Only a few hours ago the I Ching urged me to commit to my highest aspiration and to announce my intention. It said "Make known the arrival of a message from heaven and announce it at the Earth altar. If you don't deliver your important message you will be cut off and isolated. Call out. Tell us now. Now!" Then along comes an invitation to do so on Facebook, which motivated this... :)

So, what is the highest perceived benefit or aspiration of my Life?

There are countless intriguing patterns that can be found within the I Ching. I don't know what they mean, but here we explore some of them... Firstly we map out the correlation between the hexagrams and the binary numbers, and then within this context we explore that patterns formed by the various pairs of hexagrams and groups of pairs.  More >

An oracular consultation brings a message
from Universal Consciousness.

Question:

Great Spirit, through the I Ching please give advice to
all who seek to nurture the emerging memeplex.

Summary of the Response:
 

The old memeplex (paradigm) is dead so transform it into an interface into the Ageless Wisdom through which blessings will flow. No longer interpret it literally, but use it as an analogy by which to comprehend the deeper reality. When you serve the Ageless Wisdom you can become Great. Prepare for the arrival of the new and approach of something powerful and meaningful. Welcome it and draw near to it without expecting to get what you want immediately. Let your desire for contact be expressed through a willingness to work and serve. Invite it to come nearer by bringing things together. Tolerate and protect things and people outside your normal set of values without setting limits on them. There is an undeveloped potential that you rely on without knowing it. Continually correct yourself. Rushing to completion will leave you open to danger and the whole situation will dissolve. Meditate on Reality and spread the teachings to inspire the lives of all. Gather the resources for a great project. Through self-knowledge and inner awareness establish an enduring connection with reality in your innermost selves. Through this you can participate harmoniously in the unfolding stream of events. Love and Spirit return as an entirely new space of possibility and field of activity opens up and awareness expands into a joyous new state of existence.

Full description of the response:

see Advice on Nurturing the Emerging Memeplex.

For more on the I Ching in general see here.

An oracular consultation brings a message
from Universal Consciousness.

Question:

Great Spirit, through the I Ching please give wise counsel
to all workers of the Light, in this phase of the journey.

Summary of the Response:

Workers of the light, you are collectively like a foetus in a womb, bearing
a gift from the spirit. The many obstacles serve as protection whilst you
nurture your inner energy. Eliminate outmoded ideas and ways of thinking
through mutual effort and support. Prepare yourselves to undertake a great
paradigm shift. Overcome fear and denial, liberate your confined energies
and connect with what is real. Through this transition you will collectively
emerge into the full light of day and be honoured at the centre of power,
thus initiating a time of abundant, creative growth. Through self-knowledge
and inner awareness establish an enduring connection with reality in your
innermost selves. Through this you can participate harmoniously in the
unfolding stream of events. Love and Spirit return as an entirely new space
of possibility and field of activity opens up and awareness expands into a
joyous new state of existence.

Full description of the response:

see Wisdom for this Phase of the Journey.

For more on the I Ching in general see here.

Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.

For those interested in a deeper understanding of the I Ching, I.e. how does it work? What is it really? And what effect does it have in the world? I will here endeavour to provide some assistance. First I give information on in depth scientific research, which has been ongoing over the past three decades, into the interplay between consciousness and 'physical' processes. Then I quote extracts from recent studies, by Ervin Laszlo, into what some call the Akashic Field or the Unified Quantum Vacuum. Then finally I quote from an introductory text into the I Ching and invite you to contemplate all of these ideas in light of each other. This may help you come to a deeper understanding, not only of the I Ching, but of consciousness, the physical universe, the process of change and transformation and the journey of life...  More >

Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.

To some people it may seem to be an obvious contradiction to claim to be a rationalist and a sceptic (open minded enquiry without pre-conceptions) and yet to call upon “the wisdom of the I Ching” as I do in various places. But this perception is based on a subtle misconception, which I will endeavour to clear up here.

I will first give some background on the general type of rationalist enquiry used, then on my own enquiry and its results, and finishing with some wisdom from the I Ching.

Consider the case of the Turing test, designed by Alan Turing around 1950. What was at issue was whether an AI program was merely a set of mechanistic responses or whether it was reasonable to accept that it was engaging in conscious thought processes or more generally 'sentience', the “state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness” *

But these terms were too difficult to quantify. “However, if we consider the more precise—and somehow related—question whether a digital computer can do well in a certain kind of game that Turing describes (“The Imitation Game”), then—at least in Turing's eyes—we do have a question that admits of precise discussion... The phrase “The Turing Test” is sometimes used more generally to refer to some kinds of behavioural tests for the presence of mind, or thought, or intelligence in putatively minded entities. So, for example, it is sometimes suggested that The Turing Test is prefigured in Descartes' Discourse on the Method.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Genuine thought as opposed to mechanistic response is not something that we can just surgically open the brain to distinguish in an objective manner. It is impossible to objectively prove one's own sentience to another, let alone objectively prove the sentience of another. We only ever take these things for granted in each other, but merely assuming this without questioning it is not a sceptical, rationalist position to take. But through constant interactions with others we have in a sense performed an ongoing Turing test of our own in order to come to trust that other human beings are indeed sentient and are not merely inert mechanisms engaging in programmed responses. We directly experience our own sentience (thinking, feeling, perceptual awareness, etc) and we observe from birth that others behave in a manner that is strongly suggestive that they too 'experience' sentience. From this we infer that they too are sentient.

Here I consider a variation of the Turing test, which does not involve an imitation game where the subject under enquiry is required to mimic a typical human being, but rather, the subject (I Ching) is instead required to mimic a wise and perceptive sage, one who can cut through the unessential complications and penetrate to the core of an issue and then provide succinct and holistically appropriate advice and insight into a situation. This will help discern whether it is just a random process that credulous fools are deceived by, or whether there is some measure of intelligent response in the process. Exactly where and how this intelligence operates is not considered here, but merely its presence or absence...  More >

Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.

I am writing from the southern hemisphere and here we are approaching the winter solstice, so to mark this occasion I will relay some wisdom from the I Ching that talks about the winter solstice. At the time of first publishing my website (www.anandavala.info) in October 2005, I asked the I Ching for a message of reassurance that will accompany the work as a whole.

Question: What message do you have for the people with which to reassure them, here in this work?  More >

Before joining the conversation, please read and accept this Invitation to a Conversation.

Fire the Grid Oracular Confirmation and Advice

See the article Rationality, Scepticism and the I Ching for a discussion on the I Ching itself...

I've just read the article on 4 ways to fire the Earth Grid and the associated website and I felt the truth of what it says. I consulted the I Ching for oracular confirmation. It's response verified everything that Shelley spoke of and gave advice on the matter so I summarise it below for the benefit of others:

(61) Centring and Connecting to the Spirits / The Opened Heart:

The connection of inner and outer in the thought of the heart that spreads the word across the threshold of life and death. It is a major site of radical transformation at all levels and a transition to the great festival times.

Articulate the Mandate then trust in it. Connect the heart with the spirit. It implies a return to and of the spirit, establishing the myriad blessings that flow from the ancestors and Heaven through the act of sacrifice: benediction, celestial favour and great prosperity; to drive out evil spirits. It is an offering to the ancestors and a contract to recognise partners. It points at connection to the spirit world and the carrying wave of blessings and energy that pours forth through that connection. It means moving to or being at the centre, an equal or still point between opposites. It is an arrow that hits the centre of the target, the equinoxes, the pivotal points of the year. It is the 'coming in and going out' of the souls from the centre, the heart and its inner animation, the activity of the spirits in the heart and their harmonizing influence. It refers to the inner world: meditation and the inner Way. It is a banner placed at the centre point of the four sides, a hole or link to the world of the dead and the ancestors.  More >