The well that cannot be changed.

“The town may be changed but the well cannot be changed.”

The town on one level can be a symbol for our outer self. It is where we normally maintain our consciousness, and where we function during waking hours. The town also refers to our outer conditions, where we live, where we work, the school we or our kids go to, the grocery store, and on a deeper level, the outward conditions of our life. Our spouse, our kids, our neighbors; all of these things can be changed. We can even change our name, but we cannot change who we really our on the inner level. We cannot change that deeper strata of our being, no matter how many times we change the circumstances of our life, we are still who we are.

“If the rope does not go all of the way…”

The rope is our connection with our inner self. If we cannot reach deep down into the inner core of our being, we cannot bring up the wisdom that our inner being has to offer. We are also not functioning as a fully integrated human being, but our inner core and our outer personality are at odds. Hexagram fifteen tells us that we ought to cooperate, as a pair of eyes. One eye is controlled by the left brain, the other by the right brain. The two ought to correspond and work together, but if the rope is too short, the connection is not there, and we are still functioning through the ego, or the false self, the self that sees itself as separate.

“Or the jug breaks.”

The jug will break if the ego superimposes its concept of understanding over the wisdom from the I Ching, or may I say, the Sage. The false self does not recognize itself as false. It insists that its view of reality is the true one. It sees objectivity, things out there, things that must be controlled, lest they become threatening. Often the wisdom of the Sage is disregarded because the lower self is just “too aware” of the outside world, and this supposed reality, (illusion) outside of ourselves.

”It neither increases nor decreases.”

When we see illusion, the manifestation of our desires, we use the illusionary objects that we have unwittingly created with our mind and therefore eventually consume them, but the true reality, that of unity, of wholeness, and oneness, has implicit within it the strange property of continual fulfillment. In other words, the more we use the tao, the more available it is to us. Even in the physical world, the irony is that the more we give, the more we eventually have. Use the water, use it, use it, use it, many thousands, millions of people use it, and it is still there. It neither increases nor decreases. As hexagram twenty five line four says, “We cannot lose what really belongs to us.” It is our inner being that decides what we have and what we do not have, and that is based on the nature of our being, and the seeds planted in the mind through the right or wrong use of thought. It is our inner being that controls the outer world, which is just an illusion anyway, not the other way around. As is said in a wonderful book called, “Mystic Path to Cosmic Power,” by Howard Vernon, an approximate quote here, “Humanity thinks that by having a wonderful world, one will have joy. The mystic knows that when one has joy, the world is perfect.”

Meditate upon my words.