Qualifications for using the I Ching

A lot of people take up the I Ching thinking they are going to get simple answers to life's perplexing questions regarding relationships or what have you. Eventually they are going to be disappointed because the I Ching is not a cure all, so to speak. It responds to us and who we are.


We often think we grow up and go to college and we get the highest level education and then we tackle the world, and that is all there is to it. We finish college and we know it all, we are mature, and it is just a matter of making money. All fine and good up to a point. But anyone who thinks they are getting a high level education by going to college is living in a dream world. Sure, we learn a lot of facts and figures that will help us meet the world and make a living, but that is it. It never occurs to us that there is more.

But there 'is' more. Much more. And if we don't recognize it we stay stuck in an emotional rut and never truly mature. We need more than that to become well rounded citizens and mature adults. And to consult the I Ching to find out if a certain relationship will work is extremely naive. We need to learn about ourselves and why 'we' don't work. Why we don't work in our day to day lives, in our interactions with others, and we need to come to terms with how immature we are.

We make a serious, grave error, when we think we are now adults and have it all under control. Life itself is a teaching process, and we grow regardless, but we would grow faster if we would give up our arrogance, realize that we don't know, and would accept the I Ching as a teacher, and not an automatic answer machine. I cannot make this point strongly enough. We need to ask the I Ching on a regular basis about ourselves, and not about others, or relationships, or businesses. Not that we can't get some information that way, but it is not the highest and best way.

The first step is to calm the mind, and come to understand that no matter what the outer world is saying to us, it is okay. That we are okay. That the outer world can only affect us outwardly, and even then only according to our own inner mind set. The universe reacts to our thoughts, and responds to us accordingly. This is the real problem in relationships and in business ventures. It is the real problem in anything that happens to us in life. In the image of one of the hexagrams, I don't have time to look it up, it says something to the effect, "The superior man finds the problem within himself." Enough said for now.