gene
June 21st, 2004, 05:19 AM
Hi Everyone
Writing to expressly recommend a book I think of great value. Not on the I Ching itself, although I hope to relate it indirectly. The name of the book is "The Lost Secret of Death." Why is this important? Because I think there is too much emphasis in new age thinking on the concept that all is hunky dory no matter what because if we die we will just be born again in a new incarnation. But to make matters short, that is only partly true. The spirit reincarnates, the soul does not necessarily, and definitely not with the same spirit, unless we prepare ourselves through a great deal of toil and trouble to integrate soul and spirit. The spirit is like the conscious mind, with reasoning powers, relatively unemotional, etc. Corresponds with the left brain hemisphere. The soul is our seat of emotions, our feelings, it does not reason per se execpt in a limited sense and only with input that it has received during life. At death these two souls separate, (and there are solid reasons for this). The spirit, having no memory, becomes once again part of the universal consciousness, and has little or no memory of who it was in any past life. The soul is locked into its memories and feelings, and can only with a great deal of difficulty, or help from highly advanced spiritual beings ever break through of the recorded memories and feelings. The soul remembers who it was, but cannot reason or advance beyond the feelings and memories that were stored within it at death.
I personally believe that on one level, and one only, as there are many levels, hexagram 54, especially line two describes this situation. We are cut off from ourselves. Our two hemispheres do not function as a unit as much as they should and there is symbolically speaking a dividing wall between them. In this way hexagram 6 can also refer to this phenomenon.
The author, Peter Novak describes this process in terms of the beliefs of Taoist, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Egyptian, Toltec, and other societies in ancient times. In the Torah we see an aspect of this in the story of Adam and Eve, and how Eve was taken from Adam. Also we see it over and over in stories of twins where the younger usurped the birthright of the older, there was a conflict between them, and ultimately, a worldwide conflagration because of the division. In Christianity, we have the story of the veil in the Temple (that separates right brain from left) become rent from bottom to top at the Death of Christ. And Paul speaks of the "middle wall of partition being broken down." In "The Burning Bush" by Edward Smith, a student of Rudolph Steiner, he speaks of the stories of the "widows son." This has much of the same connotation. Solomon Hired Hiram-Abiff to help build the temple, and Hiram-Abiff was "the widows son." Even the separation of Israel into the lower kingdom and the southern is an esoteric story of this separation. Same with the upper and lower kingdom in Egypt.
In hexagram fifty three line five, the mirror of fifty four line three, we have the story of the woman who marries but for three years she is barren. This is a symbol I believe that it takes time for the marriage between conscious and subconscious to be fully integrated, but when it does, then the personality has powers beyond that of ordinary man.
Gene
Writing to expressly recommend a book I think of great value. Not on the I Ching itself, although I hope to relate it indirectly. The name of the book is "The Lost Secret of Death." Why is this important? Because I think there is too much emphasis in new age thinking on the concept that all is hunky dory no matter what because if we die we will just be born again in a new incarnation. But to make matters short, that is only partly true. The spirit reincarnates, the soul does not necessarily, and definitely not with the same spirit, unless we prepare ourselves through a great deal of toil and trouble to integrate soul and spirit. The spirit is like the conscious mind, with reasoning powers, relatively unemotional, etc. Corresponds with the left brain hemisphere. The soul is our seat of emotions, our feelings, it does not reason per se execpt in a limited sense and only with input that it has received during life. At death these two souls separate, (and there are solid reasons for this). The spirit, having no memory, becomes once again part of the universal consciousness, and has little or no memory of who it was in any past life. The soul is locked into its memories and feelings, and can only with a great deal of difficulty, or help from highly advanced spiritual beings ever break through of the recorded memories and feelings. The soul remembers who it was, but cannot reason or advance beyond the feelings and memories that were stored within it at death.
I personally believe that on one level, and one only, as there are many levels, hexagram 54, especially line two describes this situation. We are cut off from ourselves. Our two hemispheres do not function as a unit as much as they should and there is symbolically speaking a dividing wall between them. In this way hexagram 6 can also refer to this phenomenon.
The author, Peter Novak describes this process in terms of the beliefs of Taoist, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, Egyptian, Toltec, and other societies in ancient times. In the Torah we see an aspect of this in the story of Adam and Eve, and how Eve was taken from Adam. Also we see it over and over in stories of twins where the younger usurped the birthright of the older, there was a conflict between them, and ultimately, a worldwide conflagration because of the division. In Christianity, we have the story of the veil in the Temple (that separates right brain from left) become rent from bottom to top at the Death of Christ. And Paul speaks of the "middle wall of partition being broken down." In "The Burning Bush" by Edward Smith, a student of Rudolph Steiner, he speaks of the stories of the "widows son." This has much of the same connotation. Solomon Hired Hiram-Abiff to help build the temple, and Hiram-Abiff was "the widows son." Even the separation of Israel into the lower kingdom and the southern is an esoteric story of this separation. Same with the upper and lower kingdom in Egypt.
In hexagram fifty three line five, the mirror of fifty four line three, we have the story of the woman who marries but for three years she is barren. This is a symbol I believe that it takes time for the marriage between conscious and subconscious to be fully integrated, but when it does, then the personality has powers beyond that of ordinary man.
Gene