“What seem to be unsurmountable obstacles are coming from without.  Keep a steady course and you will prevail.” – Today’s Reading

What seem to be unsurmountable obstacles are coming from without.  Keep a steady course and you will prevail.

Today: “You have to learn the art and science of giving yourself your own excellence.” Yogi Bhajan

Tao Te Ching – Verse 1 – The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.

Try these meditations:

Meditation: LA101 790419-Faith In Our Self And Our Own Discipline

Meditation: NM091 – 19921110 – Self Emboldenment, Engagement, Vision

Previous Readings:

Today: I Ching – Previous Reading – “We can rely on the source from which we are made for our sustenance and our support for each other. What nourishes us is also our connection with everything and everyone.”

Today: I Ching – Previous previous reading – “Include everyone and everything in your relations. Appreciate close connections without allowing them to separate you from distant ones.”

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A letter to a friend

Read the texts translated from the I Ching for today's reading
38 – Thirty-Eight.  K’uei / Estrangement

Fire distances itself from its nemesis, the Lake:
No matter how large or diverse the group, the Superior Person remains uniquely himself.

Small accomplishments are possible.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

You are working at cross-purposes with another.
The distance between you is very wide.
The gap can be closed, however, with no compromise of your integrity.
You are not adversaries in this case — just two persons addressing individual needs.
Ask yourself: are these needs mutually exclusive?
Is there common ground here?
Must there be one winner and one loser?
Could you become partners in seeking a solution that would allow for two winners?

Six in the third place means:

Bandits stop his oxen team and board his wagon.
He is scalped, his face is disfigured, and he is left to die.
Not only will he survive — he will endure and triumph.

One sees the wagon dragged back,
The oxen halted,
A man’s hair and nose cut off.
Not a good beginning, but a good end.

Sphinx Giza

Sphinx Giza

Often it seems to a man as though everything were conspiring against him. He sees himself checked and hindered in his progress, insulted and dishonored.1 However, he must not let himself be misled; despite this opposition, he must cleave to the man with whom he knows he belongs. Thus, notwithstanding the bad beginning, the matter will end well.
34 – Thirty-Four.  Ta Chuang / Awesome Power

Thunder fills the Heavens with its awful roar, not out of pride, but with integrity; if it did less, it would not be Thunder:
Because of his Great Power, the Superior Person takes pains not to overstep his position, so that he will not seem intimidating or threatening to the Established Order.

Opportunity will arise along this course.

SITUATION ANALYSIS:

The Awesome Power available in this hexagram stems from what the Taoists call your Te, a term not perfectly translated into English.
Roughly, it is your Integrity — not in the Western sense of honor — but more in the psychological definition of a full integration of Who You Are.
This Awesome Power is achieved only by fully embracing both the good and the bad, the strong and the weak, the masculine and the feminine — all polarities within you.
Such self-knowledge spawns a Mastery tempered with the humility necessary to rein in and harness this Awesome Power.


1. Cutting off of the hair and nose was a severe and degrading punishment.

Today: “You have to learn the art and science of giving yourself your own excellence.” Yogi Bhajan

“Nobody will give you anything. You have to learn the art and science of giving yourself your own excellence. That’s the purpose of life. Life is a lie if the truth is not found. Prayer is the power for which you must reach your excellence.” Yogi Bhajan

Meditation: NM0413 – Intuition and the Strength of Excellence

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