A word about this topic seems in order...

Let's see,.. to start with, our Topic Name!

St.Paul gifts us with this admonishment"

"So I say to you work out your own salvations in Fear and Trembling."

In the I-Ching we find:

"Once a man learns what Fear and Trembling means all outer terrors glance off him harmlessly"

I'm not a Christan though I began my life as one. I certainly didn't out grow it!

I simply heard a calling and stumbled upon a different path.

It is my personal belief That any path is only as valid as the man or woman who walks it. Only when they are walking it.

As a well is only as useful as the water that is drawn.
The water only useful when we drink deeply.

.Those who found their way here in the spirit already know:

"The spiritual life is ALWAYS in Crisis."

I would like this to be a place where we can speak openly Both in terms of sharing our personal understanding of a given text, (any Text) or our own lessons learned, The truths of life We have gained along the way and would like to share.

Primarily I would like this to be a place to come when,
not if,
when
we are in Crisis.

This Crisis is engendered I believe by our own imperfection in the face of perfection. There is something moving in this world that can only be properly experienced when we are in good faith with the paths we walk.

Only, by the strictest self examination, the closest scrutiny of our actions and the results they produce can we hope to remain upon our chosen paths though life.

One of the most useful things I've found is to have a burning question. To seek an understanding of your path you do not yet posses. But feel it's lack in all you do.

If you don't have a burning question of your own.. A question that keeps you up at night .I'd be most pleased to provide you with one.

"Why don't you have a burning question of your own?

Are you asleep? Are you in temporary defeat? I know, it always seems like it will last for ever, but nothing does. The Good always returns for us. It will return for you.

This might be a place where you would like to express the doubts of the faithful and the desert they create around us, the taste they steal away from our mouths.

This might be place to pass "The long dark nights of the soul." When raw fear grips us and will not let go. And our mortality whispers to us of unavoidable injury and death your death and my own weighing and being weighed in the long night

When we can no longer find refuge in the common places of life. and are driven out of ourselves on a journey that refuses to define itself until we make whatever change in ourselves our souls are demanding of us.

"I will not let thee go less thou bless me."

I come from an Eastern Tradition although I am a Westerner. I spent the second half of my life in solitude with the I-Ching as my guide. What I have to offer can all be found there.

Yet the I-Ching encourages us to meet and practice the truths of life. Solitude doesn't afford much opportunity For chit-chat....I'm guessing thats the point of it.":O}

The Oracle also warns "The learning of the self taught is often ponderous and one sided.".

This is only somewhat mitigated by having a Oracle to speak to. It's still my view and not another's.

So I come here to try and gather your experience, insights and disagreements into other-sidedness. to gain a bit more balance in my life.

As this topic opens upon a friend of long years deciding he wanted a first hand experience of the I-Ching.

Perhaps I should speak to my qualifications, I have none.

I have spent time in contemplation of the Images and judgments and believe I have some insight into the text that others might find helpful. Particularly in the beginning when things can often seem strange to a western point of view.

The Sages see this world differently and it is we who must make the adjustment!

I believe that all the problems of the modern world can find their just and permanent solution in the wisdom of the past, rather than the technology of the future.

I believe the world of men is spiritually ill. There are remedies to all our problems within us. But do we have the will to find them?

This might be a place to seek solutions to the worlds problems.
This might be a place where we begin to make that change in ourself we wish to see in the world.

"what has been spoiled by man's doing can be made right again by man's doing."

As a side note...I have been every kind of fool there is. But this is not the place for folly.
Light heartiness is welcome everywhere for it brings men together.

But folly endangers us by encouraging us to think we are special. and so separates us from our fellows.

There are laws in this world of Eminence gravity and we take them lightly at our peril.
They require of us an inner seriousness we most often come by in the most painful ways.

I like people who have suffered. Who have endured their own suffering to gain an understanding that just keeps eluding them,. They understand why I cry so much! LOL

I said to ThunderRoad when he created this topic for our use ;
"We will just have to wait and see what happens". I'm always saying deep things like that.

All minds are the same. We all have the same difficulties, the same joys and the same fears. We might do well to seek for solutions together.

Besides," pleasure shared is pleasure doubled."

So If you find you have a life and feel some obligation to try to understand what you have been given

This might be a place where we can stumble about in the dark together
until what is divine and true may find us..still...."at play in the fields of the Lord."

Enjoy your Eternity! I'm told if we do this right we might enjoy it together.""O}

While we certainly have gained from Technological innovation when it comes to examining the past and to some degree while trying to see into what is to come.; I feel we need to make a distinction between fact, acquiring and knowing fact, and wisdom.

Wisdom puts us into the proper relationship to fact. If we know it's going to rain, wisdom, not fact, tells us to bring an umbrella. Fact can't tell us that. Fact can only say what is, it can't tell us what we should do about what it.

If wisdom is open to individual interpretation...Is it still wisdom?

The fact is that it is raining, this not open to interpretation, it's simply raining. This is not wisdom, it's simple observation of fact.

So there we sit in the rain. One might suggest we use the rain to wash our selves...but it's also freezing cold.
And we might grow ill. Another suggests we play in the mud, but if we do we end up freezing in the rain.

Another suggests we get inside and be warm. Clear sighted, but not wisdom, just common knowledge, a normal An immediate response to circumstance.,

Someone says we need to get to the river as the water will rise and we need to shore up our defenses. We can dry our selfs later and our labor will warm us though the day.

all responses are based on the fact that it is raining. But the wise response takes a hold of the facts
Then looks beyond the immediate to see consequence!

Seeing the consequence of each suggested course of action
and bringing oneself into alignment with the way the world is moving (It's raining)
in order to make best use of the time (the river is rising)

To see beyond the immediate moment (it's raining) to see what is going to arise out of that moment
(The river will rise) and to work within what we know (We need to shore up our river banks.)

This is wisdom. Because it is wisdom, it is uncommon, for it sees into what is to come and
and gives man a path to go forward even in the most difficult of circumstance.

Wisdom works from and has it's basis in fact. Wisdom must first know what the case is, before it can bless us with the knowledge of how best to relate to what is.

Wisdom lies in first knowing what really is the case, then devising a way to make the best use of "what is" to further human well being.
Not all interpretations are capable of this, only the wise see what is in terms of what was and what will be. Only the wise live in all three worlds (Past, present and future)

it is fortunate the unwise benefit from wisdom even it they don't possess it. The guy that wanted to play in the mud benefits as much as the wise from turning instead to work on the river banks.

I hope you don't perceive my view as being in disagreement with your own.
I wish only to complement, not disagree with you view. See it as an add on! ":O}