnerved.  The general equilibrium of their lives becomes so disrupted that they begin to expect that more shock might be right around the corner.  And because shock is only shocking if it is more shocking than the last shock, the next shock—the one that is possible, the anticipated one, the one most feared, the one that may happen at any moment—is truly unnerving in its looming potential.  Those seeking attention in such an environment feel they must continue to increase the shock value of their message, which has a paradoxical effect on those they seek to influence:  on the conscious level, it makes them calloused to the tactic of shock, while on the unconscious level, it makes them habitually nervous and uneasy.

When this kind of assault on the senses is routine and wide-spread, people have difficulty even recognizing the degree to which they are being affected.  But so much over-stimulation does take its toll on people.  They no longer relax as they should.  They experience chronic stress, which adversely affects their mental, emotional, and physical health.  They always feel rushed and never have enough time.  They cannot stand being bored—they need constant stimulation, distraction, and entertainment.  They no longer appreciate silence or their own company, preferring other people’s music, words, or images to their own.  They lack patience, concentration, and true self-confidence.  They are chronically worried, nervous, anxious, fearful, and distrustful.  They become intolerant, feeling like they cannot take one more assault on their dignity.  They grow increasingly polarized in their reactions, some becoming irrationally emotional, aggressive, and explosive, with others becoming passive, withdrawn, and victimized.

Whether shock is used for profit or ideology, for oneself or one’s group, the long-term result is the same.

It is a tragedy when an individual suffers like this.

It is a disaster in the making when a society suffers like this.

Seeking my own personal success by adding to the suffering of the Whole is the very opposite of the path of good fortune.

The reason shock works is that people’s adverse reactions to it are relatively predictable.  This kind of influence is called guiding by backlash and refers to the practice of directing people’s attitudes and behaviors by provoking them to react against well-timed shocks.  In its more overt aspects, it is little different than using a cattle prod—the electric shock, when applied to the right place at the right time, drives the herd in the desired direction.  In its more subtle aspects, it is analogous to pruning—making a cut at the right angle above the right bud channels new growth into the desired direction.  While not an infallible tactic, using shock to create the desired backlash produces more predictable reactions than other tactics.

Whether it is a government defining an internal or external threat, a religion describing eternal punishments for wrong-doing, an advertisement announcing a new way to avoid becoming a social pariah, or a hungry infant crying upon waking, the tactic of using shock to elicit the desired backlash produces relatively predictable reactions.

Contrived or natural, however, shock cannot be overused or misused without producing unwanted backlashes:  the government that cries wolf too often loses credibility, the religion that proscribes all joy of life is abandoned, the advertisement that promises to fix a nonexistent problem becomes a parody of itself, and the infant that cries incessantly finds that some of its real needs go ignored.

As it turns out, all use is overuse.

And any use is misuse.

This is the I Ching trigram for Thunder.  It symbolizes the shock that follows an unexpected lightning bolt.  As such, it represents the power to initiate change by acting in such a way that others feel compelled to react.  It speaks of our need to defy expectations, timing our actions to maximize the impact of our influence.  By sensing the startling suddenness of Thunder within, we train ourselves to embody inner Surprise.

Inner Surprise is the culmination of the previous seven stages of this course.  It is the art of combining the skills we acquired in those stages and applying them in the least expected ways to the ever-changing circumstances we encounter.  It is the art of waiting until the crucial moment to act, in much the same way as the rain cloud must build up to the cloudburst.  It is the art of influencing people and events by echoing their inner state.  It is to shock what the butterfly is to the caterpillar.

There is nothing so surprising as finding ourselves in sudden resonance with something new and unexpected.  This experience of startling familiarity with the unfamiliar never fails to astonish us, for it reawakens us to the unfathomable mystery of the world even as it reassures us that we are a vital part of it.  How is it that something new and unfamiliar can strike us so immediately as intimate and familiar?  And how can that same thing strike others close to us as strange and inconsequential?  Because, for reasons beyond our scope of vision, we and not someone else are attuned to the same invisible essence as that which we find physically unfamiliar but spiritually familiar.

What the five senses of my lower self may not recognize as dear and valuable, the essential sense of my higher self may recognize immediately as a perfect match to some part of its intrinsic nature.  Such experiences demonstrate to me that I share certain motivations with people and events beyond myself—motivations that I may not even know I have until I experience firsthand their reflection in others.  Something touches me, in other words, and in so doing, influences me.  Something moves me, and in so doing, changes my attitudes and behaviors.  When this happens to me, I am influenced by the inner power of others.  When I am able to evoke such a response from others, they are influenced by my inner power.

But the inner power expressed by individuals does not arise from within the individual.

It is a manifestation of the chain of spiritual cause-and-effect that arises from within the Current.

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The above is an excerpt from The Spiritual Basis of Good Fortune by William Douglas Horden.

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website:  http://spiritualbasisofgoodfortune.com/

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The Toltec I Ching, by Martha Ramirez-Oropeza and William Douglas Horden has just received a Silver Award in the 2010 Nautilus Awards.  It recasts the I Ching in the symbology of the Native Americans of ancient Mexico and includes original illustrations interpreting each of the hexagrams.  Its subtitle, 64 Keys to Inspired Action in the New World hints at its focus on the ethics of the emerging world culture.

Click here to go to the main site to see sample chapters, reviews and the link to Larson Publications for ordering the book.