posted on Sunday, August 17, 2008 7:12 PM
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2 The Diviner and the Divinatory Process – So why do we need divination?
There are many models which try to explain the place of divination in our lives. This is just one, but I think it’s a good one.
To understand the importance of divination in human experience we need to look at human awareness or consciousness. I am going to use the model developed by the Maya as explained by Ian Lungold in his film ‘Secrets of the Mayan Calendar’.
He first defines awareness as that knowing we have when we are aware that we are aware. This is the moment when we as a doer, watcher, or thinker, become aware of ourselves doing, watching or thinking.
He goes on to say that we naturally locate ourselves in time and space: I am at my desk and I am typing. There is only one moment and that is the present now and the place where I am. All of the knowledge and experience from the past only exists for each of us in the here and now. When we draw on experience we project ourselves backwards in our minds, we remember it, but we are still here and now.
When we think about what we are going to do we project our minds forward, but we are still only in our present place and in the time called now.
Modern societies work very hard to predict the future. We need to be sure that in the future we will have enough food, enough power, enough schools and hospitals. We have become very skilled at this. However sooner or later there will be an unexpected event which makes these predictions null and void. Though it would be foolish not to attend to this we can never think of every possible future scenario. At a personal level we spend a lot of time trying to do this too.
These attempts to gain certainty by projecting ourselves into the future have the effect that we become un-centred. We try to push ourselves outside of the awareness bubble of here and now which is the only place we can exist.
So let’s consider this:
Peace of mind requires centeredness
Centeredness requires certainty
Certainty comes from the recognition of the patterns in our lives and our world.
The I Ching identifies these patterns and through practice with it we can develop our abilty to be aware of them as they develop. We learn to see the trends and potentials of the time and events taking place. We can then better orientate ourselves to the flow of time moving through our window of awareness. (See diagram). Of course Ian suggests the use of the Mayan Calendar for this purpose and there are other tools as well such as the Tarot.
He points to two more dynamics and he says that ignoring them leads to an impoverished experience of our fuller selves and that our thoughts and actions would necessarily be out of step with ourselves and events.
First he says we have ‘Personal Intent’. This is not located in our conscious mind, it isn’t our will. It is not our intending to do this or that. The Jungian view locates this personal intent deep in our persona. These are our potentials and shortcomings, the promise of what we might become as we try to fulfil the potential of our being. This might, for some, include the persons karma, or from the early I Ching phillosopphy, Ming, a mix of personal fate and destiny.
So in order to extend our awareness to its full potential we also need to recognise the patterns of who we are as individuals. We need to seat our being and actions at the point where our inner intent matches the outer patterns. Again the I Ching helps us to reflecrt on whe we are and how we might proceed in accrdance with the time.
So what of the future in this light? Is it simply made up of events waiting to flow into our ‘now bubble’? We know from the sciences that phenomena are patterned and that they most often approximate to universal laws. However, Daoism, like the Mayans, holds that that there is a flow of ‘Creative Energy’ which patterns both ourselves and outer world events.
If we accept this model then an intuitive awareness of the flow of Dao is essential if we are to locate ourselves and our actions within this centred yet expanded reality.
Lastly Ian proposes that, “What we pay attention to we become aware of.” This is important. Modern society tends to encourage us to shun intuition and of awareness anything outside of time, place and causality. We are encouraged to use our thinking mind and to ignore our inner world and intuitive abilities. (This is a little odd as many great scientific developments have been founded on intuitive leaps.) Using the I Ching goes a long way in training us to be aware of patterns and to pay attention to our intuitive selves. Divination also lays the patterns out before us.
So what does the use of the I Ching do to the diviner? Their intuition and their ability to recognise the patterns of events around them are both increased. Interestingly those of a more thinking approach to the world also gain. They learn to spot the patterns around them and within themselves and by relating them to the I Ching pattern book, they can behave accordingly.
In my next piece I will look at a view of our intuitive self and its relationship to our thinking mind. I will look at ways of entering our deeper intuitive reality, what can happen there and, mischievously, compare that to psychic experience.
Kevin
Post Script - I notice that the Diagram of the Mayan model of 'all encompassing reality' has eight segments - Now where have we seen a fundamental categorisation of eight essential principles before? Maybe a coincidence.
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