A side note, just for fun

I live in the Tampa Bay area and therefore, naturally root for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in football. They are a bit of an enigma to say the least. It is evidence that football teams, like nations, have their own particular form of destiny, or karma. The eight years I have spent here rooting for this team has been a roller coaster ride, I'll tell you. These guys are known to win, especially with their great defense, still working on their offense, but I have never seen a team that can keep you on the edge of your seat til the last seconds like this one. They can never, it seems, put anyone away. If they have too big a lead, they will screw it up phenomenally until the game is close again. I mean, ninty per cent of the time this happens. The games are almost always close. There are a few exceptions, granted, but not a lot. And more often not they will win it or lose it over some controversial call that ends up being reviewed, usually win there are only four or five seconds in the game anyway... You think the game is over, then, suddenly comes the challenge. Last week, this team I nickname the cardiac kids, being ahead 20 to 14, with about 52 seconds left to play, suddenly let a guy run around the end, they miss five tackles in a row, and from 52 yards away they score. Now the score is 21 to 20, and it appeared as if no one even cared. When they scored, it looked as if Tampa Bay wasn't even trying to catch the guy, let him go, they seemed to be saying. But no problem, there are still 52 seconds on the clock. So in 52 seconds, Tampa screws up royally, until, by some stroke of luck, a penalty is called on the opposing team, 15 yards. Then to make matters worse, and it was somewhat of a controversial call on the player, the player got mad because he thought the call was unfair, kicks the penalty flag, and gets another 15 yard penalty. So now, if I remember right they had one last play, they got up to about the 45 yard line, and there are four seconds left on the clock. Fourty five yards for a touchdown, sixty two for a field goal. The record is 63 yards. No problem, the kicker came out, who hadn't made a field goal longer than 28 yards all year, and kicks a 62 yard field goal to end the game. I am saying, "what the hey?" Unbelievable. I tell you these are the original cardiac kids. And the team does this kind of thing game after game, year after year. I do believe they have a kind of karma...

Well, its fun, but its also instructive, because individuals, teams, and nations all have these karmic roles that they play, it's kind of an unconscious thing. But gnostic christians texts, gospels, whatever, tell us that to enter the kingdome of heaven, right here, right now, not after we die, we have to make the unconscious conscious, and the conscious has to temporarily be suspended, as if into unconsciousness, to do this.

The I Ching has a similar scenario, though much more hidden within the text. (It is hidden within the gospels too, but not quite as much the gnostic texts). Remember that yang is the polar side of yin, and whatever is yang, its polar opposite is yin. This applies to the conscious and unconscious too. More on this later.