"One uses excessive behavior to show moderation. . ."

"He veils his light, but shines.":
Obama and I Ching Prophesy

". . . one uses excessive behavior to show moderation. . . "

I first became acquainted with consulting the I Ching/Yi Jing, the ancient Chinese Classic of Changes, when it came by way of recommendation from a philosopher-author whom I greatly respected, Lou Marinoff. I had met Marinoff in New York at a reception, and was reading his book, Plato, Not Prozac, about Philosophical Counseling, and came to a chapter in which he told of his using the I Ching with his clients. He also said he had been consulting the text for decades, and had never regretted it.

I knew he had been at Oxford, and was brilliant; I also knew Jung had been a believer in the ancient collection of yin-yang wisdom; basing his acausality theory of synchronicity largely on his experiences consulting it. I bought the Wilhelm edition at a bookstore up in Provincetown, and began using it as a matter of course, when serious questions arose in my mind, regarding life situations.

Throughout the 2008 primaries and general election, an avid Obama supporter, and fraught with anxiety like others, I consulted it and was amazed at how accurate it was :When Obama was losing ground to Hillary Clinton in the primaries, and with the Jerimiah Wright scandal, it had counseled to have patience, that Obama was destined to win, but "what happens will not be believed in, until after it has taken place."( from the James Legge translation, Hexagram 49 ) Indeed, his historic landslide surely fulfilled this in November. Prior to this, when Obama had lost New Hampshire after his surprize victory in Iowa, just the night before the loss, a consultation with the oracle had spoken of incurring loss, but that loss would not be permanent; and that there was an opportunity to gain fresh momentum, but it would be some time in coming. When he was slipping in the polls, twice I received these wise words about him:

" . . . He veils his light, but shines. Wounded at the beginning, he does not eat for three days. Wherever he goes, the host has words against him. . . In the end, his light cannot be extinguished; . . . for the will does not give up what has been ordained. . .Though shock confronts him, he does not let go the sacrificial chalice. Afterward, he will have a rule. . . If he be a superior man, he will be carried by the people; but the inferior man will never fulfil the role of the sovereign ."

Again, events unfolded as indicated. Jung's law of acausality has something in it, of that I have no doubt.

Thus it was that I came to consult it again recently regarding Obama's problems concerning his choice of the Reverend Rick Warren to give the invocation at his Inauguration, and the ensuing fury from many leaders in the gay community; and received hexagram 62, Small Passing, with these cryptic words: One uses excessive behavior to show moderation. It is almost as though the I Ching is implying that Obama turned to the Christian right to show his modesty, his governing from the center, and to differentiate himself from the last Democratic Administration, the Clinton era. (*See this blog's archives for November 23, "Obama's Moment and Hexagram 23 of the I Ching" for a further example. SMK)

Obama's Moment and Hexagram 23 of the I Ching

In Richard Lynn's translation of Wang Bi's The Classic of Changes , hexagram 23, "Peeling", is a most appropriate symbol for the state of the America which Barack Obama inherits, and must guide. The hexagram depicts a state of "peeling" which has occurred, and is a sort of dire situation which was left to progress unchecked. The deterioration is nearing its apex and reversal; however, it needs the firm guiding hand of "a superior man of many qualities".

In line 6 (the top and final transition line of the hexagram) , Wang Bi speaks of " a large fruit, uneaten". This points to the potential for some new option, which has not been tried and which may reverse the damage. In the commentary, Wang Bi continues: "If [the leader] be a noble man, he will be borne up as in a carriage by the common folk; but if he be a petty man, he will allow peeling to happen to humble huts [i.e., America's economic and job crisis, and foreclosure calamity which the Bush Administration has left unchecked]; for he would never fulfil the role of the sovereign."

Obama stands poised to "obtain the carriage" and be "borne up" by the mass of Americans. He certainly is no petty man; he has the calm and sincerity of which the I Ching speaks praises, and to which it gives the label, "the superior one".