The Limitations of Hexagram Sixty

In all my thirty plus, maybe forty years of studying the I Ching, I have very rarely gotten hexagram sixty. But now I am getting it intermittently. Usually this happens when we are ready for a new type of lesson or a lesson on a different level. The thing I find interesting here is that this hexagram tells me a lot of the same things that the other hexagrams do, just in a different way. That is just me however. Others may find completely different things in it as we all have our own areas of expertise and understanding, and all have our own personalities and character traits, and when we consult the I Ching personally, through a random means, such as throwing coins or yarrow stalks, we receive answers that are specific to us. Someone else getting hexagram sixty may see something completely different in it, and that is not wrong. The Spirit behind the I Ching knows our nature, our abilities, and our LIMITATIONS.

Lines one and two show two different scenarios, one in which it is "safe to go out the door," and another where "it is not." The key is that it all depends on the timing, a timing which only the universe, or the Higher Self knows, but our LIMITED self does not. If we become arrogant, and think we control it all, we are not in harmony with the meaning of the hexagram nor are we in harmony with the universe as a whole, and therefore not in harmony with our Higher Selves.

It is requisite that we submit to our Higher Selves, or in other words, the universal powers, and do not try to complete everything by ourselves. If we think we can do it all in our own power, we inevitably fail. Granted, some may make their way very well in the world, but sooner or later, arrogance will catch up with us, and we will be humbled.

Line five tells us that we must apply our limitations to ourselves. There are times when we might have to apply them to employees, (if we own a company) or to our children, etc., but primarily we must apply them to ourselves. To know when to go out the gate and courtyard is not something we are consciously capable of knowing, but when we follow the higher guidance it works for us without our conscious awareness of it.

When these four lines change, the result is hexagram fifteen. Hexagram fifteen indirectly and discreetly indicates to us that we must be modest and recognize a higher power that can guide us. When we are in harmony with this higher power, we can pass through the gate or not at the right time and in accordance with the will of higher powers. In this way we follow what the Taoists call "the natural way," and we make no mistakes.