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What is Prayer and how does it differ from Divination?

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veavea

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Hello Yi Folks,

I dithered whether this should go in SR or ED, but since it's a shared reading about exploring divination I'll leave it here for now...

I keep reading books etc that tell me about the power of prayer and talk about praying but I never really can understand what is meant by praying. Is it talking to 'God' (whatever that means), is it asking the universe for stuff, is it just sitting in silence, or what? I wondered whether my interactions with Yi could count as praying since divination is, literally, or etymologically at least, communicating with the divine. Not when you simply ask future questions, but if you really sit with the energy that us almost palpable through yi.

Anyway, I asked 'is prayer being in contact with the divine or is it asking for something?' 49.1 > 31 (bound with the hide of a yellow ox...?)
Then I asked: 'What is the purpose of prayer?' 12.5 > 35 (cease the hindrance)
'How does one pray?' 11uc (peace, heaven and earth unite)
'How does one find peace?' 25uc. (truthfulness, innocence)
'Is communicating with Yi a form of prayer?' 9.1.4 > 44 (return to the way, fear gives way - 44 is an encounter - with what?)

What I understand from this is that communication with yi is a means of dealing with anxiety while prayer is a way of actively transmuting a problem into its solution. Prayer is achieved through oneness with heaven (or the divine), which isn't the same as asking for things (or even speaking at all).

I'm not sure I'm totally clear on what prayer is but I've got a little food for thought, at least.

Apologies if this should be in SR...
 

Trojina

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I dithered whether this should go in SR or ED, but since it's a shared reading about exploring divination I'll leave it here for now


It feels like it belongs here because although you have readings it's a wider question and people may want to talk about the ideas, at least I do.

I keep reading books etc that tell me about the power of prayer and talk about praying but I never really can understand what is meant by praying. Is it talking to 'God' (whatever that means), is it asking the universe for stuff, is it just sitting in silence, or what? I wondered whether my interactions with Yi could count as praying since divination is, literally, or etymologically at least, communicating with the divine. Not when you simply ask future questions, but if you really sit with the energy that us almost palpable through yi.


I think there are different kinds of prayers. I don't know a huge amount about it though I am interested in how prayers are different. I don't know about later generations but my generation, learned to pray out loud from aged 4 in the following format every night after stashing away our chairs


'Thank you God for the world so sweet
Thank you God for the food we eat
Thank you God for the birds that sing
Thank you God for everything !'

That seems to me a prayer celebrating abundance, a 14ish child's prayer, a prayer to experience fullness. I actually liked it at the time and we always put a lot of emphasis on the last line.

Then there are intercessory prayers where you pray for others, in effect plead to God on behalf of others.


Then there's the more meditational kind of prayer where you are just open to receive God and I'm not sure what the word is for that. Then there's a prayer of petition for guidance or fulfilment of something. But what you say here is so I interesting


. Not when you simply ask future questions, but if you really sit with the energy that us almost palpable through yi



There is I think a cross over between divination and prayer since in both you address something which you perceive to have a greater perspective, wisdom and strength than you can normally access and from which you believe you will receive all those things. And this isn't just an idea it happens palpably, this crossover, as you say. In a thread of @rinda; we were discussing something connected in CC and I wrote that I now generally close my eyes and thank Yi, or spirit of Yi or whatever for the answer I have received. And Yi is of course a massive gift, feels that way sometimes, so amazing that I can connect to this wisdom just sitting in my flat with some coins. But I found that saying thank you became almost a meditation, it was becoming more than just a quick, some would say, superstitious ritual, I was lingering in the thanking space hence talking to Yi itself without a question. And the difference between that and what I'd think of as prayer was virtually indistinguishable. The thanking is enriching, feels enriching just as the child's prayer I quoted above. It does something more than just the words. The question arises what and where is Yi when we aren't consulting it ? :D

Is it like a genii that only appears when you sit to shake the coins or is it always there ? Surely it must be always there and if so then I'm not so sure there's much difference between talking to Yi and talking to God. I personally believe in any case that Yi is a channel to God but beyond that I don't really know of course. But Yi was written by men, channelled by men in some mysterious ways and strangely I also found when thanking I had a kind of telescopic sense of reaching back to all those people who bought Yi to us from way way back in time to where we sit right at this moment. In other words thanking Yi feels like going deep down to a well like source, it isn't empty space it feels present. If we all started talking to Yi without casting readings we might all be praying ?




Anyway, I asked 'is prayer being in contact with the divine or is it asking for something?' 49.1 > 31 (bound with the hide of a yellow ox...?)
Then I asked: 'What is the purpose of prayer?' 12.5 > 35 (cease the hindrance)
'How does one pray?' 11uc (peace, heaven and earth unite)
'How does one find peace?' 25uc. (truthfulness, innocence)
'Is communicating with Yi a form of prayer?' 9.1.4 > 44 (return to the way, fear gives way - 44 is an encounter - with what?)


Not sure I can interpret for you since these are your personal answers for universal questions. Re question 1, well I don't need to consult Yi, I have my answer, prayer can be both. Why wouldn't it be both ? Whatever prayer is it cannot be less that all the ways a person might be with another person. Sometimes you talk to them and tell them what you need and other times you simply want to drink in their presence, their essence, because it feels lovely. Prayer can't be less than that but more.


The purpose of prayer ? Another huge question for which you have an answer specially for you. There's mountains written on this question, I couldn't only go by your answer as the purpose of prayer as I see it is to keep in touch with Source, draw on it, be in a relationship to it. That can be called God or can be called a word of your choice. I guess 12.5 looks like strengthening that connection in the 12ish state of being human, being limited and being blind in some respects.

What I understand from this is that communication with yi is a means of dealing with anxiety while prayer is a way of actively transmuting a problem into its solution. Prayer is achieved through oneness with heaven (or the divine), which isn't the same as asking for things (or even speaking at all).


Communication with Yi isn't only a way of dealing with anxiety since many ask when not anxious but seeking connection and guidance. Also many times consulting does magically actively transmute a problem. Ever had the experience where an answer actually seemed to heal the issue ? I have. Often by reframing an issue it ceases to be an issue and becomes something else.

Anyone can pray at any time it isn't something to be 'achieved'. The lines are always open for anyone to talk or ask for help or simply be with God at any time any place, just like Yi. As Yi can be obscure, to say the least, I do sometimes think if a person is very troubled Yi isn't enough or can complicate things and I've thought praying would be a good idea because guidance can come in all sorts of ways and if a person is sitting struggling intellectually with winged horses and lopped off ears then they aren't accessing the well of support they could access. In other words I think it's good to both pray and consult Yi.


Also I know consulting Yi isn't a spiritually isolated sort of practice because occasionally I have been 'interrupted' during consultation by, well, other guidance. These have tended to be times where I'm very much wanting or needing something. So I've been in the process of consulting and other guidance makes itself felt very strongly to the degree I don't need to go on with the cast though I do and I note the answer is always in accord with the 'interruption'. So I understand we are personally connected to God, to angels, to those in spirit and when we consult we do so along that spectrum and when we need it sometimes other expressions of divine support can come through.

I'm not sure I'm totally clear on what prayer is but I've got a little food for thought, at least.

Apologies if this should be in SR...



I think your questions are very interesting and reckon the thread belongs here as I haven't addressed your casts much but did want to discuss the topic.


Actually looking back to your questions you do have some lovely answers indeed

'How does one pray?' 11uc (peace, heaven and earth unite)
'How does one find peace?' 25uc. (truthfulness, innocence)



11uc was the answer Hilary got about the purpose of the incarnation of Christ (I think, there's a blog on it) and also for the question ''how were you made Yi ?' .


25uc perfect. Innocence. Being effortlessly in accord with the Way. Well easier said than done I think most still aspire to that...…




Not written too much on the readings as this post is already of epic proportions
 

Trojina

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...and here's the link to the one about the incarnation

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2005/12/24/christmas-i-ching/

see if I can find the one about how Yi was made...

...not yet but there is 11 on love and how could we speak of prayer and Yi without considering love ?

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/reading/hexagrams/11-flow/

Hilary writes there
I think this is the nearest the Yijing comes to a hexagram of love. Not so much love in its various expressions in human relationships, but as a pure, overwhelming cosmic force for creation.
 

Lida-mamourian

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I do prayers every day for praising. I believe i need to praise the Divine power for its dids on the earth , the earth is beutifull
 

rosada

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Lots of food for thought here indeed!
I'm attracted to your question "Is communicating with the I Ching a form of prayer? 9.1.4 - 44."
9.1 and 9.4 talk about "returning to the way" and being without fear. 44's image describes the superior man being able to travel the world far and wide - presumably because he is able to resist being pulled off course by powerful temptations. So there seems to be some message here that communicating with the I Ching assists in getting a person back on the right track and strengthens one so as to be able to continue without getting pulled off course again. These ideas are similar to those found in The Lord's Prayer particularly "Forgive us our trespasses" and "Lead us not into temptation." So yeah, I think you can rightfully consider consulting the I Ching a form of prayer!
 
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veavea

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Wow, thanks all for these incredible responses! Especially yours Trojina! Much food for thought indeed - after I'd written the post, later that same day or the next day, I suddenly received (I guess) guidance on what prayer was and it spoke to me exactly like your childhood prayer, Trojina, with every line prefaced with a thanks... and it felt very natural to express myself in that way to whatever the vast energy is. It didn't feel forced or artificial or as if I was just 'saying stuff'. I really meant it. And if there was something I wanted to change I thanked the energy for helping me to find clarity and solutions.

I'm doing this throughout the day now and it feels very positive.

With the 9.1.4 > 44, I recently had an encounter with a deer that had been forecast by Yi as a 44 experience. Although the deer is a physical animal, it felt like an encounter with something so precious and otherworldly that it was like being touched by the divine.
 

RindaR

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Wonderful questions and responses!

I'm older and have spent time studying many different world religions and many different traditions within the Christian church both formally and informally, searching for a way to understand "how things really work". I knew that bad things can happen to good people; and at times, it seems that good things happen to bad people; and that anyone who really wanted to hurt me or steal from me only had to break a thin pane of glass no matter how many locks I put on the door.

I was utterly convinced there had to be some kind of hidden order in this world, and if there was really a God, I needed desperately to be able to really communicate, to touch God. I had been exposed to the Yi Ching (Wilhelm-Banes) in the very early '70s and tried to understand it - I didn't have the knowledge or life-experience to begin to comprehend it then. (n.b.- I'm not claiming to fully understand it now!) I kept coming back to it at irregular intervals through the years, in between other forays.

One day while in my 30's, about the time my children made their appearance, I found myself again really in need of some kind of spiritual foundation. I knew if they had to depend on just me they'd be in trouble. I was baptized at about 4 years old and clearly remember being utterly unimpressed by the vapid picture of blond Jesus with his hands folded in prayer. "Now I lay me..." didn't cut it for me, nor did reading the bible or other spiritual books. Lucis Trust and/or New Thought seemed the closest thing to what I needed but Lucis Trust stuff was so far over my head (and not immediately practical for me at all) it wasn't funny, and I could never quite "work" New Thought. I had a sneaky suspicion though that there had to be a common thread in all the world's traditions if I could just find it! :hissy:

So one day I had some free quiet time, and in my desperation, I challenged God. I said (in my head) in quite a matter-of-fact tone: "OK, God, if you are really there, this book (the bible) says that if I read it and listen for the Holy Spirit I'll be able to understand it. You're on!" :eek: I picked up the bible and opened it at random and read a few verses. Then I waited, listening - really listening - to the quiet place in my head. If I had heard a real voice with my own ears I'd have been convinced I was mentally ill as I worked in the mental health field, and I am forever grateful that did not happen, lol. What I heard was in my mind's ear, if that makes sense. Layers of meaning unfolded in my awareness - stuff that in a million years I couldn't have thought up by myself, and it all made sense. I came away from that experience with a very meek "ok God, uh, wow, uh, uhm.... hmm... " The wandering continued. At least in my own mind I had a small grip on something really real, a taste, a touch, a contact.

My idea of prayer (and of course it's not the be-all or end-all definition) is that prayer is what we do to bring ourselves closer to God. Consulting the Yi, and trying to get in tune with it's energies which I think/feel describe deep reality is definitely one way that I pray.

When confronted with rigidity about how one should worship, my standard response has been that God, in God's wisdom, is smart enough to figure out ways to bring all kinds of people closer, and those ways are as varied as people require.

I'm not sure this answers your question, I think only you will be able to answer it for yourself - and likely have begun doing just that with these awesome readings.:hug:
 

Trojina

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Oh here is the Blog I was looking for when Hilary got 11uc when she asked Yi how it was made

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2015/03/17/i-dont-know-the-first-thing-about-the-yi/


It seems meaningful to me that veavea asked 'how does one pray ?' and got the same answer as Hilary did for 'how was Yi made'...and the question about the incarnation.

I've noticed that similar, well, connected, musings to those of this thread, have occurred in various places across the forum of late. Interesting in that they coincided with my own wonderings about the connection between Yi and prayer. Very 11 when a number of people here start thinking and talking about this.


Oh and connected with that Blog post is this one which I like with hexagram drawn on a leaf https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2015/06/25/consulting-under-the-sky/
 

Rks1157

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Prayer means different things to different people. In most cases prayer involves some sort of petition to a higher power for wisdom, guidance or perhaps a really good parking place. For most of us, no matter how enthusiastically we may approach prayer, the results can be difficult to realize. I don't know about you but for me the heavens have never parted with a booming voice with the answers that I sought. Perhaps the more spiritual among us have an easier time with this but even then it is easy to mistake our wishes for the voice of the almighty (or whatever higher force one identifies with).

Divination open up a channel to the spiritual world. Its language is symbols clothed in words. The meaning of these symbols reveal themselves to the right person (the superior man/woman). This spiritual world is conceived within each of us and divination helps us see within it.
 

moss elk

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When confronted with rigidity about how one should worship, my standard response has been that God, in God's wisdom, is smart enough to figure out ways to bring all kinds of people closer, and those ways are as varied as people require.

When confronted with rigid minded people, I say to them:
If my toddler looked up and lovingly called me Dada, or Da, or Papa, or Ga, or even Mama, Would the child be wrong?
Does the child need smiting? Would I condemn and banish the toddler?

No. Only small minds would.
Forms do not matter, (except to small minds, the obsessive compulsive, or to someone on the payroll.)
only sincerity and the natural good does.
In fact forms divide and seperate people into groups that shun (or worse) each other. The natural good is bigger than any language or form. Someone that encourages one to hate another group because their form is 'wrong' is an enemy to all people, to life, to goodness.
 
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veavea

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Wonderful questions and responses!

I'm older ... What I heard was in my mind's ear, if that makes sense. Layers of meaning unfolded in my awareness - stuff that in a million years I couldn't have thought up by myself, and it all made sense. I came away from that experience with a very meek "ok God, uh, wow, uh, uhm.... hmm... " The wandering continued. At least in my own mind I had a small grip on something really real, a taste, a touch, a contact.

My idea of prayer (and of course it's not the be-all or end-all definition) is that prayer is what we do to bring ourselves closer to God. Consulting the Yi, and trying to get in tune with it's energies which I think/feel describe deep reality is definitely one way that I pray.

When confronted with rigidity about how one should worship, my standard response has been that God, in God's wisdom, is smart enough to figure out ways to bring all kinds of people closer, and those ways are as varied as people require.

I'm not sure this answers your question, I think only you will be able to answer it for yourself - and likely have begun doing just that with these awesome readings.:hug:

Hey Rinda, thanks for this response! But how do you know how old we all are? :hug:

I too have had 'answers' unfold in my head, and a few years ago I used to write them all down - well, touch-type them all - and I still have all the stuff I wrote at that time. I wasn't entirely sure then or now whether it was 'me' who knew all that stuff - my conscious mind certainly didn't. Whatever the energy or intelligence it was (and which did not identify itself as God at all - in fact it made a point of saying that 'God is not a god') but it felt very Good (with a capital G). But that didn't feel like prayer or divination!

I do receive answers or a 'knowing' when I ask for answers - as opposed to when I sit there trying to figure it out for myself.

Recently i've been thinking about needlework samplers and how they could be a kind of prayer... I saw one (on ebay!!) that was sewn with the words 'lord untie me I'm in knots' and i really liked that - I have never done cross stitch myself but i've been thinking about it - i think to sit there so long just stitching and thinking about the words is a kind of prayer, i suppose a meditation on a phrase (rather than silent or empty-your-mind meditation).

There's a prayer to Mary that I like, I think it's called something like Litany to our Lady of the Sorrows or something - it's a long list that includes things like 'Sea of Bitterness, pray for us - Solace to the Shipwrecked, pray for us -' etc etc - I really like it. But it doesn't feel quite natural for me to say it as a prayer somehow. I'm not a catholic (or even a christian, in any defined sense) but sometimes when I've done work in a healing capacity and felt overwhelmed by compassion, I feel the pressure in my heart centre and I can't help thinking of Mary with the sacred heart; and I can really understand what that imagery means, because it feels as though my heart too bleeds and burns.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say here - just waffling :eek:

:hugs:
 
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veavea

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Oh here is the Blog I was looking for when Hilary got 11uc when she asked Yi how it was made

https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2015/03/17/i-dont-know-the-first-thing-about-the-yi/


It seems meaningful to me that veavea asked 'how does one pray ?' and got the same answer as Hilary did for 'how was Yi made'...and the question about the incarnation.
https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/answers/2015/06/25/consulting-under-the-sky/

Thanks Trojina - what jumped out at me from that blog post was the line about visiting aliens - I had NEVER been even slightly interested in anything to do with visiting aliens but I'm almost embarrassed to admit that the 'unfolding intelligence' in my head that I referred to in the previous post - you know, the one that said 'god is not a god' - did infer some stuff about visiting aliens...! i reserve judgement :blush:

i think there's an internet meme (at least my son told me) where the answer to every question is: ALIENS

:D
 

RindaR

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lol, older, as in "older than I was"...
 

rosada

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I think that would make a good bumper sticker:
"The answer to every question is: Aliens!"
 
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veavea

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11uc was the answer Hilary got about the purpose of the incarnation of Christ (I think, there's a blog on it) and also for the question ''how were you made Yi ?' .

Just returning to some of the bigger questions folded into the thread here - I just had time/headspace to go and read the links you provide from the blog by Hilary. It's interesting because she writes:

"Carried by the current of that river thundering down Mount Tai, small concerns dwindle away, and the energy to achieve great things pours in. It can be exhilarating – but it can also be overwhelming, as things that had never before seemed ‘small’ to us vanish down the river. When we’re given this hexagram unchanging, especially, the question of how (or whether) we can interact with such a force comes to the fore. It can sometimes mean being confronted with life and death issues that set the rest of life firmly in perspective.

This aspect of the experience comes out clearly in its hidden core – the nuclear hexagram, 54, the Marrying Maiden. She is ‘swept off her feet’, hoisted without ceremony out of her comfort zone and up into a realm of far greater possibilities, but one altogether beyond her control. So is this loss of control a hidden danger of Hexagram 11?"


This was actually my immediate response to the dense, rich, complex answers that sprang out of my initial question - overwhelm and inability to process all immediately - which is why I'm only now coming back to respond and reflect on some of the points and connections raised.

Where I live right now (although I am on a boat on the canal) is in the middle of very magical landscape, I am close to Stonehenge and Silbury Hill and Avebury, and there is very much that sense when I go to those places, as well as the various other ancient features added to the landscape, of connecting with something much bigger than the self, or even than the self can possibly comprehend. Even the physical logistics - let alone the 'cosmic' issues - of these landscape markers are baffling. How did they get there? Why? Who? Etc. Actually as I ponder it the thought occurred to me that maybe stone circles could be used as divination. But I don't know how that would work, it just popped into my head!!

One further point that maybe worth mentioning in terms of relating to Yi as if in prayer - at some point after the first set of questions that I posted in the original post above, I felt a bit overwhelmed and befuddled and spoke directly to Yi words to the effect that: although I don't really understand anything (!!) I trust Yi to guide me and point me in the right direction. I put this to Yi as a question (although it was a statement) and requested a response. I got: 58.4.5 > 19

What I took from this was a bifold warning not to trust 'disintegrating influences' and always to ensure that I am not 'giving myself away' to an imagined deity (?) - somehow I must strike the balance between autonomy and yet also being able to assimilate guidance, without losing my ability to discriminate.
 

Trojina

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Where I live right now (although I am on a boat on the canal) is in the middle of very magical landscape, I am close to Stonehenge and Silbury Hill and Avebury, and there is very much that sense when I go to those places, as well as the various other ancient features added to the landscape, of connecting with something much bigger than the self, or even than the self can possibly comprehend. Even the physical logistics - let alone the 'cosmic' issues - of these landscape markers are baffling. How did they get there? Why? Who? Etc. Actually as I ponder it the thought occurred to me that maybe stone circles could be used as divination. But I don't know how that would work, it just popped into my head!!

Yay, I'm not so very far away. I love Avebury, shame about the road through it. We should meet some day and divine with the stones. I don't know how either.

One further point that maybe worth mentioning in terms of relating to Yi as if in prayer - at some point after the first set of questions that I posted in the original post above, I felt a bit overwhelmed and befuddled and spoke directly to Yi words to the effect that: although I don't really understand anything (!!) I trust Yi to guide me and point me in the right direction. I put this to Yi as a question (although it was a statement) and requested a response. I got: 58.4.5 > 19

What I took from this was a bifold warning not to trust 'disintegrating influences' and always to ensure that I am not 'giving myself away' to an imagined deity (?) - somehow I must strike the balance between autonomy and yet also being able to assimilate guidance, without losing my ability to discriminate.


I think I agree with your interpretation. I think it can be a difficult balance to achieve at times. I like the 19 here though. There are other kinds of guidance, some more direct than consulting Yi. Perhaps the 19 is saying you have this guidance, it's there in your life and you are joyfully open to it yet at the same time it's still an ongoing dialogue (line 4) in your mind about 'which guidance where' kind of thing as in consulting Yi versus praying. I do think line 5 is as you say asking you to be aware of the false directions that appear along the whole divination pathway. Well I don't think divination is a spiritual path in itself but an opening, a portal to the bigger picture and one's place in it.

Hmm I used the word 'opening' and you had 58 so it seems you are very open and the lines as you say carry a bit of a warning.


I love that Yi is generous enough to give you a warning about the use of itself :D It's clearly not an ego driven or jealous Oracle ;)
 

rosada

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Prayer is how we talk to God.
The I Ching is how God talks to us.
:D
 

heatwave

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In prayer we offer and God listens. In meditation and divination, God offers and we listen. This is more or less what rosada beautifully and succinctly said, it's just that the active word when I think of my relationship with the Universe is listen and not talk.

I have actually asked both of these questions and received beautiful answers.

What is prayer? 50.6 > 32.
I see myself as the cauldron and vessel and prayer as the jade handles adorning and balancing me. These are the notes I have copied:
Cleary (2): The jade handle is above. Hard and soft join. Wu: The strong and the weak are balanced.

I don't know when I started doing this, but before I ask the oracle a question I picture myself as an empty cup ready to be filled up with whatever the answer will be, free of judgement and wishes about what I will be told.

What is divination? 20.4.6 > 45
Of course! Seeing, contemplation. The note that puts an image in my mind of divination:
Wilhelm/Baynes: Contemplation of the light of the kingdom. It furthers one to exert influence as the guest of a king.

I see Yi as the king here. While contemplating the response of the oracle, I am Yi's guest. How might I act in the presence of a king?
 

rosada

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Playing around with thoughts about the answer received to what is divination? 20.4.6 > 45.

Contemplation of the light of the kingdom - In divining we are contemplating and attempting to understand what The Light is creating.

It furthers one to exert influence as the guest of the king -
We will be furthered, given more insight, if we share what we thus learn in a way that is similar to how one would share information they gathered while staying as a guest in someone's home. We'd only tell things the host would want to have said. Just as a host wouldn't want a guest to reveal some secrets shared, a person consulting the I Ching must use the knowledge in a way that is appropriate.
 
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veavea

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Lovely answers. I had 20.4 once as the yi response to a crazy dream full of all sorts of intense symbolism (including Saturn, eclipses and hexagons everywhere) and which was about god, or the sun, in the dream the sun came very close to the earth and looked right at me. I wrote about that on change circle (but i'm not a member at present!). even so I have never been sure how to interpret the dream other than it felt as though God (who/whatever that means) wanted me to do something!
 

rosada

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About heatwave's response to the question What is prayer? 50.6 - 32
She (?) mentions that before consulting the oracle she visualizes herself as an empty cup, ready to receive without prejudice. I got to thinking how The Caldron is the sacrificial vase used for making offerings to the gods. What is it that we are offering? As God already has everything perhaps we are offering our emptiness, our readiness to say, "Not my will but thine." As the last line of The Caldron, however, it occurs to me that this wouldn't so much symbolize "emptiness" but more like "stillness" - the caldron at this point would be full - full of what? Well, all I can think of is full of liquid, water, perhaps our essence, and there I'm thinking when water is still then it can act as a mirror and reflect the sky, the messages from above. Sooo... when we pray we are offering ourselves, still, calm, without emotional turmoil stirring up waves and distortions. 32.Duration, which is made up of the trigrams for wind and thunder, also emphasizes staying calm through all turbulence.
I'm thinking then that prayer is a means of calming emotional turmoil and thus making ourselves available to receive direct guidance.
 
D

diamanda

Guest
communication with yi is a means of dealing with anxiety while prayer is a way of actively transmuting a problem into its solution.
Amazing how different we all are.
I view this in the exact opposite manner.
Want to be active towards a solution? Ask the I Ching.
Anxiety? Pray.
 

li chien

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Prayer is how we talk to God.
The I Ching is how God talks to us.
:D

Just read this Rosada... priceless, wise and joyful stuff.

I struggle with the notion of prayer (I have never done it) possibly because the whole asking for something other than what is actually coming seems uncomfortably like averting something that is probably quite necessary.

Divination is something I’m completely comfortable with (I have done it since I was quite young, read my first tea cup at 4 and was doing tarot at 10) because it seems natural and is more about just developing understanding of what is coming.
 

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