The Way of Sacrifice

The Taoist way is the way of sacrifice. In that sense it is no different than the Christian Way which is the way of the cross. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. Same thing. What is it we sacrifice? We sacrifice our self will and give it up to the universal will. The universe has a consciousness. This is what the "New World Order" and the elite do not want you to know. They want you to know it is a cold dead universe; that it happened by accident. The Taoists did not necessarily (or maybe they did) believe in a supreme being in quite the same way we do in the West, but they did believe that the universe was alive and that the universe was fully conscious. In much the same way, some Gnostic Christians believed that the old Testament God was a lower ranking being, and that the true God was this "mystical" universe of consciousness.

Fundamentalist Christians do not agree with the oriental concept of "oneness." That is because, in my opinion, they do not understand exactly what is meant by that. They quote the Bible which speaks of atonement, but do not realize that atonement comes originally from three words, "at - one - ment," or at one meant. Sometimes we speak apples and oranges, and argue never realizing that we are not even speaking of the same thing and are using concepts that are perceived in one way by the speaker and another by the hearer. This subject could be carried on farther, perhaps at another time. Suffice it to say for now that in most, if not all religions is this concept, conceived or not by the general practicioner, of a supreme being who is not in a given place in time or space, but all pervading, and is the essence of all that exists.

And in the I Ching, as well as the Bible, we have the concept of a higher reality in which we "move and breathe and have our being;" and being such, we learn that it would not be wise to "lean upon our own understanding," but to submit to this higher power, and give it credit for our accomplishments and our successes, rather than attributing them to our lower personality alone. So in hexagram thirty four, the Wilhelm/Baynes commentary says that we may "rely on our power, and forget to ask what is right." In other words, we rely on our lower consciousness rather than recognizing and availing ourselves of the deeper power that exists within us. When we do this we violate the maxims of hexagram fifteen, and give ourselves praise rather than the higher powers. In other words, we are self willed. "Pride cometh before a fall." We must humble ourselves and give ourselves up to a power that is higher than we. In this way we do not forget to "ask what is right." In this way we are following the way of the cross and the way of the Tao.

The lines give us various indications of how we can violate this universal law of "asking what is right." Often when we come into power we revel in it, and begin to exert our will to dominate those around us. However, this only causes resistance. Line one of hexagram thirty four describes a situation where a person has developed a certain amount of power but not as much as he or she thinks. Then they begin to arrogantly lord it over other people and this causes a reaction. Line three tells us that we must be "conscious at all times of the danger of pushing ahead regardless of circumstances." This too comes from a lack of humility and unwillingness to ask what is right.

When we use power properly following the tao and not our own self will, we find ourselves as in hexagram forty, easing ourselves away from tensions. We recognized in good time that we were violating the universal law of universal willfulness by trying to enforce our own will. Now, before disaster strikes, we need to "return to the way that is suited for us." And as hexagram forty says, (when lines one and three of thirty four change) we must make a "clean sweep and get back to normal conditions as soon as possible." In this way we spare ourselves of the humility that would overtake us by our own ignorance of our situation. (See hexagram four). If we fail to learn our lessons we can be like line four of hexagram four that says in the commentary, "Often the teacher, when confronted with such entangled folly, has no other course but to leave the fool to himself for a time,not sparing him the humiliation that results" For there is no harsher taskmaster than our own being when we behave foolishly and arrogantly.