On the importance of I Ching hexagram 50: Ting "The Caldron"

Hexagram number 50 of the I Ching, or Book of Changes: Ting, the Caldron


The Judgement for hexagram 50 in book one, the text of the I Ching reads:

"The Caldron. Supreme good fortune. Success."

The exposition of the Judgement of the Caldron reads:

"While the Well (hexagram 48) relates to the social foundation of our life, and this foundation is likened to the water that serves to nourish growing wood, the present hexagram refers to the cultural superstructure of society. Here it is the wood that serves as nourishment for the flame, the spirit. All that is visible must grow beyond itself, extend into the realm of the invisible. Thereby it recieves its true consecration and clarity and takes the firm root in the cosmic order.

"Here we see civilization as it reaches its culmination in religion. The ting serves in offering sacrifice to the divine. But the truly divine does not manifest itself apart from man. The supreme revelation of God appears in prophets and holy men. To venerate them is true veneration of God. The will of God, as revealed through them, should be accepted in humility; this brings inner enlightenment and true understanding to the world, and this leads to great good fortune and success."

We are all sparks of the divine flame, all knots in Indra's infinite and all inclusive Net. We are all manifestations of the Source, all cameras set up at different angles to maximize the possible perspective. In this time the batteries, the spiritual life, in our cameras are either loosing power, or in very bad cases leaking battery acid. Most of the hegemonic religions have lost touch with the spiritual reality in both the East and the West.

Look at the day and age we live in; there is the internet which connects all people and thoughts with access to it like neurons. Electricity powers cities, we take photographs of and send probes into the deepest reaches of space in hopes of witnessing the instant when Sophia first Concieved. We have even put humans on the Moon, the most mundane of the celestial objects. This is the first baby step of humanity's future and branching out into space exploration and civilization. We should not think of the 1969 trip to the moon as Columbus's trip to the new world. It is more like the first successful long sea voyage and return a few tribal people would make and return from. We also have the power to split the atom. This power can either destroy us or perpetuate us infinitely. The spiritual and religious hegemonies of the day due to their centuries of intermingling with the state in a less than benevolent manner support another MAD (mutually assured destruction) system - this time not based on economics as during the Cold War but "religion" (Basically the Secular/Judeo-Christian-Hindu "West" flanking a rising militant Islam spanning from Northwest Africa to Pakistan and China with a large sphere in the far East as an independent third party. The Indian section of the West is an independent sphere, but really by default on the side of the West due to its geographical rivalry with China and partition with Pakistan in 1947 during the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Leo over Hindu/Islamic differences. Is this how we are going to choose to act out the truly divine which manifests in humanity? Through the lower urgers of destruction, through the raging chaotic vortex without the insight of the Balancing Eye?

a few words on gnostic christianity

If you have read extra-biblical Christian texts like "On the Origin of the World", "The Secret Book of John", "Pistis Sophia", or "The Reality of Rulers" you will find that events before Genesis are recalled. The texts speak of the very creation of God, or the ALL. The very Source of creation, the "Big Bang" as they say, the beginning of the Rotation i like to say. The creation of the ALL took place in an immaterial in which the only Being or Reality was the ALL. The First Perfect Emanation of Light, also referred to as the "Barbello" then asexually was spawned from the ALL. Think of the Barbello as a "holographic" or pure Light based blue print of the ALL, infinitely long and fundamentally without end, and most importantly immaterial; the Light of the immaterial.

The Barbello then itself, being the Perfect Essence of all creation split into the Aeons, different texts mention different numbers of first created Aeons. Such Aeons that were first formed from the immaterial Barbello were Life, Love, Honor, Wisdom, Joy, etc. The point is that the Aeons which the Barbello created were Perfect, that is they are all things emotionally positive and the germ that the archetypes of mundane reality imitate. They are the aspects of the first perfect Light, and are therefore all benevolent.

The Aeon Wisdom or Sophia (like the Hagia Sophia), at a point then had a thought without the inclusion of the First Perfect Light, trying instead to substitute it with her own light, since curiosity is after all the nature of Wisdom. From this imperfect thought was spawned the material world and also a parody of the Barbello to rule over it, known most commonly as the Demiurge. The Demiurge then in mimicry of the Barbello made the "aeons" of the material world which are essentially the backbone and structural support beams for physical reality. Also, it must be noted that the gnostics usually consider the material world to be a corruption of the Pure reality since it was not created with the light of the Barbello but rather Wisdom's light which she borrowed from Barbello, this is why there is so much suffering in the physical world, there is a constant interplay of duality which creates "friction", rather than a pure abstract Oneness without any contradictions. Thus at least you know the point up until the creation of the physical reality and the Demiurge... now my point:

The physical reality was formed when Sophia (Wisdom) had "an impure thought", that is a thought without the consent of the First Perfection, the Barbello. From this thought came a pregnancy and thus was born the imperfect Demiurge and the strife filled material universe.

Now this is the most important piece, and one that is neglected from mention in church but is fundamental to understanding the theology behind Jesus's " spiritual mission. Mary was impregnated by the "Holy Spirit", the Holy Spirit is the Perfect Essence of God, none other than the Barbello. Thus, Jesus, the incarnation in the flesh of the perfect Essense came to redeem the entire material reality. Finally, Sophia was given the consent of the Pure Thought from the ALL that spawned the material world itself. Sophia was given consent for this thought in the physical form of Mary who became pregnant with Jesus or the Barbello for the redemption of the material universe.