POP06 - The Iching

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Through the decades I have conducted many classes on the subject of meditation. At one time traveling a circuit on weekends week after week through small communities where I had placed newspaper ads in Northern Ontario. Never have I charged a dime (nor taken a donation) for these courses.

At another time I had large classes in what was the then popular "free college movement" at a large university. There came to these classes week after week an individual who repeatedly pleaded with me to allow him to cast the I-Ching for me. I declined.

But, finally I agreed, on one condition - that it be cast in the dark. If you are not familiar with this method, it is similar to that related in the Book of Daniel where the king called in his astrologers and soothsayers and asked them to interpret his dream without his telling them what the dream was.

My fortune teller, was equally well astounded at my suggestion (you must read Daniel to see the king's fortune tellers' response) but at last he agreed to proceed. What we did in this method, is that I wrote the question on a piece of paper, folded the paper so the question could not be seen or changed and placed it in the middle of the mat on which we were about to cast the I-Ching.

Assuming the traditional positions, and offering the traditional prayers, we began the process. If you are not aware of how the I-Ching is cast I shall briefly explain the process. A die is cast, and a marker is positioned. There are something like ten groupings of five each (as I remember).

The arrangement would look something like this:

      10100___11000___00110___01101___11101 11011___01100___01011___00110___10111

The actually arrangment of the ones and zeroes in the above example is coincidental. I just picked them randomly as an example. The thing to notice here is that there are two rows The top row represents HEAVEN and the bottom row represents EARTH.

Each of the groupings has an interpretative meaning, and the interpretations are given according to long tradition as found in Interpretative Books written about the I-Ching. The actual position of the ones and zeroes, is determined in a ritualistically prescribed order by casting the die. It takes a while to go through the whole process, but in the end here was our ACTUAL result.

      11111___11111___11111___11111___11111 00000___00000___00000___00000___00000

The getting of all the ones in a line and all the zeroes in another is the equivalent of flipping a coin and first getting fifty heads, and then getting fifty tails all in a row.

I was teaching statistics in the college and I can tell you that the probability of this happening is much, much less than than of picking all seven numbers in the lottery.

Now the real significance of this comes in regards to the question. Sort of like that quiz show on TV called Jeporady where they give you the answer and you formulate the question. This was the answer. What was the question?

First to examine the meaning of the answer. In this answer all the ones in heaven means that heaven is ruling over all the zeroes on earth. I won't go into all the mystical significances.

But now we opened the paper so my fortune teller friend could see the question - It was -

    "Is the Prophet that I am trying to teach you about the True Prophet?"

He never returned.