Rests on Something

Hexagram thirty is key in our understanding of the nature of the cosmos, the nature of our inner self, and the nature of our relationships; for the commentary states, "By cultivating in himself an attitude of compliance and voluntary dependence, man acquires clarity and finds his place in the world." The key here is that everything "depends or rests upon something else." If there is no darkness the light does not appear. If there is no man it will not be long til there is no woman, and vice versa. If there is no high then there can be no low. If there is no "receptive," then there can be no "creative." The conscious mind cannot fully function correctly without the subconscious, nor can the subconscious make its mark on the world without the conscious. Just as fire clings to the wood, so life must cling to that which supports it or it will be quickly extinguished.

But humankind must decide upon what it is to cling. It can cling to the higher powers or it can cling to the lower. It can cling to the rulers (line five) or to the masses (line one). If we cling to the wrong thing, if we cling to that with which there is no or limited mutual support, (or the thorns and thistles in hexagram forty seven), just as in line four of thirty, we flare up, or rise to prominence quickly, but we cannot sustain our upward momentum. In the same way in our relationships, if we do not base them on that which endures, they soon die away and we will find our partner with another. Or in our spiritual life, if we do not cling to our higher spiritual awareness, we will soon find ourselves as equal to the "one eyed man" in hexagram fifty four, who is able to see, but not that far. We will be like the subject of hexagram four line four, who has a blind spot in his thinking. Without our proper partner, our proper correlate, (line one with four, line two with five, line three with six) we cannot function fully and with the greatest success. Our relationships become sterile, as does our businesses, our careers, or our forms of government. On any level of life this holds true.

If we wish to operate from the ego alone. If we think that is all there is, if we attempt to dominate and control, either by force or by manipulation, the end result will be the equivalent of line five in hexagram thirty that says, "Tears in floods, sighing and lamenting." We cannot control the world. We can only control ourselves. And when we learn that we become like the second part of line five, which says, "Good Fortune." It is only when we learn from our mistakes that we find good fortune. As the prodigal son who leaves his father's house, and goes out into the world of experience, so too, we must leave our mental house, go out into the world of experience, make our mistakes, until we learn the true meaning and value of what we had before, and return (hexagram twenty four) to our true spiritual home and heritage, being wiser and more self sufficient than we were before.

The commentary on hexagram thirty nine speaks of this as well, stating, "one must join forces with friends and...put himself under the leadership of a man equal to the situation." The man equal to the situation is our higher self. Without the higher self, we are like the "one eyed man," who can see only so far. We are like the subject of hexagram twenty line two, who can only see through the crack of the door. (A very limited form of awareness or understanding.) If we use just the ego, just the conscious mind, we are again like the "one eyed man." We do not have full use of our faculties, and are not taking advantage of the person in hexagram twenty line four who "understands the secrets to which a kingdom can be made to flourish." Our own personal kingdom will not flourish unless we use all of our faculties of mind, including intuition and deeper understanding, and can harmonize the two parts of ourselves. In the same way the king will not prosper, and the realm will not prosper, unless the ruler can put together the yin and the yang in harmony in all situations. In our relationships two, if we think only on the basis of how our same sex thinks, we are like the "one eyed man," who is half blind. We must think in terms of both yin and yang. We must understand the male form of mind as well as the female, or we will be crushed, (oppressed by stone, hexagram forty seven) upon the rocks that appear in our world from time to time.

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