The beginning, Hexagram 3

The things I might pose about hexagram three are not obvious, and some might take issue, but those truly schooled in Eastern thought, and/or esoteric Christianity, might recognize the full potential of these ideas. Hexagram three is really the first hexagram. Hexagram one and two are merely archetypes for that perennial energy that has always existed. In reality it exists as one. There is no separation of yin and yang. The separation is merely a necessary illusion so that life may have experience. When the one becomes two, there is division and separation.

The book of Changes, or the Yi Jing, is really a story of the prodigal son. In the 3rd hexagram, the son leaves his father's home. In essence, yin and yang is divided and the son recognizes both joy and sorrow. In hexagram sixty one, the son finds inner truth, and in hexagram sixty two he returns to his home base. Hexagram 63 and 64, however, show us the cyclical nature of time and space, and that there is nothing new under the sun. In other words, what has happened before will happen again, and the son will once again leave his heavenly home. In the same way, spirit enters into, and becomes matter. However, matter is not dead solidity, as we have believed in our illusion for so long, for it is infused with spirit, which has awareness. All matter is spirit, and therefore aware. The nuclear hexagram in hexagram three tells us of this fall from grace, Adam from the Garden, spirit into matter. The prodigal son leaves his home. (Hexagram fifty six tells us something of the wonderings of the prodigal son in the material realm. The realm of illusion. Hexagram 47 tells us of the dreariness of this "world of illusion." A gloomy place.) The prodigal son goes through the dark night of the soul, and once again, decides to return to his fathers home, where he can find his true spirit, his true home, his true life, his riches, his inheritance.

Since the way back home involves the reintegration of yin and yang, in their proper places and matches, (hexagram sixty three is the only one that is totally correct) then the image of a marriage of soul mates is presented in this hexagram. In order to properly integrate yin and yang, we must have a proper match with our inner psyche with our outer consciousness. Without this we just wonder in the wilderness. (hexagram fifty six, as well as others.) On a societal level, the integration comes about by finding our true soul mate. (There is much discussion of this, much longing for this in society today, but one must realize, one will never be integrated with his or her true soul mate until such time as a full ripening of the individual comes about. Before this time, even though we more than occassionally meet and marry our soul mate, it does not appear to be so, and divorce or trouble happens because we do not have the true inner integration.)

And one more point for tonight, before we go on about this hexagram, on a third level, the integration is between the individual and the sage. Hexagram three says we cannot do it alone, we need helpers. Line three says something to the effect, "If we hunt in the forest without a guide, we only get lost in the forest. To integrate yin and yang, we need spiritual teachers. True teachers who have proven themselves. We cannot integrate without a teacher. And hexagram four is about the teacher.

More on this later.