13th Gene Key
Listening Through Love: Discord - Discernment - Empathy
This is about the art of listening and how deeply it is tied to the expansion and contraction of human consciousness.
Shadow - Discord: This shadow appears as an inability to listen and learn from our experiences. Listening is different from hearing. Hearing is the mechanical process of converting sounds. Listening requires the entire being to absorb and process what is heard. The counterpart to the 13th is the 7th Gene Key. In the 7th we are guided toward the future. In the 13th we are urged to listen to and learn from our past. Discord is our inability to learn from our past and thus repeat the self-destructive patterns.
Gift - Discernment: Discernment emerges as our emotional nature comes more into awareness. This begins at the individual level, where we see how deeply our view of others is connected to our feelings. Only when our personal feelings are examined, can we begin to see things more objectively. We can begin to listen to others and the world from a broader perspective.
Siddhi - Empathy: The siddhi of empathy requires complete dissolution of the individuated self. Empathy is sometimes confused with sympathy. The prefix sym- means with and the prefix em- means within. So sympathy means to feel with another person, empathy is to be inside another person. We are not individual, but inside of one another as a whole. Sympathy requires two, empathy demands one.
I Ching - Tong Ren - Seeking Harmony: The thirteenth gua of the I Ching is translated as . Some use the translation of fellowship with men, or lovers, or likeminded persons. Tong means similar. Ren means person. When put together it means to treat people alike or people with the same interests. Thus it is translated here as seeking harmony, an alliance. Seeking harmony should be done with absolute unselfishness, a world of harmony.
Questions for Contemplation: When do you find yourself repeating the same patterns because you haven’t learned from your past? When have you noticed your feelings being tied to someone else’s actions and living “in your head”? When have you felt sympathy for someone (felt ‘with’ them) and when have you felt empathy (felt within, or as one, with them)?
Share your contemplations on this 13th Gene Key. How or when does the shadow show up for you? What small shifts can you make in your awareness and your consciousness to move from shadow to gift? Has this shadow reappeared for you with additional challenges even after raising your vibration and moving forward?